To be honest, I would have had von der Goltz become chief of staff in the late 1800s except that would have to be moved to the before 1900 forum.
Fire and Ice: A Barbarossa 1905 TL
- Thread starter CrimsonKing
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Commando Howiezter
Banned
Yeah!!!!!!!!!
Also I would subscribe but I don't know how.......
can someone teach me plz?Chapter 3
War, some say, is organized chaos. And so it might very well be, under the best of circumstances. Russia’s war in the weeks of late June and early July of 1905, on the other hand, can only be characterized as chaos, pure and simple. Even given the undoubted excellence of the Austro-German forces, no other explanation can account for the sheer magnitude of the collapse, the surrender of whole units before most of their members had fired a shot, the advances limited only by marching speed and distance from the enormous depots from which the advancing armies drew their sustenance, the lines of prisoners so long that they seemed to stretch back to the place where the earth meets the sky. It had been a long time since any invader had moved so far, so fast, and while in the future captives would continue to be taken and territory claimed, gains on this scale would not truly be replicated until the mechanized warfare of a later age.
Smallest of the Alliance’s three army groups, Alexander von Kluck’s Army Group North is often relatively overlooked in favor of the spectacular victories won by its larger southern neighbor, “relatively” being the key word here. In any other war its triumphs would alone be considered enough to qualify the operation as a success. Consisting of the German 1st Army, on the left against the Baltic Sea and the 2nd, on the right, its frontage as it attacked out of East Prussia into Lithuania was by far the most narrow of the three. Opposing it was the Russian 1st Army, led by Paul von Rennenkampf, a general who had performed well against the Japanese in the Far East and had been transfered west as the European crisis deepened. It was, at the commencement of the invasion, preparing to attack into East Prussia against what was believed to be the single German army left in the East, said preparations to be completed in some weeks’ time. General von Kluck’s plan had been for the 2nd to attack and pin Rennenkampf’s forces while the first struck around his right, driving a wedge between him and the sea, seizing the all-important ports along the coast, and forcing him to retreat or face encirclement. What happened instead was that what front there was along the border simply disintegrated under the twin blows of surprise and bombardment. In some instances advanced reconnaissance patrols achieved breakthroughs which should have taken hours to make, and within the first day cavalry brigades, guided by the commandos infiltrated across before the attack, had broken through into the enemy’s rear areas. In the end the two armies ended up advancing at roughly the same pace, and by the end of the 22nd the front had advanced up to twenty miles in some places, the cavalry almost twice that. Whenever any portion of the Russian force attempted to stand and fight, it invariably found itself outflanked, out of supplies, and overwhelmed by the Germans’ qualitatively and quantitatively superior artillery. What border fortresses did not fall to the initial onslaught were simply bypassed and then either starved or bombarded into submission. By the end of the first week the capital Vilnius had fallen. By the middle of July, when it was finally forced to temporarily halt because of supply shortages, Army Group North had taken the Lithuanian capital Riga, and by the end of the month most Lithuanian territory lay in German hands. The Russian First Army had lost around a third of its total captured or wounded (many of the latter becoming the former before they could be evacuated,) and virtually all of its pre-positioned supplies and heavy equipment.
Positioned at a right angle to the 2nd Army as it began its march east, facing south, was the massive 3rd Army of Helmuth von Moltke’s Army Group Center. It formed the northern pincer of the planned encirclement which was, if all went well, to trap and destroy the entirety of the Russian armies located in the Polish salient. It was both numerically and qualitatively superior to the force it was expected to face, the Russian 2nd Army. Instead, what it found as it swept down to its appointed junction with its southern counterpart, was almost literally nothing. Nowhere else along the entire front was General von der Goltz’s decision to halt the preliminary bombardment early proven more prescient. To the north there had been a front, however weak, to collapse. Here there was none, and the entire army’s sector became an instantaneous hole in the Russian lines, which deepened, day after day, at the pace of a forced march. It was later discovered that this pleasant surprise had actually been part of an intelligence failure. The Russian 2nd was in reality being positioned far to the west, deeper in the pocket, so as to cut off entirely the single German army which the STAVKA had expected to face in East Prussia. What fighting it did was against the German 4th Army coming in from the northwest-with exactly the same results as in Lithuania. At the other end of the line, the specially reinforced Austrian 1st Army was having a relatively more difficult time, again, “relatively” being the key word. Its forces were, as a rule, somewhat less well trained and equipped than their German counterparts. Its extra compliment of artillery, however, combined with total surprise, and it was able in a short time to do to its primary opposition, the Russian 4th Army what its counterparts what its northern counterparts had done to theirs, and achieve a complete breakthrough.
