The History Book Club discussion

This is the thread dedicated to the Brusilov Offensive and all of its ancillary battles.

Keegan discussed this offensive on pages 303 - 308.

by John Keegan

Here is one recent book that covers this battle:


by Timothy Dowling (not read)
Publishers blurb:
In the summer of 1915, the Central Powers launched an offensive on the Eastern Front that they hoped would decide the war. It did not, of course. In June 1916, an Allied army under the command of Aleksei A. Brusilov decimated the Central Powers' gains of 1915. Brusilov's success brought Romania into the war, extinguished the offensive ability of the Habsburg armies, and forced Austria-Hungary into military dependence on and political subservience to Germany. The results were astonishing in military terms, but the political consequences were perhaps even more significant. More than any other action, the Brusilov Offensive brought the Habsburg Empire to the brink of a separate peace, while creating conditions for revolution within the Russian Imperial Army. Timothy C. Dowling tells the story of this important but little-known battle in the military and political history of the Eastern Front.

Who was Aleksei Brusilov?

Aleksei Alekseevich Brusilov (Russian: Алексе́й Алексе́евич Бруси́лов, Aleksey Alekseyevich Brusilov) (19 August [O.S. 31 August:] 1853 – 17 March 1926) was a Russian general most noted for the development of new offensive tactics used in the 1916 offensive which would come to bear his name. The innovative and relatively successful tactics used were later copied by the Germans. His war memoirs were translated into English and published in 1930 as A Soldier's Notebook, 1914–1918.

1914 - 1915

In July 1914, with the Russian army expanding on mobilization, Brusilov was promoted to command 8th Army, part of South-west Front, operating in Galicia. 8th Army crushed the Austro-Hungarian forces before it, and rapidly advanced nearly 150 kilometers (94 miles). Reverses elsewhere along the Front, including the great defeat at Tannenberg, forced 8th Army to retire in conformance with the general Russian withdrawal. For his victories, Brusilov was awarded the Order of Saint George 4th, and then 3rd Class. By a quirk of fate, several future White Army commanders held senior posts in 8th Army at this time—Brusilov's Quartermaster general was Anton Denikin, while Alexey Kaledin commanded the 12th Cavalry Division and Lavr Kornilov was in command of 48th Infantry Division.

In the early part of 1915, Brusilov again advanced, penetrating the Carpathian passes and entering the Hungarian plain. At this time, Nikolai II visited 8th Army and Brusilov was promoted to the rank of General-Adjutant (in the Imperial Russian Army this was a "four-star" General rank).

Once again, fortunes on other fronts would determine his actions and the Austrian-German breakthrough at Gorlice-Tarnów forced Brusilov to conform to the general retirement. By September, 8th Army had withdrawn 180 kilometers (110 miles) to the Tarnopol region.

The Brusilov Offensive

On 29 March, 1916, Brusilov was appointed Commander-in-Chief of South-west Front, and managed to secure a certain degree of freedom of action. Previous Russian offensives in the War so far had showed a tendency to try to bombard smaller and smaller sections of front with ever-greater quantities of artillery fire and manpower. The narrow penetrations made counterattacks straightforward for German forces, and this approach met with repeated failure. Brusilov determined on a different technique.

Recognising that no amount of artillery, shells or men could secure absolute control of an area that the Russians could then defend, Brusilov decided to distribute his attack over a considerable length of front. He hoped to disorganize the enemy over such a large area that some point would fatally give way. He decided not to waste resources by saturation bombardment of worthless areas, but rather, to target specific areas—command posts, crossroads, etc—and degrade command and control over the whole front. The noted German artillery commander, Georg Bruchmüller, having served opposite Brusilov's Front at this time, would learn from and adapt these tactics when planning the preparatory bombardment for Operation Michael on the Western Front in 1918. Brusilov was not even concerned with securing a great local advantage in manpower, permitting Divisions to be transferred to other Fronts (so long as they attacked in support of his offensive).

