Being better industrialised doesn't change the severe issues the Russian army had and the Japanese weren't pushovers by any means.
The Russian Century - a TL
- Thread starter Onkel Willie
- Start date
I wonder if the Brusilov Offensive will actually lead to the collapse of A-H in 1916...
WW1 probably goes quiet differently anyway. Since Russia is going to be more prepared to the war, there prboably is not Schlieffen Plan so Brits are nog going to join to the war, at least not that early as in OTL. And due better preparations Russians are going to be in better condition. If there is still Brusilov Offensive or something similar, it might evne occur earlier than in OTL.
No Britain would be a huge loss for the Entente, which would tip the scales towards the Central Powers. Then again, this is a Russia wank, so I think we know who'll end up on top in The Great War.
Hello,
Have been reading this closely for a few days now. The German/AH front are going to be different and reading the developments there is interesting.
So two things come to mind. One, is the Russian domestic front under control?
Two...
Have been reading this closely for a few days now. The German/AH front are going to be different and reading the developments there is interesting.
So two things come to mind. One, is the Russian domestic front under control?
Two...
Rasputin, The 'Mad Monk' Who Became A Friend To The Romanovs | HistoryExtra
In pre-revolutionary Russia, there was no one more divisive than this megalomaniac mystic, a peasant who reached his way to the heights of Imperial Russia, only to oversee its destruction. Jonny Wilkes explores his life and influence, and the legends that still surround him, for BBC History Revealed
www.historyextra.com
Well, considering Rasputin became closer with the Romanov family is because of the tsarevich hemophilia problem and Rasputin somehow manage to stop it from bleeding to much and then ITL Nicholas didnt marry Alix of Hesse soo no hemophilia for you!
Rasputin has not much of role there since tsarevich has not hemophilia and is generally completely health normal boy.
What's the ttl relationship between Nicky and Alix? Does her authoritarianism clash with his lighter touch ttl?
Probalby only know each others as names since Nicky has married Maria of Montenegro instead Alix.
And there is actual rejoicement on that, cause that solves a lot of issues already, including the aforementioned Rasputin.
Chapter VI: The Great War Begins, 1914.
The war begins, but with some twists.
The European powder keg was about to explode and the fuse would be lit in the Balkans. During a visit to Skopje on June 27th 1914, Prince Regent Alexander was assassinated. The population of Macedonia had a pro-Bulgarian stance, and these sentiments still lingered among the Slav majority despite the harsh behaviour of Bulgarian troops during the occupation in the Balkan Wars. King Peter’s 21 year-old nephew Prince Paul became the new Prince Regent and heir to the throne as the king’s brother and Paul’s father, Prince Arsen, declined. Paul was infuriated by the assassination of his cousin and on his orders the Royal Serbian Army occupied Macedonia, implemented martial law and began carrying out measures tantamount to ethnic cleansing.
Tsar Ferdinand I of Bulgaria was outraged by Serbia’s actions and carried out a partial mobilization of its military, threatening to intervene if the Serbians didn’t cease and desist and carrying out threatening manoeuvres within spitting distance of the border. Belgrade wasn’t impressed as they were certain of Russian backing, but hadn’t counted on Austria-Hungary backing up Sofia. Vienna in turn had carte blanche from its ally Germany because German Emperor Wilhelm II misjudged that “another little Balkan scuffle” couldn’t escalate into a European conflict. More precisely, he didn’t think his Russian cousin Nicholas would go to war to rescue Serbia.
Much of July saw diplomatic manoeuvring between Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, France and Britain. Serbia rejected demands for international supervision over Macedonia and an international commission to decide its fate, taking into consideration the preferences of the inhabitants. Another suggestion was a plebiscite. The Serbs realized such a commission might well decide in Bulgaria’s favour, same for a plebiscite. They’d rather fight over it, confident the other former members of the Balkans League would join them again to confine Bulgarian aggression. Belgrade had also received assurances from St. Petersburg that Austria-Hungary was highly unlikely to intervene knowing that this would trigger a Russian response. What happened next showed the danger of making assumptions.
After the failure of negotiations, Bulgaria completely broke off diplomatic relations with Serbia and declared war on July 28th, invading Macedonia with 150.000 men. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia two days later and began shelling Belgrade, prompting a total mobilization order to be issued by the Russian Tsar. Germany issued an ultimatum demanding Russia to “cease all war measures against Germany and Austria-Hungary” within twelve hours. There was no response and therefore Germany declared war on Russia and not long thereafter on France too. Britain declared war on Germany once the Germans invaded Belgium as part of the Schlieffen Plan, living up to its commitment to the 1839 Treaty of London that required it to defend Belgian neutrality. By early August, Europe was at war.
On the Eastern Front, the war began in earnest with the Russian invasion of East Prussia. Only ten divisions of the German Eighth Army defended East Prussia. The Battle of Stallupönen on August 17th was indecisive, but a hasty German counterattack was defeated in the Battle of Gumbinnen three days later. Regardless of whatever preparations had been made, however, it still remained that the Germans could not let the historical Prussian capital Königsberg fall into Russian hands. The moral, symbolic and military value (since it was a major military hub) of the city meant to lose it was to invite disaster on the home front, in addition to the strategic ramifications. Also, it was very likely that the Russians would use the upper hand thus gained to use their superior forces to overwhelm the static German defences in Masuria. In short, the Germans had to fight back immediately and force the Russians from East Prussia.
