Eastern Front (World War I)
[29] In July 1917 Russia's last offensive of the war ended in failure, and in September Germany captured Riga, bringing the German Army closer to the Russian capital.Despite the political instability, the majority of the Russian Army was still intact and stayed at the front line until early 1918,[30] though the Bolsheviks began taking steps to dissolve it in December 1917 while maintaining some forces against the Central Powers as their negotiations were ongoing.Approved by Emperor Nicholas II in July 1910 and amended over the next two years, the plan concentrated Russia's armies on its western border with Germany and Austria-Hungary and was initially defensive.The original Schedule 19 would have had the Russian Army mobilize its troops to locations that were a significant distance away from its western border and leave the entire Polish salient to be defended by local fortresses and the Warsaw garrison.[33] The defensive nature of Russian planning went back to the military reforms in the 1860s following the Crimean War[34] and was also influenced by the limited capability of Russia's railway network to facilitate the quick mobilization of troops, though that was gradually improving.That was the year that the French Army chief of staff visited Russia and asked the Russian high command to plan for an immediate offensive if war with Germany broke out to help prevent them from capturing Paris.The plan also meant that Russia would begin its offensive before its army was fully mobilized, but it was believed that this was a necessary risk, because there would be a limited amount of time to attack Germany in support of France.The Schlieffen Plan was actually a change from his predecessor in the 1880s, Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, who believed that Germany should first be on the defensive in the west and should coordinate with Austria to defeat Russia.But the plan did not take into account that the growing military capabilities of Russia in the years since the Russo-Japanese War meant that the Russian mobilization would proceed faster than Schlieffen had originally thought.[43]The annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908 by Austrian foreign minister Baron von Aehrenthal in an effort to assert domination over the Balkans inflamed Slavic nationalism and angered Serbia.[44] The situation was ripe for conflict, and when the Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip assassinated Austrian imperial heir, Franz Ferdinand, these longstanding hostilities culminated into an all-out war.[47] Although militarized, Romania decided upon a policy of neutrality at the start of the First World War, mainly due to having territorial interests in both Austria-Hungary (Transylvania and Bukovina) and in Russia (Bessarabia).Perhaps King Carol's attempts at joining the war on the side of the Central powers would have been fruitful had he not died in 1914, but Romanian disenchantment with Austria-Hungary had already influenced public and political opinion.According to historian John Keegan, these enticements offered by the Allies were never concrete, for in secret, Russia and France agreed not to honor any conventions when the end of the war came.Most often, such work was hastily carried out by militia squads and the mobilized local population, sometimes including women, and then brought to the necessary defensive state by the combat units retreating on them, already exhausted by battles and night marches.Most importantly innovative new tactics similar to those independently invented by Erwin Rommel were used to perform quick and effective close-range surprise attacks that allowed a steady advance.On 15 September, Paul von Hindenburg issued the following order, stating that: "The main task of the Armies is now to hold fast all positions on the Western, Eastern, Italian and Macedonian Fronts, and to employ all other available forces against Rumania.Following the Armistice of 11 November 1918 ending the World War I, in spite of the previous initial total dependence of the kingdom on its sponsors, it ultimately served against their intentions as the cornerstone proto state of the nascent Second Polish Republic, the latter composed also of territories never intended by the Central Powers to be ceded to Poland.Despair and change overcame the authorities when the task was already completed.”