The Eastern Front 1914-1917

by Norman Stone

  On 26th April Dobrorolski, chief of staff of III Army, said the Germans intended ‘breaking through at Nowysącz and north’—exactly correct. The local population of Ruthenes was so Russophil that information came in thick and fast—to such a degree that Seeckt wanted the populace moved out altogether. By 29th April, three German corps were noted; on the 30th desertions from the Austrian army revealed that attack was due to begin on 2nd May. None of this seems to have disturbed Russian confidence. Radko-Dmitriev was told, ‘There is nothing in III Army’s situation to suggest any danger’; the field-fortifications had been ‘strengthened in time’.23 The best counter would be a renewed Carpathian offensive, particularly by IX Army, with its six infantry and two cavalry corps on the Dniester, far to the south-east.

  The German break-through was quite a simple affair. It began with a four-hour bombardment on 2nd May that reduced Russian trenches to rubble, swept aside barbed-wire, cut telephones and prevented local reserves from coming up in time. The bombardment ended with Minenwerfer action that scared the ill-trained defenders from their places, and the Russians lost a third of their men through gunfire alone—many of the rest reduced to a state of shock. One German corps attacked the point of junction of the two Russian ones, drove a wedge between them and took 4,000 prisoners in an hour. Since there were no rear positions, the defenders simply moved back into open country, still more vulnerable to gunfire. On that day and the next, the Germans advanced eight miles, and in this area ruined the Russian corps’ defence-system altogether—10. Corps fell from 34,000 rifles to barely 5,000, and a second-line division of 9. Corps further north simply disintegrated. A gap of five miles opened between the two corps. The commander of III Army, was not on the telephone, and was in any case absent for celebration of the St. George Order. But in any case there was little he could do. Local reserves had been pushed in, often through bombardment, in piece-meal style. There was not much else. Two regiments, force-marched into the gap, disappeared in it on 3rd May. Two cavalry divisions, hurriedly summoned, with twenty-four guns between them, also melted away in useless counter-attacks. Half of 63. Division, a second-line one, was marched forward without maps to much the same fate. The only substantial group in reserve was 3. Caucasus Corps, in two groups some way to the rear. It could not arrive until 4th May, and in any case, as Radko-Dmitriev reported, 10. Corps and the cavalry were ‘so seriously disrupted that even the arrival of 3. Caucasus Corps can only serve to cover retreat’. Most of the troops had been swallowed up in inadequate first-line defences, let down by their artillery, unable, in many cases, to use their rifles with skill. In any case many of these divisions existed purely on paper—facts known to the army command, but not, it seems, to the officers of Stavka.

  The Germans had captured huge numbers of prisoners on the first two days. But they too had suffered. They could not exploit the victory with much speed, for their own supplies had to be hauled up over broken country, and at Biecz they encountered 3. Caucasus Corps, which gave a good account of itself, on 4th–5th May. It proved impossible to move fast enough to cut the roads leading north from the Carpathians, and trap the Carpathian part of III Army. Only one division—Kornilov’s—was caught, partly because its order to retreat came too late, partly because its supply-routes were taken up with other troops’ supplies, partly because Kornilov foolishly counter-attacked: he surrendered on 6th May, with all but five guns.24 The corps in the region had retired towards the Dukla Pass, and formed something of a line on the river Wisloka, by 6th May.

  This line was nearly a hundred kilometres in length, more or less running north-south, fifty miles west of the San. It was outflanked to the south as Austrian groups emerged from the Carpathians. The Germans assaulted its western side. Nothing at all had been done to prepare the line. Almost nothing could come in as reserve—Alexeyev had promised the half-strength, second-line 13. Siberian Division, but only half of it could come in—two regiments, not even full-strength. Two battalions of a hastily-composed ‘composite division’—scraped together from oddments found lying around the front—were also sent. But the troops expected to defend the line had been destroyed. Radko–Dmitriev asserted that, while nominally he might have twenty divisions, in fact they were worth five. 10. Corps had been reduced to 1,500 rifles—half of a regiment. He talked of ‘the Germans’ crushing strength, which with numerous artillery has in a short space literally destroyed our trenches and wiped out the defence in places to the last man’. Dragomirov of 9. Corps said ‘territorial troops have been utterly feeble, surrendering in droves’. Ivanov reckoned the army should go back to the San and re-fit. Brusilov was offered command of the entire area. ‘On my honour’ he turned the offer down. Yet Stavka insisted on retention of the Wisloka lines: Italy was about to intervene, IX Army would soon be in a position to attack Austria-Hungary in the Bukovina, such that Romania might come in as well.