The Russian supply situation was abysmal. Short of food and artillery ammunition and incorrectly believing the Germans were in full retreat, Rennenkampf did not pursue, refitted for a couple days, and lost contact. Instead of sticking to the plan and advancing south-westerly to link up with the Second Army under the command of Samsonov, he instead slowly moved his First Army westward. Under pressure to advance and cut off the supposed German retreat, Samsonov's Second Army outdistanced its supplies, resulting in hungry demoralized troops.
The Eighth Army’s commander Prittwitz panicked when the Russian onslaught entered East Prussia and believed his army would be crushed between the pincers of the two Russian armies (as was the Russian plan). He announced his intention of abandoning East Prussia and move behind the Vistula. Helmuth von Moltke, Chief of the German General Staff from 1906 to 1914 replaced Prittwitz with Paul von Hindenburg (brought out of retirement) on August 22nd. Hindenburg, along with his chief of staff, Ludendorff would approach the crisis in East Prussia very differently though they ultimately would end up being defeated all the same.
The climax would take place at Tannenberg. In contrast to Prittwitz, Hindenburg and Ludendorff decided to take the offensive and encircle Samsonov. Following the plans of Colonel Max Hoffmann, Prittwitz’s deputy chief of operations, they chose to wheel eight of their divisions counter-clockwise to attack Samsonov. They took advantage of interior lines and well-practiced ability to move quickly via the rail roads, as opposed to Russia where 70% of the railroads were still single-tracked (based on that, Russia agreed to have 27 divisions on the front two weeks into the hostilities, 52 within three weeks and 90 divisions within twelve weeks). Despite a total Russian strength of 650.000 vis-à-vis 135.000 German troops, it seemed likely that the Russian Second Army would be crushed, producing a brilliant German victory at Tannenberg.
Fortunately, the Northwest Front’s overall commander General Aleksey Brusilov was an excellent leader. Brusilov recognized that Rennenkampf’s First Army was advancing in the wrong direction and painfully slow at that, plundering East Prussia along the way, and he knew why: Rennenkampf and Samsonov had a personal vendetta dating back to the Russo-Japanese War, which meant the former was satisfied to see the latter go down in flames. Brusilov ordered the First Army to march south as fast as his soldiers’ legs could carry them tout suite. Rennenkampf didn’t want to follow this order, but Brusilov threatened to strip him of his command and have him court-martialled if he failed to comply.
The First Army came to the rescue of the Second Army in time, making the end result of the Battle of Tannenberg (26-30 August) a decisive Russian victory. With 230.000 Russian troops facing 150.000 this wasn’t completely surprising. In the end 10.000 German soldiers were killed in action, 15.000 were injured and another 37.000 were taken prisoner or went missing. Russian losses consisted of 12.000 killed in action, 11.000 injured and a mere 7.000 were taken prisoner. In the aftermath, Hindenburg was forced to abandon East Prussia and withdraw behind the Vistula River.
The loss of East Prussia caused consternation and panic in the circles of court, government and the OHL (Obere Heeresleitung, Supreme Army Command). Fearing the Russians might cross the Vistula and advance further west to the Oder, five corps were transferred from the Western Front to the Eastern Front, creating the German Ninth Army. The reinforcements were unnecessary as Hindenburg managed to block Russian attempts to cross the Vistula before these forces had even arrived.
It, however, affected the Western Front negatively: the German advance through Belgium, the Retreat from Mons and the Battle of the Frontiers culminated in the Battle of the Marne, which reached the outskirts of Paris. Field Marshal Sir John French, commander of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), began to plan for a full British retreat to port cities on the English Channel for an immediate evacuation. The military governor of Paris, Gallieni, wanted the Franco-British units to counter-attack the Germans along the Marne River and halt the German advance. Allied reserves would restore the ranks and attack the German flanks. On September 5th, the counter-offensive by six French armies and the BEF began. By September 9th, the success of the Franco-British counteroffensive left the German First and Second Armies at risk of encirclement, and they were ordered to retreat to the Aisne River. The retreating armies were pursued by the French and British, although the pace of the Allied advance was slow: 12 mi (19 km) in one day. The German armies ceased their retreat after 40 mi (65 km) on a line north of the Aisne River, where they dug in on the heights and fought the indecisive First Battle of the Aisne.
Following this German retirement, the opposing forces made reciprocal outflanking manoeuvres, known as the Race for the Sea and quickly extended their trench systems from the Swiss border to the North Sea. The territory occupied by Germany held 64% of French pig iron production, 24% of its steel manufacturing and 40% of the coal industry – dealing a serious blow to French industry. On the Entente side, the final lines were occupied with the armies of each nation defending a part of the front. From the coast in the north, the primary forces were from Belgium, the British Empire and then France. Following the Battle of the Yser in October, the Belgian army controlled a 35 km (22 mi) length of West Flanders along the coast, known as the Yser Front, along the Yser River and the Yperlee canal, from Nieuwpoort to Boesinghe. Meanwhile, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) occupied a position on the flank, having occupied a more central position.
From October 19th until November 22nd, the German forces made their final breakthrough attempt of 1914 during the Battle of Ypres. The Entente turned the tide by repelling the German attack and, with numbers on their side, carried out a counteroffensive from Ypres to Nieuwpoort. French forces commanded by Foch, the BEF under Sir John French and the 80.000 Belgian troops that had managed to withdraw behind the Yser successfully pushed the Germans back to the line Roeselare-Thourout-Gistel just south of Ostend.
Neither side had moved forces to Flanders fast enough to obtain a decisive victory and both were exhausted, short of ammunition and suffering from collapses in morale, with some infantry units refusing orders. The autumn battles in Flanders had quickly become static, attrition operations, unlike the battles of manoeuvre in the summer. The Entente, however, was left in a good position for an offensive to take Ostend in the spring of the next year. The position of the harbour of Ostend on the North Sea made it strategically significant, which the Germans recognized too as they used it as a U-boat base.
