In 1914 Europe lived in terror of the Russian `steamroller'.
The Russian army was slow to move. But once it started to move, it was thought, its irresistible impetus would carry it right to Berlin. Although the technical faults of the Czarist army (lack of artillery and machine-guns, tough but badly trained muzhik soldiers, cumbersome and largely incapable officer-corps) were widely known it was thought that on the longer run it would win the war by the sheer weight of its masses: 1.6 million men, which would mount to 3.4 million after mobilization. And with Russia's 130 million inhabitants this force disposed of virtually unlimited replenishment. Also Russia was in 1900 the most rapidly industrializing country of the globe allowing Russian industry to produce plenty of guns and munition.
By contrast the German army amounted to only 1.4 million men and the Austrian army at best 1.2 milion men. And those relatively meager forces still had to be divided between the western and eastern front in the German case, Serbia and Galicia in the Austrian.
In august and september 1914 this reliance on the Russian steamroller proved to be an illusion. In spite of its numbers the Russian army was not able to overcome the tactical expertise of the German army and the advantage that it operated on interior lines in country with a lot of railroads. The result was a series of defeats and near-defeats at Tannenberg and the Massovian lakes in september-december 1914.
While the Russian army was badly defeated by the Germans it was very succesful against the Austrian army. For, against the Russian preponderance in numbers the Austrians could neither set good leadership nor superior equipment.
Thus, for example, while a German had twice the number of guns of a Russian division and all guns were of standardized caliber, Austrian division were numerically smaller and had less guns than a Russian division. In both armies the guns consisted of a hotchpotch of calibers, some as old as 1870. Although, to be sure, the Austrian Skoda works excelled in the production of modern heavy artillery.
Also, whereas the German army had a uniform command system and was ethnically united, the Austrian army was really an amalgam of several armies, Austrian army, Hungarian Honved, Austrian Landwehr, Bosnian/Croatian Gendarmerie etc. and consisted of 45 different nationalities speaking some 13 different languages. As the Austrian army was normally commanded in German (Honved excepted) it was quite normal whole batalions could not even communicate with their own commanding officers !
The result was a long series of Austrian defeats and near-defeats against both Russia and Serbia which cost the Habsburg empire some 1.3 milion casualties and prisoners in 1914. The Austrian Empire never quite recovered from those casualties in 1914. The army was the backbone of the K.u.K Monarchie but much of its core professional army was wiped out in 1914 and mobilization in Austria was cumbersome and sluggish so that losses were replaced only slowly.
Throughout World War I Austria had the lowest percentage of enlisted soldiers by population of all powers after Russia (and Turkey) particularly since Hungary resisted attempts to extend the draft to the Hungarian peasants (although Austria proper mobilized almost as many as Germany did.)
Partly to help its sorely pressed Austrian ally, partly because of the stalemate on the western front, Germany shifted the bulk of its army to the Eastern front in 1915 - inflicting during the summer campaigns in Poland huge - but easily replaced ! - losses on the Czarist army and conquering most of central Poland. Assisted by the German general Mackensen's Suedost Armee Austrian forces also recovered much of the territory of Galicia (today's western Ukraine) it had lost in the 1914 fighting.
The German/Austrian advance stalled in the autumn of 1915. Along the 1.400 km long front line both forces began to dig in; in the bitterly cold winter of 1915 fighting was confined to occasional skirmishes between patrols. Although this superficially resembled the western front the eastern front was not quite comparable: both because of its enormous length and because of lesser technical expertise of the soldiers.
The western front was pretty much a miners' war but the Austrian and Russian armies were peasant armies with less experience in underground work.There were rarely more than two communicating trench-lines and there were even whole sectors where there were no trenches at all !
