Anchises

Banned
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Naroch_Offensive

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brusilov_Offensive

To break with one of the classic alternate history cliches lets not assume that Brussilov gets killed ITTL. He just ends up on the wrong side of Russian army politics early in his career and never manages to rise through the ranks. IOTL he gained a lot of positive attention in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878. ITTL that doesn't happen.

WW1 still happens like OTL but Brussilov participates as a low ranking general and has no opportunity to distinguish himself. He is a pencil pusher or has an unimportant command.

WW1 until after the failure of the Lake Naroch Offensive happens by and large like OTL (butterfly net!).

However after the Lake Naroch debacle butterflies start to flap their wings.

Classical Generals still using the old tactics are in charge of all fronts and there is no influential figure championing the use of "Brussilov-tactics".

How does WW1 unfolds ITTL?
 
"Hutier" infiltration doctrine was still being developed independently by the Germans so we'd still see the use of stormtroopers along with "Durchbruchmuller" artillery tactics that proved very effective later.

If a general Russian offensive is total failure that likely breaks the Russian Army altogether as a force and increases discontent even more at home, the fighting on the Eastern Front might end sooner than OTL.

Austria-Hungary is spared its most catastrophic defeat of the war and remains stable, sparing the Germans from having to transfer men and materiel from the Western Front to keep them propped up. Specifically the Germans won't have to transfer men away from the Verdun salient which means French counterattacks are going to be costly. France comes out worse for the wear as a result.

Romania remains neutral, which means Falkenhayn doesn't get sacked. I'm unsure of what decisions he would make but the Germans are probably better served with him still in charge instead of Ludendorff.

All in all I think it greatly increases the chances of a Central Powers victory.
 

Anchises

Banned
"Hutier" infiltration doctrine was still being developed independently by the Germans so we'd still see the use of stormtroopers along with "Durchbruchmuller" artillery tactics that proved very effective later.

If a general Russian offensive is total failure that likely breaks the Russian Army altogether as a force and increases discontent even more at home, the fighting on the Eastern Front might end sooner than OTL.

Austria-Hungary is spared its most catastrophic defeat of the war and remains stable, sparing the Germans from having to transfer men and materiel from the Western Front to keep them propped up. Specifically the Germans won't have to transfer men away from the Verdun salient which means French counterattacks are going to be costly. France comes out worse for the wear as a result.

Romania remains neutral, which means Falkenhayn doesn't get sacked. I'm unsure of what decisions he would make but the Germans are probably better served with him still in charge instead of Ludendorff.

All in all I think it greatly increases the chances of a Central Powers victory.

That mirrors my initial thoughts.

But what if the Russians employ a defensive strategy? One or two limited offensives against the Germans while other wise digging trenches.

After Naroch most Generals were convinced that further offensives were futile. I have my doubts that they would waste away their army in completely pointless attacks.
 

Deleted member 1487

That mirrors my initial thoughts.

But what if the Russians employ a defensive strategy? One or two limited offensives against the Germans while other wise digging trenches.

After Naroch most Generals were convinced that further offensives were futile. I have my doubts that they would waste away their army in completely pointless attacks.
The Russian general staff had to attack for political reasons, both domestic and to support their allies, despite being dubious about the ability for success; they were going to attack the Germans in the north again rather than the Austrians, but since Brusilov IOTL was so insistent that he could pull off a major offensive STAVKA was more than happy to give him a go to satisfy the demands of their allies rather than repeat Lake Naroch again. Without Brusilov then and assuming no one else similar willing to do the same sort of offensive, the Russians launch big attacks against the Germans and end up getting a Lake Naroch result again before giving up. Not sure if that is any worse/better than what the impact was on the Germans IOTL, but for the Austrians it is a HUGE help. They can continue to coast in the East, while remaining a powerful ally for Germany who can hold up through the war; the disaster of the Brusilov offensive was the final straw for Habsburg credibility and began the process of unraveling the monarchy/Empire. If the consequences of another failed Russian offensive in 1916 are as dire as they were IOTL the Austrians will be in a great place to take advantage in Ukraine, especially after the Asiago offensive winds down.
 

