Eastern Front in 1916
The Eastern front in 1916 was at the nadir of its brutality. The initial Russian thrusts around lake Narotch were bloody failures causing 5:1 Russian to German casualties to no gain. In May the Riga offensive broke the Russian North front, prompting vast and bloody counter attacks running through September. The Brusilov offensive on June 1st, occurring on the same day as the Somme offensive, battered the Austrian lines, causing massive casualties to both sides. By the end of it the Russian army was in shambles and the Central Powers had been badly shaken.
After the success of the Riga operation, the Russians were in full retreat only to be halted and thrown back into the fray less than a week later. Ober Ost, realizing the Russians were not fully beaten, had their troops dig in rather than pursue. This was the single greatest factor is saving their conquest during the massive retaliation operation that followed. In late May the Russian North Front launched hasty attacks to break the Germans and reestablish the Dvina line. Wave after wave of infantry were thrown at the enemy and hours long bombardments proceeded and followed each. Prodigious amounts of ammunition and lives were thrown away, as the Germans had worked feverishly to build trench lines and site their guns. By mid-June, over 200,000 men were lost in these attacks. The Western Front also launched their own subsidiary attacks to draw Germans away from the North Front, only to be sorely disappointed by their failures. But nonetheless, OHL was being forced to commit its reserves at a prodigious rate, sending 2/3s to the Somme and the rest to the Eastern Front. Verdun was left starving of shells and men by June.
The most successful of all the supporting attacks along the eastern front was by the Southwestern front of the newly promoted Brusilov. Having distilled tactical, operational, and strategic lessons from the pervious campaign seasons, his Front was easily the most modern of the Russian army. Rivaling the Western nations for sophistication and in equipment, Brusilov’s offensive managed several stunning successes in the first few days. The goals were to take Lutsk, Kowel, Tarnopol, Lemberg, and Czernowitz. Five Austrian armies opposed four Russian and they had a massive system of bunkers and pillboxes set up to oppose the Russians. The Austrian armies had in fact been improved significantly since Conrad had been removed from command, but still there was a growing moral problem among the Slavic members of the dual monarchy, which would have large effects on the coming battle. Supply had remained a problem, as the loss of rolling stock and lack of replacement had left many cities in the Austrian half of the Habsburg Empire short on food, causing discontent among the soldiers and their families wrote of starvation and privation at home.
When the hurricane bombardment for Brusilov’s offensive began, the Russian troops stood ready in the trenches to breakthrough the Austrian lines. Ahead, special troops were infiltrating the Austrian lines breaking into positions and readying the front for an easier breakthrough by the regular soldiers back in the line. By the end of the first week, Lutsk, Czernowitz, and Tarnopol had all been recaptured and over 200,000 men had been captured, the majority deserting Czechs or Southern Slavs. The Habsburg K.u.K. command staff had swung into action and prepared troops for counter attacks, stockpiling weapons and munitions. But their requests for German help were turned down, as their ally was very hard pressed themselves on multiple fronts. Romania was making noise about jumping in the battle, trying to extort territory from Hungary. But the Habsburgs turned down their demands, and soon saw that they were mobilizing their army. The Romanians would take time to mobilize, but no troops could be freed up to man the frontier. To forestall the Romanian jackals, the Russians would need to be defeated.
Though the lines had recoiled, there were certain advantages the Austrians now possessed. Many of the “useless” mouths to feed of soldiers not willing to fight were in Russian hands, requiring Russian supplies for sustenance. The remaining men generally were willing to fight if they felt their lives were not being wasted. Also, the Russians had over extended themselves, outrunning their artillery support. STAVKA was wrapped up in the Riga problem and had no extra support to lend to assist the development of the breakthrough. Though the Southwest Front remained powerful, it had shot its bolt and was now relying on the Austrians to fall apart for their advance to continue. Straußberg had ordered the line pulled back, further increasing the confidence of Brusilov that the Austrians were finally finished and he could reach his objectives and bring Romania into the war. This proved soon to be fantasy, as the Habsburg troops were concentrated for counter offensives in the areas most threatened first for a concentrated blow to shatter the Russian armies.
