The Great War

Round Two in the East (3)

Austro-Hungarian infantry on the Carpathian Front, winder 1915

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Part Eighteen: Round Two in the East (3)

(For clarity, German and Austro-Hungarian formations are rendered in italics.)

After a renewed German offensive in the Polish salient petered out east of Lotz at the end of 1914, the Eastern Front settled into inactivity. But on the side of the Central Powers, the wrangling over strategy went on. General of Infantry Erich von Falkenhayn, the Chief of the German High Command (OHL), continued to argue that the Western Front was the theater of decision: Only there could the war be won. With some reluctance, Falkenhayn had sent two infantry divisions and a cavalry division from west to east and later agreed to send additional reinforcements: four newly formed reserve corps (eight divisions). But he now rejected demands from Hindenburg and Ludendorff at Ober Ost (German Eastern Front Command) for still more reinforcements.

The Duo, as Hindenburg and Ludendorff had come to be called, were undaunted by the failure of the Lodz offensive. They argued that the great victory of Tannenberg, won by the Germans despite an actual inferiority in numbers, proved that a properly prepared operation with sufficient forces could produce decisive results. Perhaps, even, Russia could be knocked out of the war. The Chief of the OHL disagreed. Falkenhayn remained firm in his conviction Russia’s vast size and great manpower reserves would always prevent the Central Powers from achieving a victory of that magnitude.

But other considerations now intervened. One was the plight of the Austro-Hungarian Army, which has been badly battered in its opening round against the Russians. It was this that had compelled Falkenhayn to send any reinforcements to the east at all. Whatever the Austrians’ military deficiencies, Germany could ill afford the collapse of its ally in the east. Conrad von Hötzendorf, the Austrian Chief of Staff and de facto commander-in-chief, was desperate at this time to relieve the besieged Galician fortress of Przemysl with its garrison of 120,000 men, whose provisions would run out by spring. He therefore clamored for German assistance in an offensive from the Carpathians to save Przemysl.

Conrad was also alarmed over the swirl of rumors that various neutral countries—Bulgaria, Romania, Greece and above all Italy—might be on the verge of entering the war on the side of the Allies. Italian intervention in particular, he feared, would deal a death blow to the Habsburg Monarchy. To Falkenhayn he insisted that only a decisive victory by the Central Powers on the Eastern Front could stave off the intervention of Italy and other neutrals.

Presented with all this, the Chief of the OHL reverted to his basic position, arguing that a concentration of forces on the Western Front and victory there would solve all other problems. But the costly failure of his own offensive in Flanders somewhat undermined Falkenhayn’s credibility on that score. So in the end, he felt compelled to send the four new reserve corps to Ober Ost. Falkenhayn had scant faith in the Duo’s fulsome predictions of decisive victory and even less in those of Conrad. He pointed out to the latter that a winter offensive in the Carpathian Mountains would be a risky undertaking—only to be told, in effect, to mind his own business. But Falkenhayn hoped at least that the Russian Army would be so knocked about as to prevent it from finishing off the Austrians.

Having gotten their way, the Duo set about planning a new offensive. The main German effort would be made in the north, where Russian forces still occupied a few fragments of East Prussian territory. For this operation, three of the four corps from the west were used to form a new Tenth Army under Colonel General Hermann von Eichhorn. The other went to reinforce Eighth Army (General of Infantry Otto von Below). The two armies would open the offensive with a concentric attack designed to envelop and destroy Russian Tenth Army (General of Infantry Thadeus von Sivers) on the East Prussian frontier. That accomplished, the offensive would proceed in a southeast direction, in an attempt to encircle Russian forces in the Polish salient.

Supposedly, after relieving Przemysl, the Austrian armies would wheel north to form the southern pincer against the Russians in the Polish salient. It seems doubtful that Falkenhayn, Ludendorff, or anybody else actually expected any such thing to happen.

But as a sop to the Austrians, Ludendorff offered Conrad reinforcements for the Przemysl relief operation: two infantry divisions and a cavalry division. These German troops, with three Austrian divisions, were used to form the deutsche Südarmee (German Southern Army) under a German commander, General of Infantry Alexander von Linsingen. Along with the Austrian Third and Fourth Armies, Südarmee formed the Przemysl relief force.

On the Russian side, the usual bickering between “northerners” and “southerners” rumbled on. General of Artillery Nikolay Ivanov, commanding Southwest Front, revived his argument that a big offensive against the Austrians would produce decisive results: the rout of the Habsburg Army, the fall of Przemysl, the neutrals encouraged to come in, perhaps even a separate peace. And once again, General of Infantry Nikolai Ruzsky, commanding Northwest Front, insisted with the backing of Stavka that the theater of decision was on the German sector of the front. First, East Prussia must be occupied to deprive the Germans of a flank position from which they could threaten a Russian drive out of the Polish salient toward Berlin. Then the main offensive could be launched.