Anchises

Banned
The Russian general staff had to attack for political reasons, both domestic and to support their allies, despite being dubious about the ability for success; they were going to attack the Germans in the north again rather than the Austrians, but since Brusilov IOTL was so insistent that he could pull off a major offensive STAVKA was more than happy to give him a go to satisfy the demands of their allies rather than repeat Lake Naroch again. Without Brusilov then and assuming no one else similar willing to do the same sort of offensive, the Russians launch big attacks against the Germans and end up getting a Lake Naroch result again before giving up.

Fair enough. The Brussiov Offensive IOTL yielded results though. If ITTL the Russian offensive runs straight into the meatgrinder without any gains, I could imagine that it ends sooner with fewer losses than the Brussilov Offensive. I mean sure, your argument about political pressure makes sense but I just don't see the huge Russian losses of OTL happening without the successes that Brussilov's approach yielded.

Personally I think Brussilov is one of the rare examples where a single general acually has a great impact. I don't see other promising candidates in the Russian officer pool and I have my doubts that the byzantine politics of the Tsarist army would necessarily allow the conclusion that new tactics are a necessity. Blaming the weak Russian industry worked for a lot of generals.

Not sure if that is any worse/better than what the impact was on the Germans IOTL,

There is some serious butterfly potential here. I could see a scenario where the Germans don't have to rotate troops to the East making Verdun even more murderous than IOTL. This is going to weaken France, potentially pushing them over the edge in 1917 which was a bad year even IOTL.

but for the Austrians it is a HUGE help. They can continue to coast in the East, while remaining a powerful ally for Germany who can hold up through the war; the disaster of the Brusilov offensive was the final straw for Habsburg credibility and began the process of unraveling the monarchy/Empire. If the consequences of another failed Russian offensive in 1916 are as dire as they were IOTL the Austrians will be in a great place to take advantage in Ukraine, especially after the Asiago offensive winds down.

If the Russians sustain similar losses to OTL there is huge potential for a Austro-Hungarian offensive in 1916/1917. Russian resistance might collapse sooner than IOTL if A-H still has the military potential to conduct serious large scale offensives in the East.

Without the losses of the Brussilov offensive A-H might be able to shoulder most of the occupation in the East in ITTLs Brest-Litovsk equivalent. This would free up more German troops to use in the West.
 
Brusilov could be assigned command of the 6th Army, which was kept around Petograd and got into the fight late, or command in the Far East. In empires there are lots of places to post senior officers where no one will have heard of them.

The likeliest alternative to Brusilov at the Southwest Front, Dmitry Shcherbachev, seems pretty competent based on some quick internet research so there may have been no difference after all.

The intention at STAVKA was for the attack by Southwest Front to be a diversionary attack, to draw German forces to the Austrian Front, and then open up the main offensive against the Germans. The southwestern attack turned into the main and only axis of advance because of the initial success. The likeliest alternative is that the Southwest Front still attacks, it is the main diversionary attack as planned, and then the main offensive happens in the north.

So in terms of the military situation or the Tsarist army, I don't think anything changes at all, just the narrative. The Russian advance looked impressive on the map but they didn't take any place of importance and the Central Powers were able to stabilize the front. The Russians took heavy losses, but this would have been the case if there had been two offensives, instead of successive offensives in the southwest.

However, the offensive had a weird effect on the Central Powers command politics. The success of the Brusilov offensive induced Rumania to declare war on Germany and Austria-Hungary. For some reason the chief of OhL, Falkenhayn, was blamed for this and fired. In fact he wound up tasked with fighting the Rumanians, which he did successfully, so its not clear if Rumania entering the war against them really hurt the Central Powers (they got Rumanian's resources anyway and a good deal of Russian forces, including the aforementioned 6th Army, were sent to the new front). Falkenhayn had unsuccessfully tried to stop the diversion of Austro-Hungarian forces from Galicia to Italy, which had been the main cause of the disaster. The replacement of Falkenhayn by Hindenburg was pretty significant.

However, Falkenhayn was unpopular in Germany army politics and had been on the verge of getting fired almost from the moment he took over at OhL, so I think the Rumania thing was just the excuse or the straw that broke the camel's back. My sense is that there would have been something else, though I can't think of anything on the top of my head. Another potential butterfly is that the 1916 Austro-Hungarian offensive against Italy was actually pretty successful for a World War I offensive, and maybe with less of an emergency with Galicia and Romania it would have been allowed to proceed and make more gains.
 

