World War I (1914-1918)

The war in the East began with the Russian invasion of East Prussia and the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia. The first effort quickly turned to a disaster following the Battle of Tannenberg in August 1914. However, the second incursion was completely successful, with the Russians controlling almost all of Galicia by the end of 1914. Under the command of Nikolay Ivanov and Aleksey Brusilov, the Russians won the Battle of Lemberg in September and began the Siege of Przemysl, the next fortress on the road towards Kraków and the Austro-Hungarian border.

This early Russian success in 1914 on the Austro-Russian border was a reason for concern to the Central Powers and caused considerable German forces to be transferred to the East to take pressure off the Austrians, leading to the creation of the new German Ninth Army. At the end of 1914 the main focus of the fighting shifted to Central Poland, west of the river Vistula. The October Battle of the Vistula River and the November Battle of Łódź brought little advancement for the Germans, but at least kept the Russians at a safe distance.

The Russian and Austro-Hungarian armies continued to clash in and near the Carpathian Mountains throughout the winter of 1914–1915. Przemysl fortress managed to hold out deep behind enemy lines throughout this period, with the Russians bypassing it in order to attack the Austro-Hungarian troops further to the west. They made some progress, crossing the Carpathians in February and March 1915, but then the Germans sent relief and stopped further Russian advance. In the meantime, Przemysl was almost entirely destroyed and the Siege of Przemysl ended in a defeat for the Austrians.

Despite these successes, the effectiveness of the Russian Army at the same time rapidly declined as the underdeveloped Russian arms industry proved unable to meet the demands of the front. Furthermore, as the situation on the Western Front stabilized, the German command decided to make its main effort on the Eastern Front in 1915, and accordingly transferred considerable forces there.

To eliminate the Russian threat the Central Powers began the campaign season of 1915 with a successful Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive in Galicia in May of 1915. After the Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes, the German and Austro-Hungarian troops in the Eastern Front functioned under a unified command. The offensive soon turned into a general advance and then a strategic retreat by the Russian army. By mid-1915, the Russians had been expelled from Russian Poland and hence pushed hundreds of kilometers away from the borders of the Central Powers, removing any threat of Russian invasion of Germany or Austria-Hungary. At the end of 1915 the main part of the front reached a line which in general outline did not change until the Russian collapse in 1917.

In 1916 the Russians attempted a large counteroffensive under the leadership of General Aleksey Brusilov (the Brusilov Offensive). The attack, aimed against the part of the front held by Austro-Hungarians, was initially a spectacular success largely because of its use of storm troopers. However, a successful counterattack by German units halted the Russian assault.

By 1917, the Russian economy finally neared collapse under the strain of the war effort. While the equipment of the Russian armies actually improved due to the expansion of the war industry, the food shortages in the major urban centres brought about civil unrest which led to the abdication of the Tsar and the February Revolution. The large war casualties also created disaffection and mutinous attitudes in the army, which was fueled by Bolshevik agitators and the Russian Provisional Government’s new liberalization policies towards the army (stripping officers of their mandate by giving wide sweeping powers to “soldier committees”, the abolition of the death penalty). The very last offensive undertaken by the Russian Army in the war was the brief and unsuccessful Kerensky Offensive in July of 1917.