Meanwhile, Russian successes on the Eastern Front kept mounting as Austria-Hungary received a serious beating. 1.2 million Russian troops faced 950.000 Austro-Hungarian troops. Knowing the Russians were committed to attack Germany first to help their French ally, Austro-Hungarian commander Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf planned an early advance into southern Poland to cut off the massing Russian armies there. The end result would be a massive defeat.
The plan of Russian commander-in-chief Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich entailed the Southwest Front – composed of the Third, Fourth, Fifth and Eighth Armies and under the overall command of Nikolai Ivanov - to counter an anticipated Austro-Hungarian offensive thrusting eastward from Lemberg. The Third and Eighth Armies would mount an offensive into eastern Galicia. The Russians could bring 260 trains a day to their front, compared to the Austro-Hungarian’s 152. Needless to say, the Battle of Galicia was a crushing Russian victory: the Russians lost 225.000 men, 40.000 of those as prisoners of war; the Austro-Hungarians suffered 100.000 fatalities, 220.000 wounded and 130.000 men captured. The Russians then advanced to the Carpathian Mountains, where they could clash with Austro-Hungarian forces throughout the winter of 1914-’15. A besieged speck of Austro-Hungarian territory, the fort of Przemyśl, would hold out for another 133 days until its garrison surrendered on March 22nd 1915.
Austria-Hungary had significantly more success on the Balkans Front. Serbian strength amounted to 420.000 men. They, however, not only faced 462.000 troops from two Austro-Hungarian armies (the Fifth and Sixth) to the north, but a total of 600.000 to the south now that Bulgaria had completed its mobilization. Given that Serbia was at a 5:2 numerical disadvantage, it’s no surprise that Belgrade fell in November after Austro-Hungarian victories at Cer, Drina and Kolubara. At the same time, Bulgaria was victorious at Monastir and Skopje and then swung north and launched an offensive toward Pristina, cutting off a planned Serbian retreat into Albania. Serbia was forced to surrender, but it wasn’t over yet: remnants of the Royal Serbian Army would fight a guerrilla war against enemy occupation until final victory was achieved by the Entente.
Chapter VI: The Great War Begins, 1914.
The European powder keg was about to explode and the fuse would be lit in the Balkans. During a visit to Skopje on June 27th 1914, Prince Regent Alexander was assassinated. The population of Macedonia had a pro-Bulgarian stance, and these sentiments still lingered among the Slav majority despite the harsh behaviour of Bulgarian troops during the occupation in the Balkan Wars. King Peter’s 21 year-old nephew Prince Paul became the new Prince Regent and heir to the throne as the king’s brother and Paul’s father, Prince Arsen, declined. Paul was infuriated by the assassination of his cousin and on his orders the Royal Serbian Army occupied Macedonia, implemented martial law and began carrying out measures tantamount to ethnic cleansing.
Tsar Ferdinand I of Bulgaria was outraged by Serbia’s actions and carried out a partial mobilization of its military, threatening to intervene if the Serbians didn’t cease and desist and carrying out threatening manoeuvres within spitting distance of the border. Belgrade wasn’t impressed as they were certain of Russian backing, but hadn’t counted on Austria-Hungary backing up Sofia. Vienna in turn had carte blanche from its ally Germany because German Emperor Wilhelm II misjudged that “another little Balkan scuffle” couldn’t escalate into a European conflict. More precisely, he didn’t think his Russian cousin Nicholas would go to war to rescue Serbia.
Much of July saw diplomatic manoeuvring between Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, France and Britain. Serbia rejected demands for international supervision over Macedonia and an international commission to decide its fate, taking into consideration the preferences of the inhabitants. Another suggestion was a plebiscite. The Serbs realized such a commission might well decide in Bulgaria’s favour, same for a plebiscite. They’d rather fight over it, confident the other former members of the Balkans League would join them again to confine Bulgarian aggression. Belgrade had also received assurances from St. Petersburg that Austria-Hungary was highly unlikely to intervene knowing that this would trigger a Russian response. What happened next showed the danger of making assumptions.
After the failure of negotiations, Bulgaria completely broke off diplomatic relations with Serbia and declared war on July 28th, invading Macedonia with 150.000 men. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia two days later and began shelling Belgrade, prompting a total mobilization order to be issued by the Russian Tsar. Germany issued an ultimatum demanding Russia to “cease all war measures against Germany and Austria-Hungary” within twelve hours. There was no response and therefore Germany declared war on Russia and not long thereafter on France too. Britain declared war on Germany once the Germans invaded Belgium as part of the Schlieffen Plan, living up to its commitment to the 1839 Treaty of London that required it to defend Belgian neutrality. By early August, Europe was at war.
On the Eastern Front, the war began in earnest with the Russian invasion of East Prussia. Only ten divisions of the German Eighth Army defended East Prussia. The Battle of Stallupönen on August 17th was indecisive, but a hasty German counterattack was defeated in the Battle of Gumbinnen three days later. Regardless of whatever preparations had been made, however, it still remained that the Germans could not let the historical Prussian capital Königsberg fall into Russian hands. The moral, symbolic and military value (since it was a major military hub) of the city meant to lose it was to invite disaster on the home front, in addition to the strategic ramifications. Also, it was very likely that the Russians would use the upper hand thus gained to use their superior forces to overwhelm the static German defences in Masuria. In short, the Germans had to fight back immediately and force the Russians from East Prussia.