Brusilov's new techniques were, by First World War standards, highly successful, and over the next three months, South-west Front advanced an average of more than 30 kilometers along a front of more than 400 kilometres (250 miles). 400,000 Austro-Hungarian prisoners were taken. However, the planned supporting attack from West Front (the Army group to Brusilov's north) was not delivered, Germany was able to transfer 17 Divisions from the France and Belgium to stem the tide, and again, the war acquired a positional character.

Brusilov would be awarded the Sword of Saint George with Diamonds for his greatest victory, one of only eight Russian commanders to receive this rare award during the First World War.

On 18 June 1916, an article "Hero of the Hour in Russia, Described Intimately by One Who Knows Him Well"[1:] by Brusilov'a brother-in-law, Chaleles Johnson, appeareared in the New York Times.

Brusilov's main ideas

To increase the points of sally thereby preventing a concentration of the enemy's strategic reserve. The enemy is to be confused by several points of attack.

To make the width of attack wide, greater than 30 kilometers.

To limit the duration of bombardment, less than 5 hours.

To advance artillery in secrecy and to cooperate with the infantry.

To advance strategic reserve beforehand and to join with the storm troops after a breach of the enemy's front trench has been achieved. Not to avail cavalry.

To get the trench lines as close as possible to the enemy's before the battle.

Assessment

According to the assessment of British Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, Brusilov was one of the seven outstanding fighting commanders of World War I (the others being Falkenhayn, Ludendorff, Mustapha Kemal, Plumer, Monash and Allenby)

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksei_...






A Soldier's Note-Book, 1914-1918. - (no book cover available) - by Aleksei Alekseevich Brusilov

The Brusilov Offensive

The Brusilov Offensive (Russian: Брусиловский прорыв) was the Russian Empire's greatest feat of arms during World War I, and among the most lethal battles in world history. Professor Graydon A. Tunstall of the University of South Florida called the Brusilov Offensive of 1916 the worst crisis of World War I for Austria-Hungary and the Triple Entente's greatest victory.[1:] It was a major offensive against the armies of the Central Powers on the Eastern Front, launched on June 4, 1916 and lasting until early August. It took place in what today is Ukraine, in the general vicinity of the towns of Lemberg, Kovel, and Lutsk. The offensive was named after the Russian commander in charge of the Southwestern Front, Aleksei Brusilov.

Results

Brusilov's operation achieved the original goal of forcing Germany to halt its attack on Verdun and transfer considerable forces to the East. It also broke the back of the Austro-Hungarian Army which lost nearly 1.5 million men (including 400,000 prisoners).

The Austro-Hungarian Army was never able to mount a successful attack from this point onward. Instead it had to rely on the German Army for its military successes.

The early success of the offensive convinced Romania to enter the war on the side of the Entente, though with disastrous consequences. Russian casualties were also considerable, numbering around half a million.

The Brusilov Offensive is listed among the most lethal battles in world history.

The Brusilov Offensive was the high point of the Russian effort during World War I, and was a rare manifestation of good leadership and planning on the part of the Imperial Russian Army.

Thereafter the effectiveness of the Russian Army started to decline, due to the deteriorating economic and political situation on the home front, which the army's heavy casualties did nothing to alleviate. Even whilst the Germans and the Austro-Hungarians were being pushed back along their front line, at least 58,016 Russian soldiers deserted. This was only a premonition for things to come when the balance was in Germany's favour.

The operation was marked by a considerable improvement in the quality of Russian tactics. Brusilov used smaller specialized units of soldiers to attack weak points in the Austro-Hungarian trench lines and blow open holes for the rest of the Russian Army to advance into.

These shock tactics were a remarkable departure from the "human wave" tactics that were prevalent until that point during World War I by all the major armies at the time. The irony was that the Russians themselves did not realize the potential of the tactics that Brusilov produced.

It would be Germany that seized on the model and utilized "storm troopers" to great effect in the 1918 offensive on the Western Front, which was hastily copied and used to an even greater effect by the Western Allies.