  III Army had already lost over 200 guns; also, its shell-reserve had been expended much faster than foreseen. It now had to suffer shell-shortage, on top of everything. On 3rd May Radko-Dmitriev complained that he needed 50,000 rounds at once. He was told by Kondzerovski, for Stavka, ‘Your demands are in the impossible class’, and he was sent 22,000. On 5th May the demand was for 31,000, supply 18,000. The next day, demand was for 20,000: ‘I know that this cannot square with your earlier warnings on the subject, but my situation is exceptional’. Supply was 12,500, with a demand for proper accounting. This latter came back on 8th May: 9. Corps needed 43,000 and had 4,000; overall, 20,000 were needed at once, and 25,000 daily thereafter. 15,000 were then supplied.25

  Radko-Dmitriev sought to organise a counter-attack. He took 3. Caucasus Corps and 24. with other divisions that had come out of the Carpathians, and attempted counter-attack near the Dukla Pass. This occurred on 7th–8th May, just as a fresh German division came in, a renewed German offensive prepared, and a German stroke on the northern side under way, Radko-Dmitriev said: ‘I have great hopes in this manoeuvre, the only way of restoring the army’s position.’ There was a set-piece battle that gave the Germans thousands of prisoners, 24. Corps dropping to less than a thousand rifles, in a force, nominally, of forty thousand.

  Further north, the Prussian Guard broke through, forcing a retreat that left the rest of 10. Corps and much of 9. Corps in disorder—the Austrian IV Army, following it, taking thirty thousand prisoners. Only a radical retreat, to the San, could have saved the unbroken part of the army. But Stavka would not allow this at all,26 and Ivanov’s credit was so low that he could not behave with normal autonomy: on the contrary, he was now begging desperately for reinforcements from Alexeyev’s front. Danilov still behaved as if army corps were of full-strength. He talked grandiosely of counter-attacks. There came a medley of declamation and scripture from the Grand Duke. Ivanov, demanding retreat, was told by Danilov: ‘Your views cannot conceivably be submitted for the Supreme Commander’s approval’; and from the Grand Duke: ‘In view of your staff’s continual demands to retreat on this or that part of the front, you are hereby categorically ordered not to undertake any retreat whatsoever without my express permission’—fine, fighting stuff, that condemned III Army to bleed to death.

  On 10th May the nerves of Ivanov’s chief of staff broke: ‘The strategic position is quite hopeless. Our line is very extended, we cannot shuttle troops around it with the required speed, and the very weakness of our armies makes them less mobile; we are losing all capacity to fight’. Przemyśl must be given up, together with Galicia; the Germans would invade the Ukraine; Kiev must be fortified; Russia must ‘renounce serious military activity until we have recovered’. He was at once dismissed. But it took more than Stavka’s fortitude to hold III Army, which on 10th May was given permission to retire to the San. It had lost nearly 200 guns, and the Germans had taken 140,000 prisoners, in six days. Of 200,000 men and 50,000 replacements, only 40,000 unwounded men reached the San—10. and 24. Corps barely existed at all; 9. Corps had lost four-fifths; 3rd Caucasus, three-quarters.
21. Corps had 2,000 men, 12. Corps less than 8,000. Even retention of the San would be difficult enough. However, Stavka kept its hopes. On 6th May Alexeyev promised to send a corps and a division (he sent the weak 15. Corps); 5. Caucasus Corps was due to come from Odessa. Above all, the new IX Army would soon be ready for its attack in the Bukovina.27