The Russian supply situation was abysmal. Short of food and artillery ammunition and incorrectly believing the Germans were in full retreat, Rennenkampf did not pursue, refitted for a couple days, and lost contact. Instead of sticking to the plan and advancing south-westerly to link up with the Second Army under the command of Samsonov, he instead slowly moved his First Army westward. Under pressure to advance and cut off the supposed German retreat, Samsonov's Second Army outdistanced its supplies, resulting in hungry demoralized troops.
The Eighth Army’s commander Prittwitz panicked when the Russian onslaught entered East Prussia and believed his army would be crushed between the pincers of the two Russian armies (as was the Russian plan). He announced his intention of abandoning East Prussia and move behind the Vistula. Helmuth von Moltke, Chief of the German General Staff from 1906 to 1914 replaced Prittwitz with Paul von Hindenburg (brought out of retirement) on August 22nd. Hindenburg, along with his chief of staff, Ludendorff would approach the crisis in East Prussia very differently though they ultimately would end up being defeated all the same.
The climax would take place at Tannenberg. In contrast to Prittwitz, Hindenburg and Ludendorff decided to take the offensive and encircle Samsonov. Following the plans of Colonel Max Hoffmann, Prittwitz’s deputy chief of operations, they chose to wheel eight of their divisions counter-clockwise to attack Samsonov. They took advantage of interior lines and well-practiced ability to move quickly via the rail roads, as opposed to Russia where 70% of the railroads were still single-tracked (based on that, Russia agreed to have 27 divisions on the front two weeks into the hostilities, 52 within three weeks and 90 divisions within twelve weeks). Despite a total Russian strength of 650.000 vis-à-vis 135.000 German troops, it seemed likely that the Russian Second Army would be crushed, producing a brilliant German victory at Tannenberg.
Fortunately, the Northwest Front’s overall commander General Aleksey Brusilov was an excellent leader. Brusilov recognized that Rennenkampf’s First Army was advancing in the wrong direction and painfully slow at that, plundering East Prussia along the way, and he knew why: Rennenkampf and Samsonov had a personal vendetta dating back to the Russo-Japanese War, which meant the former was satisfied to see the latter go down in flames. Brusilov ordered the First Army to march south as fast as his soldiers’ legs could carry them tout suite. Rennenkampf didn’t want to follow this order, but Brusilov threatened to strip him of his command and have him court-martialled if he failed to comply.
The First Army came to the rescue of the Second Army in time, making the end result of the Battle of Tannenberg (26-30 August) a decisive Russian victory. With 230.000 Russian troops facing 150.000 this wasn’t completely surprising. In the end 10.000 German soldiers were killed in action, 15.000 were injured and another 37.000 were taken prisoner or went missing. Russian losses consisted of 12.000 killed in action, 11.000 injured and a mere 7.000 were taken prisoner. In the aftermath, Hindenburg was forced to abandon East Prussia and withdraw behind the Vistula River.
The loss of East Prussia caused consternation and panic in the circles of court, government and the OHL (Obere Heeresleitung, Supreme Army Command). Fearing the Russians might cross the Vistula and advance further west to the Oder, five corps were transferred from the Western Front to the Eastern Front, creating the German Ninth Army. The reinforcements were unnecessary as Hindenburg managed to block Russian attempts to cross the Vistula before these forces had even arrived.
It, however, affected the Western Front negatively: the German advance through Belgium, the Retreat from Mons and the Battle of the Frontiers culminated in the Battle of the Marne, which reached the outskirts of Paris. Field Marshal Sir John French, commander of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), began to plan for a full British retreat to port cities on the English Channel for an immediate evacuation. The military governor of Paris, Gallieni, wanted the Franco-British units to counter-attack the Germans along the Marne River and halt the German advance. Allied reserves would restore the ranks and attack the German flanks. On September 5th, the counter-offensive by six French armies and the BEF began. By September 9th, the success of the Franco-British counteroffensive left the German First and Second Armies at risk of encirclement, and they were ordered to retreat to the Aisne River. The retreating armies were pursued by the French and British, although the pace of the Allied advance was slow: 12 mi (19 km) in one day. The German armies ceased their retreat after 40 mi (65 km) on a line north of the Aisne River, where they dug in on the heights and fought the indecisive First Battle of the Aisne.
Following this German retirement, the opposing forces made reciprocal outflanking manoeuvres, known as the Race for the Sea and quickly extended their trench systems from the Swiss border to the North Sea. The territory occupied by Germany held 64% of French pig iron production, 24% of its steel manufacturing and 40% of the coal industry – dealing a serious blow to French industry. On the Entente side, the final lines were occupied with the armies of each nation defending a part of the front. From the coast in the north, the primary forces were from Belgium, the British Empire and then France. Following the Battle of the Yser in October, the Belgian army controlled a 35 km (22 mi) length of West Flanders along the coast, known as the Yser Front, along the Yser River and the Yperlee canal, from Nieuwpoort to Boesinghe. Meanwhile, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) occupied a position on the flank, having occupied a more central position.
From October 19th until November 22nd, the German forces made their final breakthrough attempt of 1914 during the Battle of Ypres. The Entente turned the tide by repelling the German attack and, with numbers on their side, carried out a counteroffensive from Ypres to Nieuwpoort. French forces commanded by Foch, the BEF under Sir John French and the 80.000 Belgian troops that had managed to withdraw behind the Yser successfully pushed the Germans back to the line Roeselare-Thourout-Gistel just south of Ostend.