Shock tactics would later play a large role as well in the early German blitzkrieg offensives of World War II and the later attacks by the Soviet Union and the Western Allies to defeat Germany, and would continue until the Korean War and the First Indochinese War, which ended the era of the mass-Trench warfare in all but a few nations, mostly in Africa.

Source for the above:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brusilov...

Also: FirstWorldWar.com

http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/b...

Keegan on page 304 stated the following:

"The solution, he had concluded, was to attack on a wide front, thus depriving the enemy of the chance to mass reserves at a predeterminably critical point, to protect the assaulting infantry in deep dugouts while they were waiting to jump off, and to advance the line as near as possible to the Austrian, by digging saps forward as close as seventy-five yards to the enemy trenches."

What does Keegan mean by digging saps?

Continuing on page 304 -

"The Russian Eighth Army overwhelmed the Austrian Fourth and pushed on to the communication centre of Lutsk, and to advance forty miles beyond the start line. Huge numbers of prisoners were taken, as the shaken Austrians surrendered to anyone who would take them prisoner. Eighth Army's neighbors also advanced but the greatest success was achieved in the South, between the River Dniester and the Carpathians, where the Austrian Seventh Army was split in two, lost 100,000 men, mainly taken prisoner, and by mid-June was in full retreat,"

What made Brusilov so successful..was it simply surprise?

Also why was Brusilov not able to follow up his victory and to bring reserves and supplies forward at speed so that he could recover even more ground?

Why did Keegan consider this offensive the greatest victory seen on any front since the trench lines had been dug on the Aisne two years before?

What did folks think of the double dealing by the French and the Russians in terms of the convention signed with Romania on August 17, 1916?

Or the little help they received from either the French and/or the Russians after taking the plunge. You would think that with a "million tons of oil and two million tons of grain" at stake...someone would have done something for Romania.

Pages 306 - 308 - Keegan

Regarding the Treaty of Bucharest - 1913

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/...

Regarding the Treaty of Bucharest - 1916

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_o...

and the Treaty of Bucharest - 1918:

http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/b...

Note: There were also two others 1812 and 1886.

Bentley wrote: "Keegan on page 304 stated the following:

"The solution, he had concluded, was to attack on a wide front, thus depriving the enemy of the chance to mass reserves at a predeterminably critical point..."

Hi Bentley,

A Russian sap is a trench dug below ground so that the surface earth was not disturbed and then the infantry could assault out closer to the enemy trenches without having to cross the fire swept no-mans land.

Primary Documents - Romania's Declaration of War with Austria-Hungary, 28 August 1916

Reproduced below is the official Romanian declaration of war with Austria-Hungary, delivered in a note by the Romanian Prime Minister, Ion Bratianu, to the Austrian ambassador in Romania on 28 August 1916.

Romania's entry into the war was as much opportunistic as defensive - she hoped to make territorial gains from an Allied victory, and she in any event held a long-standing enmity against Austria-Hungary.

In going to war against the Central Powers however Romania laid herself open to the charge - quickly made by Germany and Austria-Hungary - of betraying her own alliance with Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy.

Romania's response was straightforward: she argued that the political conditions that applied when she undertook her former alliance (in the 1880s) no longer existed, not least because Italy herself had exited the alliance and joined the Allies fighting against Germany and Austria-Hungary.

Click here to read former Romanian Prime Minister Take Jonescu's statement in support of the war effort; click here to read King Ferdinand's proclamation to the Romanian people; click here to read the King's proclamation to the Romanian Army issued the dame day; click here to read the reaction of the German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg. Click here to read the statement issued by the Romanian Ambassador to the U.S. in October 1917. Click here to read a memoir of the invasion of Romania by Queen Marie.

Ion Bratianu's Declaration of War Delivered to the Austrian Minister in Romania on 28 August 1916

The alliance concluded between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, according to the statements of those Governments, had only a conservative and defensive character. Its principal object was to guarantee the allied countries against attack from the outside and to consolidate the state of affairs created by previous treaties.

It was in accordance with these pacific tendencies that Rumania joined this alliance.

