WWI Eastern Front: How was Germany so Successful?

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Even though Tsarist Russia was dealing with a ton internal political issues, and didn't have the most advanced armaments and troops at their disposal, those alone don't really account for all of the reasons why Germany was able to advance and hold on to so much Russian territory between 1914-17

Through successive campaign seasons, in the face of Russian winters and Raputitsas, the German army seemed to be able to do what no army (aside from the Mongols) had ever done before. Beat Russia consistently during a land invasion and conquer their territory outright.

Tactically and strategically, how were they able to do this?

Where does this somewhat vastly underrated feat rank on your scale of impressive military victories? (Or maybe it doesn't at all?)
 
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Napoleon did the same, he simply did not have the supply train and "trains" the Germans did. The Germans
also did not get near Moscow and settled for a negotiated peace. Even with a shattered revolutionary Russia that did not seem to have any ability to wage war. It was a accomplishment but it could have been swept away if they continued to fight.( See WW 2)
 
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LordKalvert

Banned
There are numerous things-

1) The Germans were able to stand on the defensive in East Prussia which is a nightmare to attack. Each of her "great" victories there are simply defeating two smaller enemies in turn

2) The Russians were sorely lacking in ammunitions. They basically run out of field shells in 1915

3) Russia is under a near total blockade- unlike Germany that still got huge resources through the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden and, for a while, Italy and Romania

4) The Russians weren't afraid to trade space for time- which is what they do in 1915. They bounce back hard in 1916

5) The Russians had trouble operating on the long supply lines, had their reserve stocks spent during the Japanese War and had spent money on a few things they probably shouldn't have (fortresses and ships- but that's with hindsight as no one knew that war would break out in 1914)

6) The Germans get a lot of help from their Turkish and Austrian allies. They don't do well but draw off huge Russian forces from the German front

There are a lot of others. Just trying to hit the highlights.
 
The German army was simply better in every respect. When they moved by train they moved more men faster than the Russians, when they moved off trains it was the same. When the Germans dug trenches they dug them deeper and had communications trenches back to the second line. The Russians dug shallow trenches that weren't much good against the abundant German howitzers causing them to ran across open ground to the rear trench and got slaughtered by shrapnel in the process.

The German tactic was to mass forces on a wide front, hammer the trenches, smash the Russians in them and then move forward. It was all pretty easy as far as WW1 warfare went.
 
It was an - almost ideal - combination of the Russians doing it wrong and the Germans doing it right. In oder to bail out their precious French ally, the Russians attacked prematurely and in an uncoordinated manner. Then, the Germans did something new (on the eastern front): concentrate heavy artillery, which caught the Russians on the wrong foot, as they were just in the process of pushing the Austro-Hungarians down into the Hungarian lowlands (which would have ended the war because of A-H capitulation).

The 1916 Brusilov Offensive (another attack to benefit the western front, designed as complementary to the Somme) was a stunning success, but also digging the grave for the old Russian army. The 1917 Kerensky Offensive added the final nail to the coffin.

Note however that the Russians did fine opposite the Austro-Hungarians and the Turks, both of which they - almost - had pushed out of the war by mid-1916, when Russia started to crack. And the Germans were not given the chance to do something fatally wrong, as Ludendorff's great encirclement scheme for 1915 was never allowed to happen.

Looking from the German perspective, it was a matter of fending the Russians off - until they collapsed all by themselves. - But this wasn't the lesson the Germans learned. What the military took from the Great War was: Russia can be beaten. A fatal lesson, as they were going to learn 1941-45.
 

TinyTartar

Banned
A few factors. The Germans were massively better organized logistically and in terms of command structure, not to mention the commanders were simply better. However, practically, the Germans were able to move everything they needed by rail to the front and concentrate men and material where and when it was needed. The Russians could do this in some areas, but not others, and not in any kind of standardized fashion. The reason for this is, as we learn in WW2, the Germans can move anything they want east until they get to Smolensk. They never got to Smolensk in WW1. This simply shows that the Germans occupied territory as reasonably as possible, as they did not end up overextended like they did in WW2. Their occupation policies were perhaps not genocidal, but they were very harsh and brutal, however, it did not lead to guerilla action primarily because of the unpopularity of the war in Russia as time went on, as well as the lack of government initiative in forming unrest in occupied lands, many of which were not even ethnically Russian.

On a tactical level, the Russians had massive shortfalls of artillery ammunition and guns, and this showed itself to be critical, as the Germans massed artillery to great advantage. The German Army seemed to be a step ahead of the Russians more often than not on a technological level. There were more machine guns per capita among German units, with more ammunition, and the Shock tactics were used particularly in the later parts of the eastern front. Gas was first used against the Russians, and it was far more successful in the East due to a lack of Russian gas masks across the front, making the use of gas pretty damn lethal. There are also stories of Russians not having rifles to fight with, which are likely false but based off of the true notion of the poor logistical support for Russian field armies. Rifle ammunition WAS known to be an issue, particularly in the early parts of the war. Russian infantry training was insufficient compared to that of the Germans as well, but this was not nearly as critical as the inferiority of Russian Junior officers to their German counterparts. Despite all of this, however, the Russians were still better in the field against the Austro-Hungarians and Turks, so make of that what you will.