Neither side had moved forces to Flanders fast enough to obtain a decisive victory and both were exhausted, short of ammunition and suffering from collapses in morale, with some infantry units refusing orders. The autumn battles in Flanders had quickly become static, attrition operations, unlike the battles of manoeuvre in the summer. The Entente, however, was left in a good position for an offensive to take Ostend in the spring of the next year. The position of the harbour of Ostend on the North Sea made it strategically significant, which the Germans recognized too as they used it as a U-boat base.
Meanwhile, Russian successes on the Eastern Front kept mounting as Austria-Hungary received a serious beating. 1.2 million Russian troops faced 950.000 Austro-Hungarian troops. Knowing the Russians were committed to attack Germany first to help their French ally, Austro-Hungarian commander Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf planned an early advance into southern Poland to cut off the massing Russian armies there. The end result would be a massive defeat.
The plan of Russian commander-in-chief Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich entailed the Southwest Front – composed of the Third, Fourth, Fifth and Eighth Armies and under the overall command of Nikolai Ivanov - to counter an anticipated Austro-Hungarian offensive thrusting eastward from Lemberg. The Third and Eighth Armies would mount an offensive into eastern Galicia. The Russians could bring 260 trains a day to their front, compared to the Austro-Hungarian’s 152. Needless to say, the Battle of Galicia was a crushing Russian victory: the Russians lost 225.000 men, 40.000 of those as prisoners of war; the Austro-Hungarians suffered 100.000 fatalities, 220.000 wounded and 130.000 men captured. The Russians then advanced to the Carpathian Mountains, where they could clash with Austro-Hungarian forces throughout the winter of 1914-’15. A besieged speck of Austro-Hungarian territory, the fort of Przemyśl, would hold out for another 133 days until its garrison surrendered on March 22nd 1915.
Austria-Hungary had significantly more success on the Balkans Front. Serbian strength amounted to 420.000 men. They, however, not only faced 462.000 troops from two Austro-Hungarian armies (the Fifth and Sixth) to the north, but a total of 600.000 to the south now that Bulgaria had completed its mobilization. Given that Serbia was at a 5:2 numerical disadvantage, it’s no surprise that Belgrade fell in November after Austro-Hungarian victories at Cer, Drina and Kolubara. At the same time, Bulgaria was victorious at Monastir and Skopje and then swung north and launched an offensive toward Pristina, cutting off a planned Serbian retreat into Albania. Serbia was forced to surrender, but it wasn’t over yet: remnants of the Royal Serbian Army would fight a guerrilla war against enemy occupation until final victory was achieved by the Entente.
El_Fodedor
Banned
What about the Ottomans, Italy and Romania? Will one of these chose to stay out of the war?
If I have to guess, there's a higher chance that the Turks are going to stay neutral. Would they really want to take their chances against a Russian army that managed to conquer Königsberg? In OTL, Russian blunders emboldened them heavily.
If I have to guess, there's a higher chance that the Turks are going to stay neutral. Would they really want to take their chances against a Russian army that managed to conquer Königsberg? In OTL, Russian blunders emboldened them heavily.
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I'd say Italy is seeing this and going: Let's pick the corpse of the Dual-Monarchy clean. I can't imagine them staying out.
So let me try to get this straight: First Army was badly out of supplies (that I readily believe) and stayed put to refit and resupply. Second army didn't and started forraging.
Russia has 650.000 - In Second Army(?) - that are exhausted and forraging (and thus not in battle formations)
But First Army - the ones that were refitted and resupplied - falls on the (unsuspecting?) Germans and gives them a good rogering? But why 230.000? Is that included in the 650.000?
You'll see
Yes, but from what I gather the single biggest issue was Samsonov and Rennenkampf hating each other's guts, making the latter unwilling to help the former. Besides that, over thirty years have passed since the original PoD, so perhaps the supply situation ITTL isn't as bad as IOTL
.230.000 is part of the 650.000, yes. The number is the same as the number the that historically fought on the Russian side in the Battle of Tannenberg.
Chapter VII: Victory, 1915-1916.
Update time!
Pre-war military tactics that emphasised open warfare and the individual rifleman proved obsolete when confronted with conditions prevailing in 1914. Technological advances allowed the creation of strong defensive systems largely impervious to massed infantry advances, such as barbed wire, machine guns and above all far more powerful artillery, which dominated the battlefield and made crossing open ground extremely difficult. Both sides struggled to develop tactics for breaching entrenched positions without suffering heavy casualties. In time, however, technology began to produce new offensive weapons, such as gas warfare.
In April 1915, the Entente launched the First Battle of Ostend to capture the city’s harbour, denying it to the Germans as a U-boat base. They also hoped to use Ostend as a destroyer base to hunt German U-boats operating in the North Sea and as a supply port for the British Expeditionary Force. Ferdinand Foch and Sir John French planned a diversionary attack near Nieuwpoort and the main attack near Roeselare, hoping to break through there and outflank the Germans (Belgian forces fought in this offensive as well). Initially it appeared that this approach would work, but the Germans unleashed an artillery bombardment with chlorine gas and stymied the Entente advance. A stalemate was the end result.
The Battle of Ostend would prove strategically inconclusive, but was a PR success for Germany. Before the battle stalled it reached the outskirts of Ostend, heavily damaging the city with Entente artillery bombardments that prompted much of the civilian populace to flee. This played into the hands of Germany’s “Flemish policy” designed to dissolve Belgium into separate Flemish and Walloon components. The Germans were now able to counter “the Rape of Belgium” with a feat of whataboutism by referring to the “Devastation of Ostend” by British artillery. The Flemish Republic formally proclaimed its independence in June 1915 in Brussels with German backing. The Entente countered by pointing out Germany’s first use of gas in violation of the Hague Convention.