Deleted member 1487

However, the offensive had a weird effect on the Central Powers command politics. The success of the Brusilov offensive induced Rumania to declare war on Germany and Austria-Hungary. For some reason the chief of OhL, Falkenhayn, was blamed for this and fired. In fact he wound up tasked with fighting the Rumanians, which he did successfully, so its not clear if Rumania entering the war against them really hurt the Central Powers (they got Rumanian's resources anyway and a good deal of Russian forces, including the aforementioned 6th Army, were sent to the new front). Falkenhayn had unsuccessfully tried to stop the diversion of Austro-Hungarian forces from Galicia to Italy, which had been the main cause of the disaster. The replacement of Falkenhayn by Hindenburg was pretty significant.

However, Falkenhayn was unpopular in Germany army politics and had been on the verge of getting fired almost from the moment he took over at OhL, so I think the Rumania thing was just the excuse or the straw that broke the camel's back. My sense is that there would have been something else, though I can't think of anything on the top of my head. Another potential butterfly is that the 1916 Austro-Hungarian offensive against Italy was actually pretty successful for a World War I offensive, and maybe with less of an emergency with Galicia and Romania it would have been allowed to proceed and make more gains.
Falkenhayn was on thin ice over the Verdun situation and it's perceived failure; he then promised the Kaiser that Romania wouldn't join the war even after the success of the Brusilov situation, so Romania declaring war was the final straw of his misreading of the strategic situation. Ironically other than this mistake about Romania he was largely very right about the strategic situation and the failure at Verdun was a function of German intelligence services misunderstanding the French rotating divisions out every two weeks; they assumed they were smashing French divisions at an incredible rate rather than Petain trying to preserve the morale of his forces by only exposing them for a short tour in Verdun, as the French had never done anything like that before. So Falkenhayn though his strategy was working, having no real way to know of Petain's rotation scheme until after the war. Falkenhayn did nothing about stopping the A-H offensive or troop transfers, he didn't trust the Austrians and had a very bad relationship with Conrad, so didn't tell him about the offensive at Verdun, while the Austrians then didn't tell the Germans about their offensive in Italy. All that of course was counted against Falkenhayn.

Falkenhayn, being a favorite of the Kaiser, who was unable to continue supporting his as head of OHL after being wrong about Romania (in part due to the pressure within the army to replace him with H-L, who were very popular with the public due to the great media attention they have lavished on them and who were very vocal about their criticisms in public of Falkenhayn), was given a chance to redeem himself by heading up the expedition to crush Romania.

The Asiago offensive was already failed due to the logistics of it being wiped out by the weather in the mountains, while the Italians were able to get reinforcements moved up in time; by the time the offensive was cancelled due to Brusilov the offensive had already been checked:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Öster...llung_der_Offensive_und_Zurücknahme_der_Front
 

Anchises

Banned
Brusilov could be assigned command of the 6th Army, which was kept around Petograd and got into the fight late, or command in the Far East. In empires there are lots of places to post senior officers where no one will have heard of them.

The likeliest alternative to Brusilov at the Southwest Front, Dmitry Shcherbachev, seems pretty competent based on some quick internet research so there may have been no difference after all.

The intention at STAVKA was for the attack by Southwest Front to be a diversionary attack, to draw German forces to the Austrian Front, and then open up the main offensive against the Germans. The southwestern attack turned into the main and only axis of advance because of the initial success. The likeliest alternative is that the Southwest Front still attacks, it is the main diversionary attack as planned, and then the main offensive happens in the north.

So in terms of the military situation or the Tsarist army, I don't think anything changes at all, just the narrative. The Russian advance looked impressive on the map but they didn't take any place of importance and the Central Powers were able to stabilize the front. The Russians took heavy losses, but this would have been the case if there had been two offensives, instead of successive offensives in the southwest.