  As things turned out, IX Army won a considerable, but irrelevant, success. Its 120,000 men took on 80,000 of the Austrian VII Army, dependent for supply on the narrow-gauge mountain railway through Körösmezö, and always hampered by Hungarian politicians’ interference—Count Tisza had forbidden the Hungarian State Railways to transport troops from Transylvania to the Bukovina because he wanted a guard kept against Romania, and feared a rising of the Romanians of Transylvania.28 By mid-May the Austrians had lost much of the Bukovina, and were forced to use one of III Army’s corps on this front, instead of on the Italian front. In the same way, the attacks of Südarmee on the Dniester were unsuccessful, for the most part, and losses were high. Falkenhayn disregarded these matters: if the Central Powers could succeed on the San, they would be cleared up. If the Central Powers failed there, nothing else would matter any more. Mackensen’s force was assembled for attack on the San, beginning in mid-month. On 9th May the Kaiser took up headquarters at Pless, to be near the scene of new operations in the Balkans and the east.

  Mackensen’s shell-reserve was once more brought up to the standard thousand rounds per field-gun: in other words, not far short of a million rounds. The entire reserve of Ivanov’s front on 13th May amounted to just over 100,000 rounds of all types, on 20th May to 114,000 field-cannon shell, 118,000 mountain-cannon, 25,000 howitzer, 42,000 heavy. III Army could only be given trivial amounts—60,000 rounds sent from Lwów on 17th May, 15,000 to follow—even then with unpleasant observations: ‘Unless you have been throwing away your shell-boxes, there must be enough’. But as yet tactics had not been adapted to deal with this emergency. The San positions had not been prepared at all—on the contrary, Austrian wire, trenching-tools, timber-props and the like, captured in the previous autumn or in Przemyśl, had been sold off to the local populace. Przemyśl itself was still something of an obstacle, but there was nothing much from there to the north. Besides, the line had many peculiar features. On 21st Corps’s front, near Radymno, the eastern bank was completely dominated from the western bank, and the river was only a few yards broad. Its defence could only be conducted from the western bank, with all the isolation and difficulties involved.

  The San battles opened, more or less, with repetition of the Gorlice pattern. Since the troops were now even weaker—III Army having lost five-sixths of its force—reserves were even fewer than before. Radko-Dmitriev’s divisions had merely been assigned bits of the river to defend: reserves, for the whole position between Przemyśl and Jaroslau, consisted of two infantry regiments. A new ‘29. Corps’ had been formed from the wreckage of 81 and 13. Siberian Divisions—together, not 2,000 men. A ‘composite division’ constructed from a new second-line division and one division of 3. Caucasus Corps, consisted barely of a ring of men round the guns. Alexeyev had, by 20th May, sent ten divisions in all: the three corps involved were now gathered on the lower San, opposite the Austrian IV Army, with a view to counter-attack. This was Radko-Dmitriev’s only hope, and yet, with shell in such short supply, not much was to be expected.

  A German tactical success between 16th and 19th May led off the San battle. The Radymno salient collapsed, thousands of the defenders being drowned or machine-gunned as they tried in panic to cross the San. By 19th May the Germans had established a large salient across the river, and now sought to extend it to the south—towards the rear communications of Przemyśl. It was a mark of the Russian defence’s considerable qualities that this attack was far from being successful. As Mackensen’s group inched forward, Falkenhayn grumbled. He told his commander in the central theatre, to the north, to prepare for attack: affairs in Galicia ‘do not have good prospects’; ‘we can win only if we use great quantities of ammunition and man-power, and we have the best reasons for economising with both’.

  Moreover, the Auatrians, in the central theatre, suffered unmistakable reverses, and had to be given help from Mackensen’s group, itself under pressure. But a mismanaged Russian counter-attack dispelled some of these advantages now coming the Russians’ way. In the night of 19th–20th May they attacked the Austro-German lines with three corps taken from Odessa and Alexeyev’s front. Another new Corps had been set to Südarmee’s front to Stavka’s annoyance. The Austrians suffered a crisis retired, lost many thousands of prisoners, and had to be helped out by a German corps. Against the German front, this counter-offensive broke down, reducing the new troops to much the same level as the old ones.