In the meantime the war expanded in the Southern theatres. In the secret 1915 Treaty of London, Italy was promised Trentino, South Tyrol and the Austrian Littoral (the latter consisting of Istria, Gorizia and Gradisca, and the Imperial Free City of Trieste). Italy declared war in May 1915. Italian Field Marshal Luigi Cadorna, a staunch proponent of the frontal assault, initially planned breaking onto the Slovenian plateau, taking Ljubljana and threatening Vienna. The area between the northernmost part of the Adriatic Sea and the sources of the Isonzo River thus became the scene of multiple successive battles. As a result, the Austro-Hungarians were forced to move some of their forces from the Eastern Front and a war in the mountains around the Isonzo River began. The battles were often inconclusive or resulted in limited Italian advances, often overturned by Austro-Hungarian counteroffensives. The Italians had little success, but they tied down forces Austria-Hungary could ill afford to miss.
Great Britain and France hoped to assist Serbia and put pressure on Austria-Hungary with a new front in the Balkans. They first tried to recruit the Ottoman Empire in the spring of 1915, but the Sublime Porte was hardly sympathetic to Russia and would rather join Germany. Given Russia’s successes in East Prussia and Galicia, however, that increasingly appeared to be a recipe for disaster. During the autumn of 1914, Sultan Mehmed V had already decided that a policy of strict neutrality was probably for the best (despite the insult of the confiscation of two battleships under construction originally intended for the Ottoman Navy by the British).
Greece was approached simultaneously by the Entente, but in this case Britain and France followed a much more aggressive approach. In May 1915, a Franco-British force landed at Salonica in Greece to offer assistance and to pressure its government to declare war against the Central Powers. However, the pro-German King Constantine I dismissed the pro-Allied government of Eleftherios Venizelos before the Allied expeditionary force arrived. The friction between the King of Greece and the Allies continued to accumulate with the National Schism, which effectively divided Greece between regions still loyal to the king and the new provisional government of Venizelos in Salonica. French and British forced in Greece swelled and they backed Venizelos. After intense negotiations and an armed confrontation in Athens between Allied and royalist forces, the King of Greece resigned and his second son Alexander took his place. Greece formally joined the war on the side of the Entente in July 1915 to take Western Thrace from Bulgaria.
The summer and autumn of 1915 saw a coordinated Entente effort on all fronts, as agreed to by France, Russia, Britain and Italy. On the Western Front, the Second Battle of Ostend erupted, which became a meatgrinder as both sides recognized its significance and sent in more soldiers. Between September 1915 and February 1916, the Entente suffered nearly 600.000 casualties and the Germans over 400.000. The battle resulted in the Entente moving the frontline by only four kilometres and the obliteration of every building in the city that had been left standing after the previous battle.
Little happened on the Eastern Front other than Russia repulsing Germany and Austro-Hungarian counteroffensives, but much more of crucial significance happened in the Balkans in 1915. An Anglo-French-Greek offensive successfully took Monastir. Italian forces quickly occupied Albania and launched a limited though successful offensive into Kosovo. Localized Greek offensives into Western Thrace took place as well over the course of 1915, producing moderate successes. All-in-all, the Entente had established a solid position in the Balkans by the start of autumn of 1915.
The Ottoman Empire and Romania, both neutral thus far, finally joined the Entente in September 1915 on the promise that they’d receive Eastern Rumelia and Transylvania as a prize respectively. A joint Entente offensive by Italian, British, French, Greek and Ottoman forces was subsequently unleashed in October, overwhelming Bulgaria and forcing it to request an armistice whilst liberating Serbia as far north as Niš. Prince Regent Paul managed to cross the frontline into the liberated southern half of his country and Serbia formally re-entered the war on the Entente side.
The southern flank of the Central Powers was now under serious threat and German Chief of the General Staff Erich von Falkenhayn, who was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, told Emperor Wilhelm II that the war could no longer be won militarily. He pointed out that the threat in the Balkans would force Austria-Hungary to shift forces from the Carpathians, which in turn would enable a Russian breakthrough there. Once they’d crossed the Carpathians, the Russians could march through the Great Hungarian Plain along the Tisza River and cut Austria-Hungary in half, causing it to collapse. However, not doing so would expose Austria-Hungary to an invasion from the south. At that point Germany would find itself fighting overwhelming Entente numbers by themselves spread across multiple fronts, culminating in total military defeat. Falkenhayn’s advice was that Germany should offer a conditional surrender and pick its fights at the negotiating table. Wilhelm II threatened to fire him, but quickly discovered that potential replacements such as Hindenburg shared these pessimistic views.
The only success so far was the victory of the High Seas Fleet in the Battle of Dogger Bank. The tactics of the German navy consisted of trying to lure out a portion of the Royal Navy and then destroy it, knowing that they couldn’t risk a decisive battle as the Royal Navy had a 3:2 advantage in dreadnought-type battleships. The fleet sortied in November 1915 and based on faulty intelligence from Room 40 the British admiralty believed only the German battlecruisers were involved in this action, which they interpreted as a raid. The Royal Navy’s 1st and 2nd Battlecruiser Squadrons sortied and intercepted the German battlecruisers, who disengaged and thereby encouraged commanding officer Vice Admiral Beatty to pursue and destroy them.