Devoted to the development of her internal affairs and faithful to her resolution to remain as an element of order and equilibrium on the lower Danube, Rumania never has ceased in her devotion to the maintenance of peace in the Balkans. The last Balkan wars, by destroying the status quo, imposed upon her a new line of conduct, but her intervention gave peace and re-established the equilibrium.

For herself she was satisfied with the rectification of her borders which gave her the greatest security against aggression and repaired certain injustices of the Congress of Berlin, but in pursuit of this aim Rumania was disappointed by the failure of the Vienna Cabinet to take the attitude Rumania was entitled to expect.

When the present war broke out Rumania, like Italy, declined to associate herself with the declaration of war by Austria-Hungary, of which she had not been notified by the Vienna Cabinet.

In the spring of 1915 Italy declared war against Austria-Hungary. The Triple Alliance no longer existed and the reasons which determined Rumania's adherence to this political system disappeared.

Rumania remained in the peace group of States, seeking to work in agreement in order to assure peace and to conserve the situation de facto and de jure created by treaties. Rumania then found herself in the presence of powers making war for the sole purpose of transforming from top to bottom the old arrangements which had served as a basis for their treaty of alliance.

These changes were for Rumania proof that the object she pursued in joining the Triple Alliance no longer could be attained and that she must direct her efforts in new paths, especially as the work undertaken by Austria-Hungary threatened the interests of Rumania and her national aspirations.

Consequently Rumania resumed her liberty of action.

The neutrality which Rumania imposed upon herself in consequence of a declaration of war made independently of her will, and contrary to her interests, had been adopted as the results of the assurances that Austria-Hungary, in declaring war against Serbia, was not inspired by a spirit of conquest or of territorial gains. These assurances have not been realized.

Today we are confronted by a situation de facto threatening great territorial transformations and political changes of a nature constituting a grave menace to the future of Rumania. The work of peace which Rumania attempted to accomplish, in a spirit of faithfulness to the Triple Alliance, thus was rendered barren by the very powers called upon to defend it.

In adhering in 1883 to the group of Central Powers, Rumania was far from forgetting the bonds of blood constituting between them a pledge for her domestic tranquillity, as well as for the improvement of the lot of the Rumanians of Austria-Hungary.

In fact, Germany and Italy, who reconstituted their States on the basic principle of nationality, could not but recognize the legitimacy of the foundation upon which their own existence reposed.

As for Austria-Hungary, she found in the friendly relations established between her and Rumania assurances of tranquillity both in her interior and on our common frontiers, for she was bound to know to what extent the discontent of her Rumanian population found echo among us, threatening our good relations.

For a period of thirty years the Rumanians of Austria-Hungary not only never saw a reform introduced, but, instead, were treated as an inferior race and condemned to suffer the oppression of a foreign element which constitutes only a minority amid the diverse nationalities constituting the Austro-Hungarian States.

All the injustices our brothers thus were made to suffer maintained between our country and the monarchy a continual state of animosity. At the outbreak of the war Austria-Hungary made no effort to ameliorate these conditions. After two years of the war Austria-Hungary showed herself as prompt to sacrifice her peoples as powerless to defend them.

The war in which almost the whole of Europe is partaking raises the gravest problems affecting the national development and very existence of the States.

Rumania, from a desire to hasten the end of the conflict and to safeguard her racial interests, sees herself forced to enter into line by the side of those who are able to assure her realization of her national unity. For these reasons Rumania considers herself, from this moment, in a state of war with Austria-Hungary.

Source: Source Records of the Great War, Vol. V, ed. Charles F. Horne, National Alumni 1923

Source url:

http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/r...

A Soldier's Note Book, 1914-1918

(no image)A Soldier's Note Book, 1914 1918 by Aleksei Alekseevich Brusilov(no photo)

Synopsis:

The author of these memoirs served as commander of the eighth Russian army at the beginning of the war, succeeded Ivanov in command of the southwest front in 1916, and in 1917 was given supreme command.

