The Austro-Hungarian Imperial army had fought so badly during the early months of the war
that by the spring of 1915 it had seemed on the verge of collapse. It had not only been
humiliated, it had lost huge amounts of land and even one of the great cities of the Empire,
Lemberg, but this week, after six weeks of triumphant advance, the Empire took Lemberg back.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to the Great War
Last week the six week long Second Battle of Artois came to an end, with 100,000 total
French casualties in a series of attacks designed to prevent the Germans from sending troops
east to fight Russia. But over on the Eastern Front an Austro-German force of over 500,000
men was pushing the Russians ever back to their own territory while in the south the
Italians were moving toward the Austrian border. Here’s what came next.
It’s hard to imagine how much more effective the Germans could be at this point on the
Eastern Front if they had been given more troops from the west, since they were still
plowing through the Russians after two months of the Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive.
This combined Austro-German campaign had erased eight months of Russian gains in weeks and
the scale of the battles was truly mind-boggling. For example, even though the Russians were
in retreat and losing battle after battle, it’s been estimated (Story of the Great
War) that between the end of April and mid June 600,000 Austro-German troops were put
out of action. They may have been winning victory after victory, but they were paying
a price for it.
Now, the Russian front had shrunk over the past six weeks from 500km to just over 150.
When it had been entirely united before, it had been the longest battle line in the history
of the world. It’s pretty cool that I get to say that. By this point, the German and
Austro-Hungarian colossus was advancing through Galicia toward Lemberg, also known as L’viv
or L’vov. This was the capital of Austrian Galicia, but had been in Russian hands since September.
On the 17th, the Russians began evacuating Lemberg. Russian General Nikolai Ivanov had
no intention of fighting a pitched battle for it against German General Mackensen, whose
phalanx was simply too strong and had 2,500 big guns. Mackensen’s force was the center
of the German offensive, but the Russians were seriously punishing the wings. General
Boehm-Ermolli, for example, reportedly lost half of his effective force trying to break
through at Grodek and Dornfeld, 25 km south of Lemberg. But on the 20th, Russian railway
connections to Lemberg were cut. Lemberg and Rawa-Ruska were going to fall, and fall they
did on the 22nd, the former to Boehm-Ermolli and the latter to Mackensen. Mackensen was
promoted to Field Marshall that same day. General Ivanov withdrew his forces toward
the Bug River.
If things seemed to be going badly for Russia in the field this week, they were not much
better at home.
On June 15th, in Petrograd, Ivan Goremykin, the President of the Council of Ministers-
basically the Prime Minister- had a breakdown and asked the Tsar to replace him. That didn’t
happen. That same day several other ministers tried to convince the Tsar not to convene
the Duma- the government council assembly, and urged him that Russia could no longer
continue the war. But on the 20th, the Constitutional Democrats demanded that the Fourth Duma be
recalled and a new government formed that would be acceptable to the liberals. It was
decided that that would happen August 1st, the one year anniversary of Russia’s declaration of war.
Also on the 20th, Russian Minister of War Vladimir Sukhomlinov was relieved of duty
on charges of negligence, but was reassured by the Tsar that he did not believe rumors
of Sukhomlinov’s treason. Sukhomlinov was, though, eventually accused of treason in 1916,
and his political trial was with a public jury for the first time in Russian history.
His wife got Rasputin and the Tsarina to defend him and he was eventually freed, but the public
was disgusted with the whole affair and some claim this actually did more damage to the
Tsar than Rasputin’s scandals. Sukhomlinov died in Berlin in 1926. His memoirs, written
two years earlier, were dedicated to Kaiser Wilhelm.
I’d like to look now at the newest front, the Italian front for a minute.
We’ve talked a bit about the Italian-Austrian front since Italy joined the war with the
Allies last month, but I’ll go over it in brief again here. Most of that front was in
the highest mountains in Europe, from the Tyrol to the Julian Alps, and Austria-Hungary
held those mountain crests. At the very western end, Trentino, there were nine routes that
led through passes. At the east, where the Isonzo River is, was an avenue of possible
advance, but beyond the river the ground rises to two plateaus that were basically enormous
natural fortresses. One of them being broken by a succession of steep ridges, and the other
described by James Edmonds as “a howling wilderness of stones as sharp as knives”.