To his horror the 3rd German Battle Squadron emerged from the fog banks. Six British battlecruisers and escorting vessels faced seven German battleships and five battlecruisers. The British Battlecruiser Fleet’s flagship HMS Lion exploded when a 30.5 cm (12 inch) shell fired by German battleship König penetrated its armour and exploded in its aft magazine, killing Beatty and throwing the British battlecruisers into chaos. German commander Admiral Scheer managed to have his ships cross the British T, inflicting heavy damage. Only HMS Indefatigable returned and the rest of the British battlecruiser force was sunk while the Germans only suffered moderate damage to their ships, except the heavily damaged battlecruiser Seydlitz. Ironically, this success would convince the British that the size of the Imperial German Navy had to be curtailed.
As of December 1915, Austria-Hungary still managed to hold off the Italians, Romanians and the Russians by using the natural defences provided by the Alps and the Carpathians. They, however, couldn’t prevent the Entente from advancing north and liberating Belgrade by Christmas. Their plans for spring of 1916 consisted of an advance along the Danube to take Vienna from the southeast. The Italians would simultaneously attempt to force the Ljubljana Gap agian, breaking out into the Slovenian plateau and threatening Vienna. The military situation presented Austro-Hungarian Chief of Staff Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf with a catch-22: he could shift forces from the Carpathians to the Balkans and the Isonzo front, but then the Russians would break through; if he didn’t send reinforcements to these fronts, the Entente would break through on the southern flank.
Like his German counterpart Falkenhayn, Hötzendorf reluctantly informed his master Emperor Franz Joseph that the war could no longer be won. Austria-Hungary had to request an armistice and salvage what it could at the negotiating table. In the following weeks, an intense diplomatic exchange commenced between Vienna and Berlin as Franz Joseph told his German ally he would seek terms, forcing Germany to follow suit. On February 17th 1916, Germany and Austria-Hungary requested an armistice, thus ending the Great War. The first total war, the first modern industrial European conflict, was over after about eighteen months of fighting. In this one half year of war 4.5 million people had perished: 2.5 million military personnel and two million non-combatants. The last conflict with such enormous casualties were the Napoleonic Wars, the key difference being that that conflict had lasted for twelve years instead of eighteen months. War had become a far deadlier business and the victors would carve out their pound of flesh.
Chapter VII: Victory, 1915-1916.
Pre-war military tactics that emphasised open warfare and the individual rifleman proved obsolete when confronted with conditions prevailing in 1914. Technological advances allowed the creation of strong defensive systems largely impervious to massed infantry advances, such as barbed wire, machine guns and above all far more powerful artillery, which dominated the battlefield and made crossing open ground extremely difficult. Both sides struggled to develop tactics for breaching entrenched positions without suffering heavy casualties. In time, however, technology began to produce new offensive weapons, such as gas warfare.
In April 1915, the Entente launched the First Battle of Ostend to capture the city’s harbour, denying it to the Germans as a U-boat base. They also hoped to use Ostend as a destroyer base to hunt German U-boats operating in the North Sea and as a supply port for the British Expeditionary Force. Ferdinand Foch and Sir John French planned a diversionary attack near Nieuwpoort and the main attack near Roeselare, hoping to break through there and outflank the Germans (Belgian forces fought in this offensive as well). Initially it appeared that this approach would work, but the Germans unleashed an artillery bombardment with chlorine gas and stymied the Entente advance. A stalemate was the end result.
The Battle of Ostend would prove strategically inconclusive, but was a PR success for Germany. Before the battle stalled it reached the outskirts of Ostend, heavily damaging the city with Entente artillery bombardments that prompted much of the civilian populace to flee. This played into the hands of Germany’s “Flemish policy” designed to dissolve Belgium into separate Flemish and Walloon components. The Germans were now able to counter “the Rape of Belgium” with a feat of whataboutism by referring to the “Devastation of Ostend” by British artillery. The Flemish Republic formally proclaimed its independence in June 1915 in Brussels with German backing. The Entente countered by pointing out Germany’s first use of gas in violation of the Hague Convention.
In the meantime the war expanded in the Southern theatres. In the secret 1915 Treaty of London, Italy was promised Trentino, South Tyrol and the Austrian Littoral (the latter consisting of Istria, Gorizia and Gradisca, and the Imperial Free City of Trieste). Italy declared war in May 1915. Italian Field Marshal Luigi Cadorna, a staunch proponent of the frontal assault, initially planned breaking onto the Slovenian plateau, taking Ljubljana and threatening Vienna. The area between the northernmost part of the Adriatic Sea and the sources of the Isonzo River thus became the scene of multiple successive battles. As a result, the Austro-Hungarians were forced to move some of their forces from the Eastern Front and a war in the mountains around the Isonzo River began. The battles were often inconclusive or resulted in limited Italian advances, often overturned by Austro-Hungarian counteroffensives. The Italians had little success, but they tied down forces Austria-Hungary could ill afford to miss.
Great Britain and France hoped to assist Serbia and put pressure on Austria-Hungary with a new front in the Balkans. They first tried to recruit the Ottoman Empire in the spring of 1915, but the Sublime Porte was hardly sympathetic to Russia and would rather join Germany. Given Russia’s successes in East Prussia and Galicia, however, that increasingly appeared to be a recipe for disaster. During the autumn of 1914, Sultan Mehmed V had already decided that a policy of strict neutrality was probably for the best (despite the insult of the confiscation of two battleships under construction originally intended for the Ottoman Navy by the British).
Greece was approached simultaneously by the Entente, but in this case Britain and France followed a much more aggressive approach. In May 1915, a Franco-British force landed at Salonica in Greece to offer assistance and to pressure its government to declare war against the Central Powers. However, the pro-German King Constantine I dismissed the pro-Allied government of Eleftherios Venizelos before the Allied expeditionary force arrived. The friction between the King of Greece and the Allies continued to accumulate with the National Schism, which effectively divided Greece between regions still loyal to the king and the new provisional government of Venizelos in Salonica. French and British forced in Greece swelled and they backed Venizelos. After intense negotiations and an armed confrontation in Athens between Allied and royalist forces, the King of Greece resigned and his second son Alexander took his place. Greece formally joined the war on the side of the Entente in July 1915 to take Western Thrace from Bulgaria.