But basically, Russia was from the very start to the very end facing a far better led, supplied, trained, and armed German Army in the East. It is not really surprising that they had issues in WW1.
 
In simple words:

The farmer state of Zar Russia, was over run by a German War Machine.

The Russian used horse cavalry as offensive attack force, against Germans troops using machine guns.
the Zar Air force had only 42 craft who mostly were not operational, also the rest were not used for reconnaissance.

another madness was the Zar army communication, by Radio, they send most message uncoded and clear !
This way the Germans troops got information were to the Russian troops were marching to.
while Russian messenger needed 24 hours to bring important order form yesterday to the front...

next to that the Russian generalissimos Samsonow and Rennenkampff were in power struggle
they were mortal enemy since 1905 Russian Japanese war.
 
Napoleon did the same, he simply did not have the supply train and "trains" the Germans did. The Germans
also did not get near Moscow and settled for a negotiated peace. Even with a shattered revolutionary Russia that did not seem to have any ability to wage war. It was a accomplishment but it could have been swept away if they continued to fight.( See WW 2)

Brest-Litovsk was not a negotiated peace. At first, the way the Germans saw it, the Soviets weren't taking the peace negotiations "seriously" i.e. they refused to accept any territorial or monetary losses, insisted on "no war- no peace", and sent a drunk peasant as part of their peace delegation (no joke).

Because of this they resumed their advance against the Red Army, which was demobilizing as ordered and covered 150 miles in a week. It was hardly even a war, more of a spring vacation :p. They could have easily reached Moscow, there was nothing to stop them from doing so. The Soviets agreed to the Germans new terms out of fear of what was to come (they almost refused to accept terms again though). The Soviets were also okay with it being a non-negotiable treaty because the way they saw it all they needed to do was sit back and wait a bit before the revolution spread to Germany, in fact, just to show how much they didn't care, the Soviets didn't even bother to read the treaty until they ratified it after the signing.
 
If the question is specifically why the Kaiser's armies didn't fail the way those of Napoleon, Charles XII, or Hitler did, I think the key difference is the handling of logistics.

The failed invasions of Russia in 1812, 1708, and 1941 all employed a momentum-based operational concept intended to win in a single campaign season. All three invasions achieved major successes their first year, but in chasing quick victory they outran their supply lines, failed to achieve outright victory due to Russia's strategic depth, and then suffered enormous attritional losses in the Russian winter at the ends of badly-overstretched supply lines.

The Germans in 1914, on the other hand, understood that Russia was too big to take down in a single campaigning season. Offensives were pressed to the limit of effective supply and not much further, winter clothing and other supplies were budgeted in logistical planning, and Russia was gradually ground down by attrition, territorial loss, and internal political collapse over the course of several years.

Secondarily, the balance of industrial and manpower mobilization potentials was much less favorable to Russia in WWI than in the Great Nordic War or WWII: Germany in 1914 had the luxury of winning slowly, while the risky strategies employed by Sweden in 1708 and Germany in 1941 were forced by the certainty that Russia could win a long war through attrition. Napoleon's error in 1812 was probably unforced, but audacity and momentum had served him well in past campaigns and he was unable to resist falling back into patterns that had served him well in other circumstances.
 
The failed invasions of Russia in 1812, 1708, and 1941 all employed a momentum-based operational concept intended to win in a single campaign season.

I think this is extremely important.

The Germans acted in ways that minimized their chances of error.

The Russian Army suffered from various handicaps that eventually destroyed their forces. They lost many of their capable NCOs and junior officers in 1914-1915. They lost much of their heavy artillery in 1915. They had inadequate industry to supply their armies in the field during a prolonged war. They had weak political leadership. They lacked the training and expertise that WWI required. The inadequacies of Russian society such as illiteracy meant it was harder to rebuild losses in such a short time at the same level of competence.

All together it meant the Russian Army was least capable of reforming to account for the very different war than the one they planned. Their army simply disintegrated under the strain of war. Others did as well, but the Russians disintegrated faster and this made all the difference.
 

Gstbschef

Banned
Despite all of this, however, the Russians were still better in the field against the Austro-Hungarians

Repeating clichés of most historians that " For the Austro-Hungarian army always won by the Germans ", this assertion is nonsense (it's probably a deliberate assertion supported by Russian historians, because that Russia is not in a worse position than Austria-Hungary).


Little known fact is that:

The proportion of both armies (Austria-Hungary, Germany) in joint operations OTL:
1915 Gorlice Offensive: A-H 65%, G 35%
1915 Serbia: A-H 35%, G 30%, Bulgaria 35%
1916 Romania: A-H 46%, G 29%, B 25%
1917 Battle of Caporetto: A-H 51%, G 49%
 
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