Now, all of this terrain would have been pretty tricky for even highly skilled mountain troops.
Italy did actually have such troops, but only enough for two brigades. Most of the Italian
army, though, came from town and farms, roughly a quarter from the south or Sicily. Thing
is, those southerners had only been part of Italy for 40 something years and when they
thought of a better life, most of them did not look to the north for inspiration, but
rather to America. Actually, the whole army was undertrained compared to the other warring
nations, and it had a serious lack of modern artillery, which played a huge factor everywhere
so far this war. Italy had only 120 heavy guns at this point.
One big strength that Italy did have was its officers; specifically, the ones from the
former Kingdom of Savoy. They were professional, they were well trained and educated, and above
all they were patriotic. They knew their business. Their biggest problem, though, was the man
in charge, Chief of Staff Luigi Cadorna. He actively exercised his constitutional right
of supreme authority over the army, independent of King or Prime Minister and he was brutal.
Just cheating a bit and seeing the future- Cardona dismissed a total of 217 generals
from duty during the war.
His plan at the beginning of Italy’s war effort was for a rapid breakthrough on the
Isonzo. His men would break through the mountain barrier and then follow the paths cut by the
Drava and Sava rivers into Klagenfurt in the north and Zagreb further south and east. This
would put them in the very heart of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. You can see similarities between his
plans and the Russian plans in April to push through the Carpathians and into the Hungarian
plains, but the Russian plans were far more realistic.
For starters, the Julian Alps, which you’d have to negotiate to get to Klagenfurt, are
tougher than the Carpathians to tackle, though at least it wasn’t winter.
So anyhow, this week on June 23rd the Italian army attacked at what would become known as
the First Battle of the Isonzo facing a single Austro-Hungarian entrenchment. Now, before
Italy’s entry in the war, Austria had been holding the border with Italy with local militias,
but since May four divisions had arrived and by this time The Austrian Fifth Army as it
was now known, seven divisions strong, was under the command of General Svetozar Boroevic,
one of the war’s most capable generals. Still, they were heavily outnumbered. But
the Italian infantry, with more bravery than skill, advanced en masse and were stopped
in no mans land, taking 2,000 killed and 12,000 wounded. Now, that sounds like an awful lot
more wounded than killed and we would see that again and again on this front, because
bullets or exploding shells would splinter the rocky terrain into flying shards which
were particularly harsh for the head or eyes.
I haven’t said anything about the Western Front or Gallipoli this week, and I’m not
going to, events there will have to wait until next week, but to recap the events of this week:
The Italians were unable to make progress against the Austrians in the south, and the
Austrians and Germans scored a major victory by re-taking Lemberg, Russian chaos in the
field was matched by chaos at home, and the Germans gained a new Field Marshall.
That was a big deal; re-taking Lemberg. None of the great cities of Europe had fallen for
many months now, and when you realize that Austria-Hungary had also re-taken the fortress
of Przemysl two weeks ago, you can see that amazing but true, the empire was very much
in the ascendant, with Russia totally on the run. But the Russians weren’t stupid; they
were underequipped and outgunned, yes, but they still had their two great advantages-
an endless supply of men, and the vast open spaces of Russia. How far would the Germans
and Austrians penetrate into Russia? Would they suffer the same fate as Napoleon and
eventually be unable to supply their troops? Would a war of attrition finally wear them
down and give the Russians the upper hand? Well, that’s the future and we’ll have
to wait and see, but one thing I can absolutely guarantee: hundreds of thousands of men would die.
Przemysl - you heard that name at least 100 times in our show back in 1914 and early 1915.
Conrad von Hötzendorf sacrificed a few hundred of thousands of men to save the trapped army
in the fortress. And still didn’t achieve it’s goal. If you want to find out how he
Hötzendorf’ed the whole thing, click here for our episode from early January.
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