  By 25th May it had been contained; indeed, the Germans had profited from it themselves since, just before a Russian attack came, with the troops exposed, waiting to attack, the Germans had launched one of their own attacks and destroyed 5. Caucasus Corps which, in a few hours, saw its regiments sink to a few hundred rifles. Further east, the successes of Ivanov’s troops had little relevance, even when won, on the Dniester, against German troops. On the contrary, they were a waste of precious shell. Early in June, the defenders had been pushed back until only a narrow corridor of three miles connected Przemyśl with the armies to the east. On 4th June the Austrians and Germans finally entered the fortress.

  On 23rd May, the Italians had finally declared war—perhaps given the final impetus to do so by the reflection, paradoxical, in view of Conrad’s strategy, that the Russian position must be saved. But their army was not at all ready for what was to come. Although, to start with, there were over 800,000 men to 100,000—armed at that with old rifles and out-of-date artillery—the Italians failed to gain more than a line of outposts on the Austrian side of the border. The tasks of supply were beyond them, and defenders, in these mountains, had an advantage still greater than elsewhere. For the whole summer, the Italians failed to divert significant German forces from either front, and the Austrians also held their new front with relatively insignificant changes—III Army from the Carpathians, some of their troops from the Balkans. The Serbian army, anxious to seize Albania before their nominal allies, the Italians did, could also give little help to Russia.

  In the circumstances, Ivanov could only retire. Conrad and Falkenhayn, on their side, were not sure what to do. Conrad wanted to attack Italy. Falkenhayn would have preferred an attack, by some thirty divisions, on Serbia. They compromised on continuation of the campaign against Russia. Here great successes seemed to come, almost by themselves. Seeckt persuaded Falkenhayn, at Jaroslau station, to pursue the attack across the San.29

  Ivanov had now used up all of his reserves, either in the fruitless counter-offensive on the San, or in the less ineffective offensives against Südarmee in the Dniester valley. The shell-reserve sank to 240 rounds per gun, and of course much less than this at the front. Nominally, he held to the idea of ‘stubborn retention of every square foot of ground’. But the troops had lost so heavily that they had not the force to do this; increasingly, too, they had not the will. Now, he withdrew even IX Army back to the Dniester.30 The chief cause of defeat had been tardy movement of reserves. They had come in little-by-little, and now it was much the same. Alexeyev offered, now, 6. and 23. Corps with a Guard division, to be linked, on the western side, with the troops beaten in the San counter-offensive. Later, the whole of the Guard, 2. Siberian Corps and 31. Corps were offered from Alexeyev’s front, and Alexeyev took over defence of western Galicia.

  But to concentrate these troops took time, and the Germans meanwhile brought three divisions from the Balkans and another two from the west. These were to ‘strike the enemy east of the San until we have a decision suitable for our purposes’. In mid-June the German offensive began. Soon, Mackensen was able to conclude that he faced ‘completely defeated troops’. Stavka on 17th June announced that the whole front had gone down to 500,000 men short; the shell-
reserve amounted to forty per cent of complement. Moreover, the forces in Galicia had to retreat eccentrically—VIII Army to the east, III Army towards the north-east, and the new group—under the Guard general, Olokhov-to the north—such that energetic action by the Germans could always strike an exposed flank. Even within the armies, links became strained—particularly in VIII, defending the Wereszyca positions and Lwów.

  Within six days, Mackensen’s offensive brought the Austro-Germans towards this city. Stavka now believed retreat must begin. The Grand Duke told the Tsar that two-thirds of Ivanov’s men had dropped out; but ‘the quality of replacements, as regards their training, is beneath criticism. Their training has been very hurried, and because rifles are short, they do not even know how to fire’. On 20th June ‘energetic evacuation of Lwów and the rest of Galicia’ was ordered; on 22nd June the Austro-Hungarian II Army entered it. The six weeks’ campaign had turned out to be one of the greatest victories of the war. For an initial investment of only eight German divisions, Falkenhayn had earned, with the forces of Mackensen’s group alone, 240,000 prisoners and 224 guns, for a loss of 90,000 men.