Breakthrough: The Gorlice-Tarnow Campaign, 1915 (review)

While the western front of World War I has engendered sustained scholarly and popular interest in Anglophone countries, France, and Germany, it should be remembered that developments on the eastern front had momentous consequences as well. Large-scale and sustained combat there directly precipitated the downfall of czarist Russia, as well as the dissolution of the Dual Monarchy, and drained away forces which the Germans could have deployed in the west. Consequently, while not uncharted terrain, the eastern front affords scholars fertile ground for study, and the book under review rightly focuses on this important arena of World War I.

DiNardo’s monograph, published by Praeger as part of a series entitled War, Technology, and History, falls squarely under the rubric of operational military history. The author analyzes the joint campaign conducted by Germany and Austria-Hungary around the region of Gorlice and Tarnow, a portion of Austria-Hungary during the Great War and now located in the southern part of Poland. Beginning in early May 1915 and continuing for the next four months, the Central Powers first breached the front line and subsequently advanced in some places more than 300 miles, occupying Russian Poland and inflicting possibly a million casualties on the Russian army. Indeed, the Russians would refer to their ensuing retrograde movement as “the Great Withdrawal,” and the campaign constituted the Central Powers’ greatest land victory in Europe.

In nine chapters, preceded by an introduction and followed by notes, a bibliography, and an index, the author briefly summarizes the general context of the European war, before shifting to the eastern front and the choices confronting German and Austro-Hungarian decision-makers there in the winter and early spring of 1915. At that time, a Russian breakthrough against the Austro-Hungarians and the subsequent conquest of Hungary appeared imminent. Three strategic imperatives, namely warding off this threat to Hungary, winning over neutral countries like Italy and Rumania, and establishing a land link with the Ottoman Empire, induced the German Army Supreme Command to agree to shift most of Germany’s strategic reserve temporarily from the west to the east for a limited offensive.

The sensitive issue of command over joint German-Austro-Hungarian forces, preparation, attack, breakthrough, and rapid advance are all discussed in the author’s lucid chronological narrative. DiNardo draws on primary sources, especially from the Viennese War Archive and the Federal Military Archive in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, as well as on a plethora of published English- and German-language sources. Abundant citations attest to the author’s diligence. Indeed, the notes comprise approximately one quarter of the entire text.

Ultimately, in the chapter aptly titled “Assessment,” the author attributes the success of the Central Powers to three technological factors: aircraft, artillery, and communications. The book’s focus on operational warfare clearly addresses an audience of specialists, and especially military historians focusing on this particular theater of World War I. Familiarity with the background of the Great War, and with German and Austrian history, will certainly enhance a reader’s appreciation of the author’s efforts.

Despite its merits, DiNardo’s study has a few shortcomings that warrant mention. The author’s emphasis on technology raises four questions that might have been examined at greater length. First, what role did technology play for the Austro-Hungarian forces, who, after all, fielded about 50,000 of the 180,000 Central Powers forces deployed at the onset of the campaign? Second, the author might have discussed the Russian technological counterparts to the Austro-German forces. The types of aircraft, artillery, and communications equipment fielded by the czarist forces deserved mention. Third, the late historian Ernest May once noted the importance of training and intelligence in ensuring the quality of armed forces in peacetime. Presumably this holds especially true during wartime. Consequently, the study might have addressed these two topics for all three combatants: the Germans, Austro-Hungarians, and, at least briefly, the Russians. For example, in footnote 48...