[84] These words are also supported by Russian monogrophist Sergei Oldenburg, who wrote one of the largest works about the time of Tsar Nicholas II.[88][89] Even the armies of the Central Powers assessed the condition of the Russians and their combat strength, more than 72 percent of all infantry divisions were characterized by the information committee of the Austrian General Staff as: "outstanding units" and "first-class troops".Between late July and early September, the Romanian Army fought the battles of Mărăști, Mărășești and Oituz, managing to stop the German-Austro-Hungarian advance, inflicting heavy losses in the process and winning the most important Allied victories on the Eastern Front in 1917.The upper class still wielded considerable influence in Russian economics and politics, so by September 1917, Lenin began advocating for a second revolution - one that would allow the workers and peasants to gain total control over the country.[103] Lenin announced that the new Bolshevik government would immediately be seeking an end to the war, implementing a system of worker's democracy, and establishing collective ownership of all farms and factories."[109] With the German Army just 85 miles (137 km) from the Russian capital Petrograd (St. Petersburg) on 3 March 1918, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed and the Eastern Front ceased to be a war zone.On 7 May 1918 Romania signed the Treaty of Bucharest with the Central Powers, which recognised Romanian sovereignty over Bessarabia in return for ceding control of passes in the Carpathian Mountains to Austria-Hungary and granting oil concessions to Germany.[116] After the central powers capitulated, the countries in the east took advantage of the situation: Soviet Russia immediately cancelled the peace treaty and launched an offensive against the Baltic States, Belarus and Ukraine.[125] Malaria, cholera, and dysentery contributed to the epidemiological crisis on the Eastern Front; however, typhus fever, transmitted by pathogenic lice and previously unknown to German medical officers before the outbreak of the war, was the most deadly.Delousing stations were prevalent in the countryside and in cities to prevent the spread of typhus fever, with mass numbers of natives being forced to take part in this process at military bathhouses.These data have been criticized by Imperial Russian Army general and military historian Golovin, who conducted a study together with German veterans in the archives of the central powers, and named a figure of 2,410,000 people.During the Paris Peace Conference, 1919, the Commission on Polish Affairs was created which recommended there be a passageway across West Prussia and Posen, in order to give Poland access to the Baltic through the port of Danzig at the mouth of the Vistula River.
by Hugo Vogel
European theatre of World War ICarpathian MountainsCentral and Eastern EuropeCentral PowersGermanyAustria-HungaryBulgariaOttoman EmpireAllied PowersRussiaRomaniaSerbiaBelgiumUnited KingdomFranceSoviet RussiaWilhelm IIPaul von HindenburgErich LudendorffLeopold of BavariaMax HoffmannFranz Joseph IConrad von HötzendorfA. A. von StraußenburgFerdinand I of BulgariaNikola ZhekovEnver PashaNicholas IIGrand Duke NicholasAlexander KerenskyMikhail AlekseyevAleksei BrusilovLavr KornilovFerdinand IConstantin PrezanVladimir LeninNikolai Krylenko8th Army10th Army9th Army1st ArmyPolish Legionnaires2nd Army3rd Army4th Army11th ArmyXV CorpsUkrainian People's ArmyDanube ArmyVI CorpsGerman NavyConstantinople FlotillaOttoman NavyDanube FlotillaNorthern Front5th Army6th Army12th ArmyWestern FrontSpecial ArmySouthwestern Front7th ArmyRomanian FrontCzechoslovak Legions1st Serbian DivisionExpeditionary CorpsExpeditionary ForceFrench Military MissionBaltic FleetBlack Sea FleetBaltic Submarine FlotillaWierzbołów1st East PrussiaStallupönenGumbinnenTannenbergAbschwangen1st Masurian LakesEast Prussia war crimesGalicia1st KraśnikKomarowZolota LypaGnila LipaGalicia war crimesAugustów1st Vistula River Laski and AnielinSan RiverPrzemyślMołotków2nd East PrussiaŁódźKrakówKrzywopłotyLimanowaŁowczówekBzura-RawkaCârlibabaCarpathiansRafajlowaMakivkaHumin-Bolimów2nd Masurian Lakes1st PrzasnyszŁomżaKalvarija2nd Vistula River2nd BolimówPakosławGorlice–Tarnów offensiveGorlice breakthroughSyniavaKonaryRokitnaTarłów3rd OsowiecGreat RetreatBug-Narew2nd PrzasnyszNovogeorgievskVistula-BugJastkówRiga-Schaulen1st RigaDniestr–Zolota Lypa