The Eastern Front Compiled by Mike Allen Eastern

The Eastern Front Compiled by Mike Allen

Eastern Front Overview • The Eastern Front was far longer than the Western Front, over 1600 km as opposed to 700 km • The sides were never able to establish continuous trenches. • Therefore there was more movement than on the Western Front. • Though there were many battles they were not decisive. • The chief protagonists were the Austro-Hungarian empire. The German Empire and the Russian Empire later supplemented by Romania and Bulgaria. • Germany initially wanted to fight a defensive war in the East whilst defeating the French in the West. • Stalemate in the West and the weakness of the Austro-Hungarians led it to put more effort and resources into the East.

Eastern Front �More mobile and unstable as a result. Impossible to establish permanent trenches. �Troops widely dispersed so the enemy (Germany) could break through more easily.

Eastern Front When the line was breached, a primitive line of communications made things worse. Reinforcements had to be found for counter attack. Harsh winter made for unbearable conditions.

The battle of Tannenberg • The Russians began a 2 prong attack into East Prussia • The 1 st army under General Paul von Rennenkampf with 210, 000 men was to attack west along the railway towards Konigsberg • Whilst the 2 nd army with 206, 000 men under General Alexander Samsonov, was to attack from the south near Tannenberg to a link up with the 1 st army at Konigsberg. • The Germans had 135, 000 men under Maximilian von Prittwitz.

The battle of Tannenberg 2 • The first army defeated the Germans at Gumbinnen though with heavy causalities. Prittwitz proposed to withdraw behind the Vistula but he was replace by Paul von Hindenburg with Erich Ludendorff as his deputy. • Hidenburg decided to attack the Russians in the South and almost all German troops facing the 1 st army were withdrawn leaving a cavalry screen opposing the Russians.

The battle of Tannenberg 3 • • • The Germans attacked on the western flank of the Russians to cut off the main body of troops. The troops in the north the attacked and surrounded the Russians effecting a complete envelopment killing many troops and causing many more to surrender. Samsonov's Second Army was destroyed, with 92, 000 Russian troops captured, another 78, 000 killed or wounded, and only 10, 000 (mostly from the retreating flanks) escaping. The Germans suffered fewer than 20, 000 casualties and captured over 500 guns. Sixty trains were required to transport captured Russian equipment to Germany.

The Aftermath • The Germans then turned north to defeat and push back the first army. • They could not follow up their victory because the Russians had defeated the Austro-Hungarians at Lwow, and German assistance was desperately needed. • The Russians never fully recovered from their defeat.

The Eastern Front 1915 • • In 1915 the German command decided to make its main effort on the Eastern Front, and accordingly transferred considerable forces there. To eliminate the Russian threat the Central Powers began the campaign season of 1915 with the successful Gorlice–Tarnów Offensive in Galicia in May 1915. After the Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes, the German and Austro-Hungarian troops in the Eastern Front functioned under a unified command. The offensive soon turned into a general advance and a corresponding strategic retreat by the Russian Army. The cause of the reverses suffered by the Russian Army was not so much errors in the tactical sphere, as the deficiency in technical equipment, particularly in artillery and ammunition as well as the corruption and incompetence of the Russian officers. Only by 1916 did the buildup of Russian war industries increase production of war material and improve the supply situation. By mid-1915, the Russians had been expelled from Russian Poland hence pushed hundreds of kilometers away from the borders of the Central Powers, removing the threat of Russian invasion of Germany or Austria-Hungary. At the end of 1915 German-Austrian advance was stopped on the line Riga–Jakobstadt– Dünaburg–Baranovichi–Pinsk–Dubno–Tarnopol. The general outline of this front line did not change until the Russian collapse in 1917.

Brusilov Offensive 1916 • The Italian operations during 1916 pulled Austrian divisions away from the Russian southern front. • This allowed the Russian forces to organize a counter-offensive. The Brusilov Offensive was a large tactical assault carried out by Russian forces against Austro-Hungarian forces in Galicia. • General Aleksei Brusilov believed victory against the Central Powers was possible if close attention was paid to preparation. Brusilov suggested that the Russians should attack on a wide front, and to position their trenches a mere seventy-five yard away from Austrian trenches. • Brusilov's plan worked impeccably. The Russians outnumbered the Austrians 200, 000 to 150, 000, and held a considerable advantage in guns, with 904 large guns to 600. Most importantly innovative new tactics were used to perform quick and effective close-range surprise attacks that allowed a steady advance.

Brusilov Offensive 2 • • • The Russian Eighth Army overwhelmed the Austrian Fourth and pushed on to Lutsk, advancing forty miles beyond the starting position. Over a million Austrians were lost, with over 500, 000 men killed or taken prisoner by mid-June. Although the Brusilov Offensive was initially successful, it slowed down considerably. An inadequate number of troops and poorly maintained supply lines hindered Brusilov's ability to follow up on the initial victories in June. The Brusilov Offensive is considered to be the greatest Russian victory of the First World War. Although it cost the Russians half a million casualties, the offensive successfully diverted substantial forces of the Central Powers from the Western front, and persuaded Romania to join the war, diverting even more Central Powers forces to the East.