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Eastern Front
Operations in 1916
Winter and Spring 1916
Following the losses of the Gorlice-Tarnow breakthrough,
the Russians tried to rebuild their armies in preparation for a summer
offensive. French entreaties for a diversion at the time of the German
Verdun attack in February 1916 once again caused them to act prematurely.
In March, the Russians attacked near Lake Naroch, but their drive was
soon halted by stiff German resistance and by mud from the spring thaws.
The eastern front then remained dormant while both sides got ready for
the summer campaigns. The czar, no strategic genius, planned a July
offensive north and south of the Pripet Marshes with the capture of
Vilna (Vilnyus) by the West Army Group as its first goal. In May, however,
the Austrians launched an attack on the Italian front, and now it was
Italy's turn to appeal to Russia for assistance. The czar agreed to
create a diversion. The Russian commanders north of the Pripet Marshes
felt unprepared to advance the date of the projected summer offensive,
but the commander of the Southwest Army Group, Gen. Aleksei Brusilov,
volunteered to attack alone, starting on June 4.
Brusilov's Summer Offensive
Short Summary:
BRUSILOV OFFENSIVE (June 4-Sept. 20, 1916). Gen. Aleksei
Brusilov launched a gigantic offensive to relieve Austrian pressure
on the Italian front. The attack surprised the Austrians and gained
striking initial successes. Through use of their superior rail net,
however, the Germans shifted troops from the north and halted the Russian
offensive. Losses totaled more than 1,000,000 men on each side. The
strategic results of the Brusilov offensive were far reaching: Austrian
losses were so great as to preclude further offensive action, and the
Austrian offensive in Italy had to be halted; 15 German divisions had
to be transferred from the Verdun front to the eastern front; Rumania
entered the war on the side of the Allies; and Russia's huge losses
started her on the road to revolution.
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Alone among high-ranking Russian officers, Brusilov
had carefully studied German tactics. He concluded that it would be
advantageous to forgo concentrations of superior manpower for the surprise
to be gained through a rapid, highly mobile attack prepared in complete
secrecy. Once his forces had been drawn into position, and his officers
had been carefully briefed, he struck quickly and hard. His efforts
were not in vain: the offensive achieved Russia's greatest success of
the war.
The Austrian line on the Dniester and Strypa rivers
was breached within a week. Brusilov's troops then took Lutsk and threatened
the rail junction at Kowel (now Kovel). Again Hindenburg was compelled
to come to the aid of the Austrians, but although German reinforcements
slowed Brusilov's advance, they were unable to stop it. A recognized
military historian, Col. Vincent J. Esposito, has written that the battle
"became a race between the excellent GermanAustrian lateral communications
and the inferior Russian railroads. The Germans won" (The West
Point Atlas of American Wars, vol. 2, opposite map 36, New York 1959).
The battlelines of September 20 show that Brusilov's offensive had carried
the Russians to the Carpathians in the south and along a line running
west of Stanislau (now Stanislav), Brody, and Pinsk. The drive had exacted
a tremendous toll, however, and it collapsed because of the exhaustion
of the troops and the lack of ammunition.
The Brusilov offensive had raised great hopes in Russia,
all of which were now dashed, and the groundwork was laid for the revolution.
It also had major consequences for the Germans. By weakening their position
on the western front and helping to influence Rumania to enter the war
on the Allied side, the offensive contributed to the eventual German
defeat.
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