The summer and autumn of 1915 saw a coordinated Entente effort on all fronts, as agreed to by France, Russia, Britain and Italy. On the Western Front, the Second Battle of Ostend erupted, which became a meatgrinder as both sides recognized its significance and sent in more soldiers. Between September 1915 and February 1916, the Entente suffered nearly 600.000 casualties and the Germans over 400.000. The battle resulted in the Entente moving the frontline by only four kilometres and the obliteration of every building in the city that had been left standing after the previous battle.
Little happened on the Eastern Front other than Russia repulsing Germany and Austro-Hungarian counteroffensives, but much more of crucial significance happened in the Balkans in 1915. An Anglo-French-Greek offensive successfully took Monastir. Italian forces quickly occupied Albania and launched a limited though successful offensive into Kosovo. Localized Greek offensives into Western Thrace took place as well over the course of 1915, producing moderate successes. All-in-all, the Entente had established a solid position in the Balkans by the start of autumn of 1915.
The Ottoman Empire and Romania, both neutral thus far, finally joined the Entente in September 1915 on the promise that they’d receive Eastern Rumelia and Transylvania as a prize respectively. A joint Entente offensive by Italian, British, French, Greek and Ottoman forces was subsequently unleashed in October, overwhelming Bulgaria and forcing it to request an armistice whilst liberating Serbia as far north as Niš. Prince Regent Paul managed to cross the frontline into the liberated southern half of his country and Serbia formally re-entered the war on the Entente side.
The southern flank of the Central Powers was now under serious threat and German Chief of the General Staff Erich von Falkenhayn, who was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, told Emperor Wilhelm II that the war could no longer be won militarily. He pointed out that the threat in the Balkans would force Austria-Hungary to shift forces from the Carpathians, which in turn would enable a Russian breakthrough there. Once they’d crossed the Carpathians, the Russians could march through the Great Hungarian Plain along the Tisza River and cut Austria-Hungary in half, causing it to collapse. However, not doing so would expose Austria-Hungary to an invasion from the south. At that point Germany would find itself fighting overwhelming Entente numbers by themselves spread across multiple fronts, culminating in total military defeat. Falkenhayn’s advice was that Germany should offer a conditional surrender and pick its fights at the negotiating table. Wilhelm II threatened to fire him, but quickly discovered that potential replacements such as Hindenburg shared these pessimistic views.
The only success so far was the victory of the High Seas Fleet in the Battle of Dogger Bank. The tactics of the German navy consisted of trying to lure out a portion of the Royal Navy and then destroy it, knowing that they couldn’t risk a decisive battle as the Royal Navy had a 3:2 advantage in dreadnought-type battleships. The fleet sortied in November 1915 and based on faulty intelligence from Room 40 the British admiralty believed only the German battlecruisers were involved in this action, which they interpreted as a raid. The Royal Navy’s 1st and 2nd Battlecruiser Squadrons sortied and intercepted the German battlecruisers, who disengaged and thereby encouraged commanding officer Vice Admiral Beatty to pursue and destroy them.
To his horror the 3rd German Battle Squadron emerged from the fog banks. Six British battlecruisers and escorting vessels faced seven German battleships and five battlecruisers. The British Battlecruiser Fleet’s flagship HMS Lion exploded when a 30.5 cm (12 inch) shell fired by German battleship König penetrated its armour and exploded in its aft magazine, killing Beatty and throwing the British battlecruisers into chaos. German commander Admiral Scheer managed to have his ships cross the British T, inflicting heavy damage. Only HMS Indefatigable returned and the rest of the British battlecruiser force was sunk while the Germans only suffered moderate damage to their ships, except the heavily damaged battlecruiser Seydlitz. Ironically, this success would convince the British that the size of the Imperial German Navy had to be curtailed.
As of December 1915, Austria-Hungary still managed to hold off the Italians, Romanians and the Russians by using the natural defences provided by the Alps and the Carpathians. They, however, couldn’t prevent the Entente from advancing north and liberating Belgrade by Christmas. Their plans for spring of 1916 consisted of an advance along the Danube to take Vienna from the southeast. The Italians would simultaneously attempt to force the Ljubljana Gap agian, breaking out into the Slovenian plateau and threatening Vienna. The military situation presented Austro-Hungarian Chief of Staff Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf with a catch-22: he could shift forces from the Carpathians to the Balkans and the Isonzo front, but then the Russians would break through; if he didn’t send reinforcements to these fronts, the Entente would break through on the southern flank.
Like his German counterpart Falkenhayn, Hötzendorf reluctantly informed his master Emperor Franz Joseph that the war could no longer be won. Austria-Hungary had to request an armistice and salvage what it could at the negotiating table. In the following weeks, an intense diplomatic exchange commenced between Vienna and Berlin as Franz Joseph told his German ally he would seek terms, forcing Germany to follow suit. On February 17th 1916, Germany and Austria-Hungary requested an armistice, thus ending the Great War. The first total war, the first modern industrial European conflict, was over after about eighteen months of fighting. In this one half year of war 4.5 million people had perished: 2.5 million military personnel and two million non-combatants. The last conflict with such enormous casualties were the Napoleonic Wars, the key difference being that that conflict had lasted for twelve years instead of eighteen months. War had become a far deadlier business and the victors would carve out their pound of flesh.