Troops were removed from the center to counter the bulges on the flanks at Czernowitz and Lutsk, before a final attack would be launched to recover Tarnopol. It was the Russians’ turn to be surprised when, nearly ten days later, the Austrians were on the attack. Gone was the sloppiness that had characterized Conrad’s command. Efficient like a well-oiled machine, the counter attacks struck the Russian spearheads with brutal force. Hurricane bombardments and rolling barrages, methods that the Russians had just used, were now turned on the men of Brusilov’s armies. Caught without adequate support, the infantry and cavalry of the 8th army, the victors of Lutsk, were smashed by the soldiers of the Austrian 2nd army and reinforcements that swiftly retook Lutsk. From there, the northern flank of the Austrian advance bogged down, as the Russian guns finally had caught up and stopped the counter attack. To the South, the Austrian 7th army, using similar methods actually pushed back into Czernowitz, the confidence of the Austrian army high. They were actually attacking and defending without major German help (other than some staff work and strategic observers offering advice). By the end of June the offensive had been shut down and all major objectives had been recaptured by the Austrians. The Romanians decided to halt their declaration of war, as it seemed the Austrians were a much tougher nut to crack and the Russians would not be able to directly support their attack. But their army remained mobilized, as the Austrians entered into negotiations of the possibility of prompting them into the war on the Central Power’s side. Bulgaria remained unengaged to the south, and would be able to launch a full invasion of Romania if they attacked Austria. The Turks were even able to muster troops in Europe for an attack, which further dissuaded from any anti-Austrian maneuvers. For the moment the Austrian front in the east quieted down (the Italians had launched an offensive in the meantime, getting nowhere) and there was time to lick the wounds. Nearly 400,000 casualties had been incurred in a month, not counting POW’s and deserters. The Russians had suffered about 500,000 themselves, though many toward the end had been prisoners and deserters themselves.
Back to the north, the Germans finally were able to get a handle on the Russian attacks, though they continued into September. By the time they ended, with neither side gaining ground on the other, the Russians had suffered nearly 700,000 casualties, literally battering themselves to death on German defenses. To their credit, the Germans had lost 334,000 casualties themselves, not counting their losses taking Riga. But by the end, the Russians were deserting in massive numbers and, in some cases, killing their officers and rising in revolt against the Czar. In fact, civil unrest was growing and riots were becoming a daily occurrence in Moscow, Kiev, and Petrograd. For the Germans, they were just glad that the attacks had stopped and they would catch their breath. Guns were finally able to be transferred back to Verdun, where the fighting was just picking up.
The obvious defeat the Russians, and really all the Allies had suffered that year, drove the Romanians into the war and into the Central Powers. It was felt that Russia was about to collapse and now was the best time to grab Bessarabia, long promised by the Germans, and now the only piece of land that was likely to be had. On September 19th, the four Romanian armies crossed the Ukrainian border, with no Russian troops there to repel them. Odessa fell by the 27th, and the frontier was wide open. The entry of the Romanians proved to be the final nail in the coffin of the Russian empire, as the threat to the flank of the Southwest Front required a major pullback from the front, leaving Austria the master of the field. The Central Powers outnumbered the Russians on the southern front by over 2.5:1, meaning that there was simply nothing militarily that could be done to hold a coherent line. Pressure was building to end the war and remove the Czar. The Germans were still not able to take advantage of the situation in the east, as the Austrians and Romanians were, but the disintegration of the Russian army was obvious on all fronts. Even the Turks experienced the Caucasian army falling apart and deserting, finally giving them a chance to hold the line and advance in places.
October was a difficult month for the Czar, as the situation in Petrograd grew grimmer by the day. The empire was pulling apart at the seams, and his wife’s mystic, Rasputin, the man that was healing his son and giving advice on the conduct of the war, was murdered by a group of nobles that were fed up with his interference in the policies of the nation. By December, the Czar had been removed from command of the army and placed under guard “for his own protection”. Russia was nearing revolution, and the army no longer had faith in their monarch.
The entry of the Romanians into the war on the Central Power's side gave both Germany and Austria hope for the winter. Supplies of wheat and oil, purchased by the Allies and stockpiled were now available, but at a price of course. The Romanian crown was vilified in the west and by their allies for their mercenary behavior, but the king was laughing all the way to the bank, as his nation was paid twice for its commodities and even was given Bessarabia by their increasingly desperate allies. Bulgaria, not engaged on any front and able to resume agricultural activities since 1915 was able to supply both Austria and Germany with some extra food, and even began outsourcing some of its military and equipment for use by the Germans, who were eager to get the extra manpower and guns to hold quieter fronts in the west (as the Bulgarians refused to fight the Russians). Even the Greeks, who were becoming increasingly pro-german, but were not blockaded, were able to ship food to the Central Powers and in some cases, actually leased the use of some of their trains for use by the Austrians. These extra supplies, coupled with the limited production in captured territories in northern France and Belgium, eased the increasingly difficult food situation for both the Germans and the Austrians. Winter 1916-1917 was a lean one, but the no one was starving just yet. In fact, no one went particularly cold, as the mines in northern France were finally put into production against the will of the industrialists in Germany, with Russian POW labor, creating a tiny surplus that enabled factories to run longer hours.