While not the greatest general could have prevented anything but a huge defeat, the orders of Russia’s high command immediately upon reestablishing contact with its formations, but not with reality, ensured utter disaster. Apparently not comprehending the scale of the German assault, it ordered the implementation of the prewar plans-and attacked. This decision was not quite as insane as it may appear to us today. For one thing, no preparations for defense of any kind had been made, and for this reason more than a few border fortresses had been left completely without anything other than their peacetime garrisons. For another, so focused had the STAVKA been on relieving the expected pressure on France, that few detailed defensive plans had been made. Regardless, the order, which was executed to the best of its armies’ limited ability, ensured that many units which might at least in part have been able to escape were instead surrounded and destroyed wholesale.
On July 1st, the lead combat elements of the Austrian 1st Army met those of the German 3rd at the city of Brest-Litovsk, almost exactly halfway between the two forces’ starting positions. Caught in the cauldron were the entirety of the Russian 2nd, 3rd, and 4th armies as well as numerous unattached forces of lesser size, and parts of other armies that were just beginning to mobilize. Over the course of the next week, these forces totaling over three-fifths of Russia’s prewar forces were systematically liquidated, with a total of over 250,000 prisoners taken, as well as all their heavy weaponry and the enormous stocks of supplies being gathered for an attack that would never be made. A few tens of thousands managed to escape through gaps in the Austro-German lines, to be eventually rallied in Minsk to the east, which Army Group Center, not pausing to rest on its laurels, marched on almost as soon as the Battle of Warsaw, as it became known, was over.
The sheer scale of the losses raised immediate questions in capitals all around the world as to Russia’s ability to continue the war. Could the mighty bear have really been dealt such a mortal wound so quickly? In those first few weeks, many, and not just in Berlin thought the answer might be yes. In their exuberance, they overlooked one part of the picture that did not quite fit-Ukraine. This was the domain of Conrad von Hotzendorf’s Army Group South, comprising the 2nd and 3rd Austrian and the 1st Romanian armies. Here the attackers had no great qualitative superiority and although they attained the usual surprise, the generals of the Russian Southwestern Front’s two armies made the bold decision to disobey their orders to attack and instead were able to withdraw in relatively good order. By the middle of July, with North in Riga and Center approaching Minsk, Hotzendorf’s forces had advanced at barely half the pace of its peers. This conflict, as it turned out, would not be over before the leaves fell.
War, some say, is organized chaos. And so it might very well be, under the best of circumstances. Russia’s war in the weeks of late June and early July of 1905, on the other hand, can only be characterized as chaos, pure and simple. Even given the undoubted excellence of the Austro-German forces, no other explanation can account for the sheer magnitude of the collapse, the surrender of whole units before most of their members had fired a shot, the advances limited only by marching speed and distance from the enormous depots from which the advancing armies drew their sustenance, the lines of prisoners so long that they seemed to stretch back to the place where the earth meets the sky. It had been a long time since any invader had moved so far, so fast, and while in the future captives would continue to be taken and territory claimed, gains on this scale would not truly be replicated until the mechanized warfare of a later age.