Whichever course of action was decided upon, forces would have to be transferred from the opposite front to give the attack sufficient weight. But typically, both Ivanov and Ruzsky resisted giving up any troops. Though the East Prussian operation was eventually approved, no large-scale reshuffle of forces occurred. A new Twelfth Army was to be set up south of Tenth Army, but the buildup proceeded slowly. In the meantime, Sivers’s army found itself in an isolated position, with its left flank in the air. As things turned out however, the Central Powers’ offensive preempted Russian plans.

In some ways, the Winter Battle of 1915 was rerun of the opening phase: a German victory in the north, an Austrian defeat in the south. The woeful tale of Conrad’s Carpathian adventure may briefly be summarized. As Falkenhayn had predicted, a winter offensive in the Carpathians soon came to grief. The Austrian attack commenced on 23 January—and immediately bogged down. The snow was deep, the weather was atrocious, and casualties from frostbite and exposure equaled those due to enemy action. Only in the sector of Third Army, where the terrain was somewhat flatter, did the Austrians gain any ground at all, and it was soon lost to Russian counterattacks. Of the 1.1 million Austrian and German troops engaged, at least half became casualties. Przemysl remained besieged and capitulated on 22 March.

In the north, however, things went differently. The German offensive was preceded by a diversionary attack farther south by Ninth Army (General of Cavalry August von Mackensen), an operation remembered chiefly for the first—and ineffectual—use of gas as a weapon. The main operation began on 7 February, with Eighth Army falling on III Siberian Corps, Tenth Army’s left-flank corps. The Russian trench defenses were sketchy and poorly laid out, and despite snowy weather the Germans gained some ground. No big breakthrough was made, however.

But next day Tenth Army joined in, attacking from the Angerapp position. Two Russian cavalry divisions were broken up and Tenth Army’s right-flank corps, III Corps, was hard hit, falling back in disorder. As usual, the Russian artillery decamped, abandoning the infantry to its fate. The remnants of III Corps played no further role in the battle. Over the next several days, the Germans advanced some 75 miles.

German artillery in action on the East Prussian front, winter 1915

Sivers, who’d warned the Northwest Front commander, Ruzsky, that an attack was likely, now found himself in a perilous position. One of his corps had been knocked out of action, another had been hard hit, and his whole army stood in danger of encirclement. But enveloped as he was in the fog of war, the Russian commander did not realize how dire his army’s situation had become. By mid-February, the advance of Tenth Army had placed it in the rear of Sivers‘s three remaining corps, one of which was heavily engaged with Eighth Army.

At Northwest Front, Ruzsky was equally befogged, laboring under the mistaken impression that the main German effort was being made by Eighth Army. He therefore ordered Twelfth Army, still not fully concentrated, to launch a counterattack in that direction. Tenth Army was told to stand fast, so as to pin the Germans in place. This was a mistake which, when realized, was corrected too late.

Tenth Army was finally ordered to fall back on 14 February, and though the two flank corps managed to do so, albeit in some disorder and suffering more losses, XX Corps, five divisions strong, was trapped. The Russians fought on until 21 February, by which time casualties and straggling had reduced the infantry regiments to skeletons with three, maybe four hundred men left out of three thousand. On that day the corps commander, Bulgakov, surrendered. The Germans bagged 12,000 prisoners many of them wounded, and most of the XX Corps artillery, some 180 guns.

Hindenburg and Ludendorff billed this Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes as a great victory, a second Tannenberg. It was certainly a neat success and a further demonstration of the German Army’s battle efficiency—the enemy soundly defeated despite atrocious weather and no great superiority of numbers. But it was not decisive, and Falkenhayn’s skepticism was vindicated. The Central Powers might win tactical victories, but in the context of a multifront war, they had not the strength to inflict a great defeat on Russia.

The bad weather, mounting casualties, supply problems, and a stout Russian defense of the Osowiec fortress in the Eighth Army sector soon brought the German advance to a standstill. Moreover, the Russian Twelfth Army was completing its concentration. The Russians now had sixty-four divisions against forty-eight German divisions in the East Prussian sector. It was clear to Ludendorff that the offensive could not go on, and he ordered a withdrawal to positions covering the East Prussian frontier.

The Russians were similarly stymied. From the Grand Duke Nicholas at Stavka came orders for Northwest Front: Suspend all offensive operations and take up a good defensive position. Ivanov, commanding Southwest Front, now received a sympathetic hearing at Stavka. The results of the Winter Battle seemed to show that the “southerners” had been right after all: Austria-Hungary was the weak link of the enemy coalition. Southwest Front was therefore instructed to go over to the offensive in the Carpathian sector, with the objective of routing the Austrians as a prelude to the invasion of Hungary. But as the Russians were to find, this was easier said than done.