The silence on the front and the endless columns of Russian prisoners taken in 1915 convinced both the Austrian C-in C. Conrad von Hotzendorf, and the German C-in C. Erich von Falkenhayn that the Russian army was a beaten force. Falkenhayn worked out plans for a massive attack against the French at Verdun in february 1916 while fighting on the Eastern Front was to be defensive only, whereas the Austrians wanted to attack the Italians in South Tyrol in may.
They were both wrong in their assessment of the Russian army. In fact during the winter of 1915 the Russian army finally began to get to its full potential strength. Neglecting colonial security, troops were pulled in from as far away as Kazakstan and Turkestan and with stricter mobilization - hitherto the Russian army had only recruited among peasants who were not immediately needed on the fields - in 1916 for the first time the Russian army had a preponderance of manpower on the front. 2.4 million men to. 1.6 million for the central powers.
And, of course, the central powers had to divide their forces among two fronts: the western front for Germany, the Italian front for Austria, still not counting peripherial theaters like Serbia or Austrian aid to Bulgaria, German to Turkey. Austria's best forces were being shifted to South Tyrol and the Isonzo upon Italian entry in the war in1915. The Austrian army proved along the Isonzo it could field some very well led, highely motivated, and well equiped formations. For, unlike the war with Russia, the war with Italy was very popular amongst the nationalities making up the Empire. And the impressive showing of the Austrian army on the Italian front strongly contrasts with its dismal showing on the Eastern front.
With the mobilisation of Kitchener's `new army' the Entente (France, Italy, Russia and Britain) had in the beginning of 1916 a preponderance of manpower on all fronts and it was in high spirits that the war-leaders of the Entente powers convened at the French C-in C. Joffre's headquarter at Chantilly to make up plans for 1916. The central powers (Austria, Germany and the Ottoman Empire) were to be defeated by simultaneous offensives on all fronts: Italy, Russia, the Caucasus (Turkey) and by the war-deciding offensive on the Somme in may.
The main Russian offensive was slated to begin in may 1916 at Lake Naroch (near the Lithanian/Polish border) against the German army. However, these plans were completely upset by the beginning of the German Verdun-offensive in February, which brought the French army in such a desperate situation that it had to beg the Russians to come to its aid.
A barely prepared Russian army therefore had to attack at lake Naroch in mach rather than in may - the attack was a bloody disaster. Early thaw had converted the marshlands into a bottomless swamp where Russians soldiers had literally to attack the German trenches wading to their neck in the water. Up to 10.000 men were lost in the course of two days without an inch of territory gained.
This disaster convinced both the Austrian and the German command that the Russian front would be silent for the rest of the year. Both shifted forces: to Verdun and to the planned Austrian offensive in Tyrol. With pressure mounting on the Verdun front and constant desperate French requests for help the Russian army commanders Kuropatkin (northern front) Ewert (central front) and Aleksej Brusilev (southern front) convened with the czar, Nicolas II, in april.
BRUSILEVS PLAN. Kuropatkin pleaded his sector was unable to take the offensive after the losses at Narov - so the choice boiled down to the central and southern front facing respectively the Austrians and the German army under Luddendorf. Brusilev knew that apart from a small number of German regiments under Von Boehmers Suedostarmee he was mainly facing the same Austrian units he had beaten in the winter of 1914.
Furthermore South Front was aware from deserters that there was unrest among the Czech and Polish soldiers in the Austrian army who were increasingly unwilling to fight their Russian fellow-Slavs for the benefit of a German Double Monarchy. (And in fact the Austrian army had already executed thousand of Poles and Ukranians during its advance in Galicia last summer as potential spies - a footnote to the record of genocide in the Ukraine in this century but still a horror in the more civilized fin de siecle.) These same deserters had informed Brusilev that most of the best Austrian units had been moved to Tyrol, that the Kovel sector where the southern front's sector intersected with the central front sector had been emptied of German units altogether, who had all been moved to Verdun, and that it was now guarded by Austrian units mainly consisting of Czechs. The central sector was guarded by mainly Bosnian and Croat honved units who were badly trained though often highly motivated.