Smallest of the Alliance’s three army groups, Alexander von Kluck’s Army Group North is often relatively overlooked in favor of the spectacular victories won by its larger southern neighbor, “relatively” being the key word here. In any other war its triumphs would alone be considered enough to qualify the operation as a success. Consisting of the German 1st Army, on the left against the Baltic Sea and the 2nd, on the right, its frontage as it attacked out of East Prussia into Lithuania was by far the most narrow of the three. Opposing it was the Russian 1st Army, led by Paul von Rennenkampf, a general who had performed well against the Japanese in the Far East and had been transfered west as the European crisis deepened. It was, at the commencement of the invasion, preparing to attack into East Prussia against what was believed to be the single German army left in the East, said preparations to be completed in some weeks’ time. General von Kluck’s plan had been for the 2nd to attack and pin Rennenkampf’s forces while the first struck around his right, driving a wedge between him and the sea, seizing the all-important ports along the coast, and forcing him to retreat or face encirclement. What happened instead was that what front there was along the border simply disintegrated under the twin blows of surprise and bombardment. In some instances advanced reconnaissance patrols achieved breakthroughs which should have taken hours to make, and within the first day cavalry brigades, guided by the commandos infiltrated across before the attack, had broken through into the enemy’s rear areas. In the end the two armies ended up advancing at roughly the same pace, and by the end of the 22nd the front had advanced up to twenty miles in some places, the cavalry almost twice that. Whenever any portion of the Russian force attempted to stand and fight, it invariably found itself outflanked, out of supplies, and overwhelmed by the Germans’ qualitatively and quantitatively superior artillery. What border fortresses did not fall to the initial onslaught were simply bypassed and then either starved or bombarded into submission. By the end of the first week the capital Vilnius had fallen. By the middle of July, when it was finally forced to temporarily halt because of supply shortages, Army Group North had taken the Lithuanian capital Riga, and by the end of the month most Lithuanian territory lay in German hands. The Russian First Army had lost around a third of its total captured or wounded (many of the latter becoming the former before they could be evacuated,) and virtually all of its pre-positioned supplies and heavy equipment.
Positioned at a right angle to the 2nd Army as it began its march east, facing south, was the massive 3rd Army of Helmuth von Moltke’s Army Group Center. It formed the northern pincer of the planned encirclement which was, if all went well, to trap and destroy the entirety of the Russian armies located in the Polish salient. It was both numerically and qualitatively superior to the force it was expected to face, the Russian 2nd Army. Instead, what it found as it swept down to its appointed junction with its southern counterpart, was almost literally nothing. Nowhere else along the entire front was General von der Goltz’s decision to halt the preliminary bombardment early proven more prescient. To the north there had been a front, however weak, to collapse. Here there was none, and the entire army’s sector became an instantaneous hole in the Russian lines, which deepened, day after day, at the pace of a forced march. It was later discovered that this pleasant surprise had actually been part of an intelligence failure. The Russian 2nd was in reality being positioned far to the west, deeper in the pocket, so as to cut off entirely the single German army which the STAVKA had expected to face in East Prussia. What fighting it did was against the German 4th Army coming in from the northwest-with exactly the same results as in Lithuania. At the other end of the line, the specially reinforced Austrian 1st Army was having a relatively more difficult time, again, “relatively” being the key word. Its forces were, as a rule, somewhat less well trained and equipped than their German counterparts. Its extra compliment of artillery, however, combined with total surprise, and it was able in a short time to do to its primary opposition, the Russian 4th Army what its counterparts what its northern counterparts had done to theirs, and achieve a complete breakthrough.
While not the greatest general could have prevented anything but a huge defeat, the orders of Russia’s high command immediately upon reestablishing contact with its formations, but not with reality, ensured utter disaster. Apparently not comprehending the scale of the German assault, it ordered the implementation of the prewar plans-and attacked. This decision was not quite as insane as it may appear to us today. For one thing, no preparations for defense of any kind had been made, and for this reason more than a few border fortresses had been left completely without anything other than their peacetime garrisons. For another, so focused had the STAVKA been on relieving the expected pressure on France, that few detailed defensive plans had been made. Regardless, the order, which was executed to the best of its armies’ limited ability, ensured that many units which might at least in part have been able to escape were instead surrounded and destroyed wholesale.
On July 1st, the lead combat elements of the Austrian 1st Army met those of the German 3rd at the city of Brest-Litovsk, almost exactly halfway between the two forces’ starting positions. Caught in the cauldron were the entirety of the Russian 2nd, 3rd, and 4th armies as well as numerous unattached forces of lesser size, and parts of other armies that were just beginning to mobilize. Over the course of the next week, these forces totaling over three-fifths of Russia’s prewar forces were systematically liquidated, with a total of over 250,000 prisoners taken, as well as all their heavy weaponry and the enormous stocks of supplies being gathered for an attack that would never be made. A few tens of thousands managed to escape through gaps in the Austro-German lines, to be eventually rallied in Minsk to the east, which Army Group Center, not pausing to rest on its laurels, marched on almost as soon as the Battle of Warsaw, as it became known, was over.
