Encyclopedia of Russian History

During this period, the Russians held their own against three enemies in two separate war zones and showed that they had capable generals by routing two enemies and fighting a third, the Germans, to a draw. For most, the heavy losses at Tannenberg and other locations were overshadowed by the stunning victories elsewhere. Like other combatants, Russia was slow to recognize that it faced a long war, but it had avoided the trench warfare that gripped the French front. Yet Grand Duke Nikolai already had complained of shell shortages in September 1914. The government responded by reorganizing the Main Artillery Administration, and a special chief assumed responsibility for completely guaranteeing the army’s needs for arms and munitions by both state and private production. If this promise was illusory, and other ad hoc agencies proved equally ineffective, for the moment the Russian command remained confident of victory.

THE GREAT RETREAT: MAY-SEPTEMBER 1915

On May 2 the seesaw struggle in the East ended when the Austro-Germans, after a four-hour “hurricane of fire,” broke through the shallow Russian trenches at Gorlice-Tarnow. This local success quickly sparked the disastrous Great Retreat. As the Galician armies fell back, a secondary German strike in the north endangered the whole Russian

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The Russian 10th Army, February 1915. Fighting in heavy snow, one Russian corps is defeated at Masuria while the others stood firm until April. © SEF/ART RESOURCE, NY front. Hampered by increasing munitions shortages, rumors of spies and treason, a panicked Stavka’s ineffective leadership, administrative chaos, and masses of fleeing refugees, the Russians soon lost their earlier conquests. Despite Italy’s intervention on the Allied side, Austro-German offensives continued unabated, and in midsummer the Russians evacuated Warsaw to give up Russian Poland. Some units could still fight, but their successes were local, and overall, the tsar’s armies seemed overwhelmed by the general disaster. The only bright spot was the Caucasus, where Yudenich advanced to aid the Armenians at Van and held his own against the Turks.

The munitions shortages, both real and exaggerated, forced a full industrial mobilization that by August was directed by a Special Conference for Defense and subordinate conferences for transport, fuel, provisioning, and refugees. Their creation necessitated the State Duma’s recall, which provided a platform for the opposition deputies who united as the Progressive Bloc. Seeking to control the conferences, these Duma liberals renewed attacks on the regime and demanded a Government of Public

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Russian soldiers lie in wait ahead of their final assault on the Turkish stronghold Erzurum, April 1916. © BETTMANN/CORBIS Confidence (i.e., responsible to the Duma). Yet by autumn Nicholas II had weathered the storm, assumed the Supreme Command to reunite front and rear, and prorogued the Duma. As the German offensives petered out, the front stabilized, and a frustrated opposition regrouped. With the nonofficial voluntary societies and new War Industries Committees, it now launched its campaign against the Dark Forces whom it blamed for its recent defeats. RUSSIA’S RECOVERY:

AUTUMN 1915-FEBRUARY 1917

In early December 1915, Stavka delegates met the allies at Chantilly, near Paris, to coordinate their 1916 offensives. Allied doubts about Russian capabilities were somewhat allayed by a local assault on the Strypa River and operations in support of Britain in Persia. Still more impressive was Yu-denich’s renewed offensive in the Caucasus. He opened a major operation in Armenia in January 1916, and on February 16 his men stormed the strategic fortress of Erzurum. Retreating, the Turks abandoned Mush, and by July, the Russians had captured Erzingan. V. P. Lyakhov’s Coastal Detachment, supported by the Black Sea Fleet, also advanced and on April 17-18, in a model combinedarms operation, captured the main Turkish supply port of Trebizond. In autumn 1916 the Russians entered eastern Anatolia and Turkish resistance seemed on the verge of collapse.