However, the offensive had a weird effect on the Central Powers command politics. The success of the Brusilov offensive induced Rumania to declare war on Germany and Austria-Hungary. For some reason the chief of OhL, Falkenhayn, was blamed for this and fired. In fact he wound up tasked with fighting the Rumanians, which he did successfully, so its not clear if Rumania entering the war against them really hurt the Central Powers (they got Rumanian's resources anyway and a good deal of Russian forces, including the aforementioned 6th Army, were sent to the new front). Falkenhayn had unsuccessfully tried to stop the diversion of Austro-Hungarian forces from Galicia to Italy, which had been the main cause of the disaster. The replacement of Falkenhayn by Hindenburg was pretty significant.

However, Falkenhayn was unpopular in Germany army politics and had been on the verge of getting fired almost from the moment he took over at OhL, so I think the Rumania thing was just the excuse or the straw that broke the camel's back. My sense is that there would have been something else, though I can't think of anything on the top of my head. Another potential butterfly is that the 1916 Austro-Hungarian offensive against Italy was actually pretty successful for a World War I offensive, and maybe with less of an emergency with Galicia and Romania it would have been allowed to proceed and make more gains.

a) Yeah, to break with the trope of "kill everyone for a POD" that seems like a cool idea. There are more than enough dead end positions for Russian generals.

b) Shcherbachev indeed seems competent. However I really have doubts that his level of competence would necessarily translate into the innovations and success that Brussilov managed to achieve.

And in the Tsarist army we have to keep in mind that there is always politics involved. Even if Shcherbache would draw the same strategic and tactic conclusions, does he have the connections and backbone to insist on a "Shcherbachev Offensive" conducted in the "right way"? The other Tsarist Generals were against a general offensive against A-H and STAVKA tried to influence the way that Brussilovs offensive was conducted.

It might be entirely possible that STAVKA prevents the offensive from being successful by ordering large troop concentrations instead of a wider front.

c) If we assume that the main attack is happening in the West, there is a high possibility that the Southern Front has to sacrifice artillery, munition and men at some point. Evert and other traditionalists believed the reason for their failed offensives was a lack of heavy artillery.

If the political decision is made to mainly attack the Germans in the West, this will reduce the available ressources in the South. Just like IOTL Evert's offensive will quickly fail.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baranovichi_Offensive something like this will be the result. This leaves the Russians two politically possible options:

1) Strenghten the West and keep feeding men and material into the grinder. The strategic rationale here would be breaking the Germans in combination with the Somme and Verdun.

2) Shift the offensive focus southward if Shcherbachev manages some modest intial gains.

With option 1) Baranovichi will become the "Eastern Verdun" but with even more loopsided casualties. Option a) would be the ideal outcome for the Germans. A-H i pressured much less and will be able to conduct offensive operations in the Ukraine. I doubt that the Germans would be forced to relocate as much troops as OTL to the East.

Option 2) is interesting. Ultimately A-H will have lesser casualties and will lose not as much ground. Even Brussilov himself stopped using his new approach towards the end of his offensive.

So instead of the phyrric victory with catastrophic losses we might see a tactical defeat for the Russians but with much lower casualties for both sides.

This currently leads me to the following scenario:

Shcherbachev, due to STAVKA meddling and not being a military genius like Brussilov, isn't able to implement the Brussilov-approach to the same degree. He also fails to enforce a strategic focus on A-H.

He manages to throw back the Austrians but his territorial gains are more modest. The Southern Offensive quickly peters out after some intial successes the Austrians manage to stabilize the situation with a little German help.

In the West Evert is forced to attack and quickly runs into the same problems that plagued him IOTL. Instead of ending the attacks ike IOTL, political pressure forces him to continue. He successfully lobbies for addtional reserves and material that is drawn from the Southern Front.

The Germans can shift their troops from the South to the West, without needing large scale redeployments from France.

Without tangible Russian gains Romania doesn't join the Entente and Russian losses are actually not quite as catastrophic as IOTL. So Russia actually is better off than IOTL because without Romania and with lower losses they still have enough strength left for another major offensive. Psychollogically the Russian situation is much worse though. Without a much needed victory, even the extremely phyrric one of OTL, there is a serious possibility that the Tsar is forced to seek peace earlier than IOTL. From the Russian perspective ITTL another offensive would be yet another waste of men and material.

Germany ITTL has more troops on the Western Front, so either the Entente faces more troops at the Somme or the Germans continue attacking Verdun longer than IOTL.
 
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