I don't buy that the Germans would bog down on the Eastern front. They didn't OTL, with far fewer forces.
Yeah, because the Russians threw away their pre-war army by outpacing their logistics in the attack and getting outmaneuvered by the Germans. Its a completely different situation here; the Germans won't be fighting on top of their supply centers and on their dense rail network of their own rail gauge, while the Russians advanced onto different gauge rail lines without planning for the necessary logistics; they lost badly twice (in East Prussia and in Poland in November/December 1914). Otherwise they were fighting the A-Hs in the Carpathians in Winter and lost 1 million men to frostbite and other winter illnesses. The Germans were able to fight their preferred war on ground of their choosing IOTL and did really well. IOTL when they did poorly was fighting the Russians in Poland in September/October 1914 by attacking Russian forts backed up by Russian field armies on the Vistula.
The problem with this is that the Russian forts were no where near the scale of the scale of the Belgian and French forts, and they possessed extremely acute shortages of machine guns and artillery that made the Western front defenses so powerful.
That didn't matter when they were properly supported as in October 1914 in Poland; the Germans hit a brick wall and were beaten, forcing them to fall back and the Russians advanced too far and left an open flank (Lodz 1914). The Russians would have held just fine with their pre-war army deploying deep and letting the Germans bash themselves on their supported fortress systems.
Coupled with the fact that the east front is so large, there is always either a weak spot or a flank to be turned. The defenders have much less of an advantage.
There were also far less men deployed there IOTL. There was no real open flank, as what could be supplied was within 100 miles of a rail head; beyond that you couldn't go around a flank, because you couldn't supply it; so in reality on the Eastern Front you had to go through the enemy, which is exactly what happened IOTL; the only time a flank was found was when the Russians barreled forward into the dense German rail net and found themselves short of supply due to different rail gauges, so were vulnerable on their flanks. German troops could then mass on a weak spot on the line and breakthrough due to being on their home turf and having enough rail lines to mass more quickly than the Russians on foreign turf. This played out at Tannenburg, Masurian Lakes (1 and 2), and again at Gorlice-Tarnow. The Germans ran through the weakened Russians, rather than going around them.
What will happen is the Germans will advance to the limit allowed by supply, stall out, consolidate, then launch a new offensive. About 100 to 120 miles from the railheads was about the limit of any offensive in WW1. It will be the logistics, not the Russians, that slow the German advance.
Against a depleted foe, sure; the Russians here will have their pre-war army and full supply and be entrenched, which is exactly where their pre-war doctrine and training excelled. The Russians were a tough foe on the defensive, I recommend you look at how the German advance in 1915 stalled out on the Dvina and didn't move until the Russian Revolution broke the Russian army's will to fight.
Wiking question is when do the Russians figure out that there are 4 armies in East Prussia and not 1? If its after mobilization started its too late I would think as armies are in motion.
Michael
Pretty quickly, because they had spies watching, just as Germany had in Russia. Remember the Russians were the ones that turned the A-H head of intelligence into an asset pre-war, which gave them massive intelligence coups over the CPs. I'd say within a week of mobilization they would know the Germans are heading East.
Basically Germany can let the French bleed themselves white in the west, losing little important territory and this can be regained when the fighting ends. In the east they can take Poland, Baltic states, Ukraine (in conjunction with A-H) who will get Serbia and more Galicia. If France goes in to Belgium the BEST they can hope for is Britain stays neutral - the treaty guaranteeing Belgian sovereignty did not specify who it was protected against - it was not going to be OK for France to invade Belgium on whatever pretext.
This is the problem though, there is a lot of valuable and vulnerable real estate in the West, which is why the Germans were so intent on attacking their and the French in A-L. The Saar is the major source of German coal and the Ruhr is right there and can be bombed from the air, though not on the scale of WW2, but of course people then, as before WW2, overestimated the effects of bombing on morale and physical damage. So the germans don't have room to give much land if they can.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Alsace-lorraine.JPG
There were some pretty critical rail lines too that mustn't be severed, nor Rhein river traffic disrupted. IIRC there are also some economic objectives in A-L too that are important to retain; there is a reason IOTL too that Moltke wasn't willing to let the French get far into A-L and ordered major counter attacks in that area contrary to Schlieffen's plan.
Russia's "fast" mobilization was a disaster the men had no field kitchens and a large number didn't have quality boots
They actually lost battles in 1914 due to things like starvation/exhaustion and sore feet
Mobilizing fast severely reduced the tactical effectiveness of the army which begat a strategic disaster
It wasn't so much a 'fast' mobilization, as much as 90% pre-mobilized. The Russian 1st and 2nd armies were always 90% ready to go, which is why they were quickly ready; the problem is that supply trains were part of the 10% not mobilized. Still, that problem is solved if they stay on the defensive, which allows time for the supply train to mobilize and for troops to be supplied directly by rail and locally commissioned horses and carts. Here by staying put the Germans come to them and have to deal with the logistic hurdles instead.