The Romanian Battlefront in World War I

by Glenn E. Torrey (no photo)

Synopsis:

Despite a strategically vulnerable position, an ill-prepared army, and questionable promises of military support from the Allied Powers, Romania intervened in World War I in August 1916. In return, it received the Allies' formal sanction for the annexation of the Romanian-inhabited regions of Austria-Hungary. As Glenn Torrey reveals in his pathbreaking study, this soon appeared to have been an impulsive and risky decision for both parties.
Torrey details how, by the end of 1916, the armies of the Central Powers, led by German generals Falkenhayn and Mackensen, had administered a crushing defeat and occupied two-thirds of Romanian territory, but at the cost of diverting substantial military forces they needed on other fronts. The Allies, especially the Russians, were forced to do likewise in order to prevent Romania from collapsing completely.
Torrey presents the most authoritative account yet of the heavy fighting during the 1916 campaign and of the renewed attempt by Austro-German forces, including the elite Alpine Corps, to subdue the Romanian Army in the summer of 1917. This latter campaign, highlighted here but ignored in non-Romanian accounts, witnessed reorganized and rearmed Romanian soldiers, with help from a disintegrating Russian Army, administer a stunning defeat of their enemies. However, as Torrey also shows, amidst the chaos of the Russian Revolution the Central Powers forced Romania to sign a separate peace early in 1918. Ultimately, this allowed the Romanian Army to reenter the war and occupy the majority of the territory promised in 1916.
Torrey's unparalleled familiarity with archival and secondary sources and his long experience with the subject give authority and balance to his account of the military, strategic, diplomatic, and political events on both sides of the battlefront. In addition, his use of personal memoirs provides vivid insights into the human side of the war. Major military leaders in the Second World War, especially Ion Antonescu and Erwin Rommel, made their careers during the First World War and play a prominent role in his book.
Torrey's study fosters a genuinely new appreciation and understanding of a long-neglected aspect of World War I that influenced not only the war itself but the peace settlement that followed and, in fact, continues today.
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Russia's Last Gasp: The Eastern Front 1916–17 (The Eastern Front #3)

by Prit Buttar (no photo)

Synopsis:

In Russia's Last Gasp, Prit Buttar looks at one of the bloodiest campaigns launched in the history of warfare – the Brusilov Offensive, sometimes known as the June Advance.

The assault was intended to ease the pressure on Russia's British and French allies by diverting German troops from the Western Front and knocking Austria-Hungary out of the war.

Russia's dismal military performance in the preceding years was forgotten, as the Brusilov Offensive was quickly characterised by innovative tactics, including the use of shock troops, a strategy that German armies would later adapt to great effect.

Drawing on first-hand accounts and detailed archival research this is a dramatic retelling of the final years of the war on the Eastern Front, in which the Russian Army claimed military success but at a terrible cost.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations /List of Maps /Author's Note /Dramatis Personae /Introduction /1. The Fruits of War /2. The Winter Battles /3. Lake Naroch /4. The Quiet Front /5. Brusilov's Offensive Begins /6. The Growing Crisis /7. Dealing with Success and Failure /8. Now or Never /9. Kovel and Stanislau /10. The Advent of Romania /11. The New Front: Romania's Gamble /12. Autumn /13. Budapest and Beyond /14. The Cracks in the Edifice /Notes /Bibliography /Index

About the Author:

Prit Buttar studied medicine before joining the British Army as a doctor. He has since worked as a GP, and is extensively involved in medical politics, having served on the GPs' Committee of the British Medical Association.

He has appeared on local and national TV and radio, speaking on medical issues, and contributes regularly to the medical press. His previous books include Battleground Prussia (2010) and Between Giants (2013).

An established expert on the Eastern Front in 20th century military history, his previous books include the critically acclaimed Battleground Prussia: The Assault on Germany's Eastern Front 1944–45 (Osprey 2010) and Between Giants: The Battle for the Baltics in World War II (Osprey 2013). Russia's Last Gasp: The Eastern Front 1916–17 is the final book in a three-volume series, the definitive study of the First World War on the Eastern Front.