He therefore pleaded for an attack on a broad front on the Austrian army - attacks on a narrow front would merely give the Germans the occasion to shift reserves to the threatened sector as had happened in 1914. It was true that the Austrian army was the weaker of the two army but the Czar and Ewert hesitated: an attack on the Austrians alone might not cause the Germans to withdraw units from the western front and thus alleviate the pressure on the French.
Additionally the Russian army needed a victory over the German rather than the Austrian army for political reasons and Ewert was unwilling to shift resources to Brusilev's front for Central Front had always been allotted the bulk of the resources sent to the front. This rivalry between fronts, by the way, is a constant factor in Russian military history (somewhat like the Marine - Army rivalry in the USA) mainly explained by the regional structure of Russian armies, so that for example the Caucasus army tended to look upon the Turkestan army as a rival rather than a fellow-army.
Because of the tuzzle between the two fronts the Czar finally settled on a compromise - South front was to attack first, followed one week later by Central Front. As Central Front was facing the more powerful army of the two, Central Front was to be allotted the bulk of manpower and guns with the attack on the Austrians by the Southern Front to be purely subsidiary to the main attack on the Germans. However, being badly beaten by them in 1915 Ewert constantly pleaded he needed more artillery and man to be able to attack at all.
Brusilev none the less returned to headquarters as a contented man. Russian attacks so far had constantly failed because of insufficient preparation and most importantly because the secret of the attack had been given away by the massing of artillery and shells which could easily be observed by enemy aerial reconnaissance. Those were two errors Southern front was not going to make.
First the troops were now thoroughly trained and brieved rehearsing and re-rehearsing the attack on simulated Austrian positions and the plans were thoroughly explained on scale models of the Austrian trenches.
Secondly, although the Southern Front amassed a massive amount of artillery, Brusilev made a revolutionary departure from standard WWI practice by not first saturating enemy position with a lengthy artillery barrage but instead opting for a one or two hour massive lightening bombardment. On the one hand this would preserve the element of surprise, on the other it would not necessitate Southern Front to build up the huge stockpiles of shells which normally betrayed an offensive to the enemy.
Furthermore the troops were also taught to attack by infiltration-tactics rather than in the straight lines which as the Russians had found in 1914 and the British were to find out in july were only targets for the enemy machine-guns. Instead groups of elite forces would penetrate the enemy lines to be followed by machine-gun and signaling teams, after which the main wave was to go `over the top'.
The main offensive was scheduled for may but delayed since Central Front was uncertain of the best date. Then new request for help reached the Czar from the French at Verdun and from the Italians where Austrian troops had badly beaten two Italian armies at Trentino. This forced the Czar again to move the offensive ahead of schedule: Southern Front was to attack on 4 june, Central Front on 9 june.
THE ATTACK. Austrian command was aware that something was brewing behind the Russian lines but seems to have relied on the strength of its forces on the Galician front and its amassed artillery. Although Russian and Austrian sources give different numbers, South Front does not appear to have had an overwhelming numerical majority over the Austrians. Furthermore, the Austrians had had the whole winter to construct very strong fortifications which were often three lines deep, with strong dugouts and good communication trenches. Von Hotzendorf seems to have thought the Russian attack would simply be stopped cold as at Naroch.
On the 3 rd of june the 1.600 guns of Southern Front opened fire with the main wave going over the top a few hours later - the Austrian troops were totally surprised by the intensity of a bombardment which was unlike anything seen on the Eastern Front before and were not prepared for the Russian infiltration tactics.
On the 4th the Austrian first line was scattered and the Russian penetrated the second and third line of defense.
On the 5th and the 6th the entire central sector of the southeastern front scattered and there was now a gap in the Austrian lines of 250 km with nothing to withhold the Russian advance except the units of Bohmer's Suedostarmee and forces in the northern sector covering the important fortress of Kovel, who were helped by the march-lands in their sector.
