In May 1914 Maria Feodorovna travelled to England to visit her sister. While she was in London, World War I broke out (July 1914), forcing her to hurry home to Russia. In Berlin the German authorities prevented her train from continuing toward the Russian border. Instead she had to return to Russia by way of (neutral) Denmark and Finland. Upon her return in August, she took up residence at Yelagin Palace, which was closer to St. Petersburg (renamed Petrograd in August 1914) than Gatchina. During the war she served as president of Russia's Red Cross. As she had done a decade earlier in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, she also financed a sanitary train.