The sheer scale of the losses raised immediate questions in capitals all around the world as to Russia’s ability to continue the war. Could the mighty bear have really been dealt such a mortal wound so quickly? In those first few weeks, many, and not just in Berlin thought the answer might be yes. In their exuberance, they overlooked one part of the picture that did not quite fit-Ukraine. This was the domain of Conrad von Hotzendorf’s Army Group South, comprising the 2nd and 3rd Austrian and the 1st Romanian armies. Here the attackers had no great qualitative superiority and although they attained the usual surprise, the generals of the Russian Southwestern Front’s two armies made the bold decision to disobey their orders to attack and instead were able to withdraw in relatively good order. By the middle of July, with North in Riga and Center approaching Minsk, Hotzendorf’s forces had advanced at barely half the pace of its peers. This conflict, as it turned out, would not be over before the leaves fell.
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Next up, we'll take a look at the Far East, and of course, the Western Front.
EDIT: I wasn't quite expecting the lettering of the new font to be so small. If this is an inconvenience, please do not hesitate to let me know.
EDIT: I wasn't quite expecting the lettering of the new font to be so small. If this is an inconvenience, please do not hesitate to let me know.
Yeah, the font size is too small. Would you mind making it larger (I am nearsighted)
OUCH!!! Russia has suffered some serious set backs. They now have the winter to stabilize the lines, call up and train new soldiers, and hopefully gain back some of their lost ground come spring. It will be interesting to see if they can gain some allies and war material that was lost in the blitzkrieg.
@zert I hope I didn't give the wrong impression with my earlier post. We still have the rest of summer, fall and early winter before the new year, and I have more planned for the Eastern Front in that time.
Sorry, I did misunderstand the timing. Please excuse my error.
Seeing that there is still some more of summer and fall to go before the bitter Russian winter sets in, Mother Russia may be weeping many a tear before she can suckle her wounded children.
Deleted member 83898
This sounds like it will be a really good TL.
Impressive writing capabilities, and a posting pace that almost matches the rate of German advance thus far in the TL!
Impressive writing capabilities, and a posting pace that almost matches the rate of German advance thus far in the TL!
One thing I would mention is that when writing dialogue, make sure you space a new paragraph whenever a new person is speaking.
I'm enjoying this, by the way; very interesting. Looking forward to seeing how this world develops.
I'm enjoying this, by the way; very interesting. Looking forward to seeing how this world develops.
BooNZ
Banned
Nice writing skills, but a quick question. Did you manage to establish the respective strengths of the Russian and Ottoman navies in the Black Sea?
Further, do any German (or Austrian) naval units happen to be on a cruise in the Mediterranean that might tip the balance? Assuming the Ottomans decided to contribute that is...
Further, do any German (or Austrian) naval units happen to be on a cruise in the Mediterranean that might tip the balance? Assuming the Ottomans decided to contribute that is...
Thanks for changing the font size.
Whenever I see the word "Barbarossa", I always envision a German loss, which is what I'm hoping ITTL.
Kiev's not taken yet, and the city would be a pain for both.
Right now, they have to adopt a purely defensive policy: I think the Russian government can rally the people to victory here.
And I hope the civilian anthem of Russia ITTL is the OTL Soviet sound with changed lyrics. Again that is if Russia and France still win in this war.
Fortunately though, the Ottoman Empire hasn't declared war on Russia yet, so good for the Russian Supply Lines.
Hope they could build some sort of Murmansk railway, but I think it may be far-fetched.
Whenever I see the word "Barbarossa", I always envision a German loss, which is what I'm hoping ITTL.
Kiev's not taken yet, and the city would be a pain for both.
Right now, they have to adopt a purely defensive policy: I think the Russian government can rally the people to victory here.
And I hope the civilian anthem of Russia ITTL is the OTL Soviet sound with changed lyrics. Again that is if Russia and France still win in this war.
Fortunately though, the Ottoman Empire hasn't declared war on Russia yet, so good for the Russian Supply Lines.
Hope they could build some sort of Murmansk railway, but I think it may be far-fetched.
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Why would the Germans name this attack "Operation Napoleon"? Aside from being the object of nationalistic hate, using Napoleon to name your invasion of Russia is practically invoking failure.
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