The southern sector too collapsed on the 12th of june with the Russian forces advancing on Chernowitzi the capital of the Bukovina - region.
A few German and Austrian units continued to resist but the Russian columns advanced without meeting strong resistance towards Stanislau, Kovel and the Carpates and beyond that to Poland, Hungary, Bohemia and Vienna. For several days practically the only resistance still met by the endless advancing Russian columns were isolated machine gun nests and lonely Austrian patrols.
It was the largest allied victory of the war so far - the Russians took more than 350.000 prisoners, took the major city of Lutsk, and advanced daily dozens of kilometers without meeting much resistance during the first week of june. The huge numbers of prisoners gave rise to bitter controversy - the Austrians accusing the Polish and Czech units of having surrendered in droves to the Russians.
In fact there were so many prisoners that the Russian advance was seriously hindered by it, the more so as the Russian army had taken no precaution to accommodate so many prisoners so that hundreds if not thousands perished. Austrian commanders tried to stem this wave of desertion by random mass hangings of Czech and Polish soldiers and civilians.
German High Command was furious: Falkenhayn raged about Austrian betrayal and called them bastards (Schweinhunde) yet there was no alternative but to hastily throw in every available unit. First divisions of the reserve army and Landeswehr, then, after these too were not able to stem the Russian advance from the Western Front.
Thus the offensive at Verdun where the German stromtroopers on 12 june had looked on the towers of the city on the Meuse came to a standstill on the 18 th of june. All these German units, thrown into the cauldron of the Galician battles to stem the Russian advance near Styr, were also destroyed by the Russians to the great pleasure of the Austrian command.
For the Russian offensive led to bitter quarrels between the Austrian and German HQ. Ludendorff, commanding the German Eastern Army, requested that Austrian armies would be incorporated within the German army and the Austrian command subordinated to the German general Von Marwitz which Falkenhayn turned down. One factor, together with the Somme-offensive leading to his replacement by Hindenburg and Ludendorff. On the Austrian side units were withdrawn from the Tyrol and sent east and with the fall of Chernowitzi the offensive in the Alps stalled.
The Russian offensive had thus reached its strategic aim of alleviating the pressure on the western allies. German and Austrian pressure on the southern front was mounting however and the Russians were badly short of supplies. STAVKA (the Russian HQ) constantly interfered with Brusilev giving contrary orders to subordinate commanders daily.
While German units were being withdrawn from the central front to be send to the southern front, so that while by the 18 th of june Ludendorff had almost no reserves left, the 2 milion men at the central front did very little. The attack mounted by the central front then was not much more than a demonstration, while STAVKA wrote to Brusilev they would transfer reserves from the central front to Brusilev's front "as they were of more use there".
This was a major error.
An attack on the central front would have led to the diversion of reserves to the central front, while with the beginning of the Somme offensive no units were available to be send east anymore. The events at the front were closely watched in neutral Rumenia, which was ready to join the allies.
The auxilaries for Brusilev came in much more slowly than the German and Austrian troops as he had feared and in july the central powers succeeded in consolidating the front and the war bogged down again in trench warfare with Russian losses mounting to more than 500.000 people killed.
After a useless attempt to force a breakthrough in the Kovel sector STAVKA cancelled the offensive in the beginning of august. Rumenia declared war in the middle of august and was defeated and overrun in a classic Blitzkrieg campaign within eight weeks by the German and Austrian army. (Who said WWI-generals were incapable of grasping the principles of war of movement ?)
The war could probably not have been won in the west but it was nearly won in the east in 1916. If the Brusilev-offensive would have been better supported it could have led to the collapse of the Austrian army, forcing the Habsburgers to offer an armistice, probab;ly followed by the Hohenzollern.
We don't know what would have happened if the Czarist army had won World War I but the world would have been very different from the one we know.
Read Dr Barendses own Designers Notes
