The Brusilov Offensive

Two Making Preparations

c h a p t e r t w o Making Preparations Given the circumstances of early 1916, it is easy to see how Brusilov’s offer to go on the offensive might have seemed suicidal. Over the course of the Gorlice-Tarnow campaign in the summer of 1915 and the subsequent “Yellow-Black Offensive,” the Russians had suffered between 300,000 and 400,000 casualties per month. Over a million Russian soldiers were taken captive during the Central Powers’ drive to the east, and many of those had surrendered without fighting. At some points, the Russian retreat covered 900 kilometers from their furthest westward advance. Many of the German and the Austro-Hungarian planners judged the Russians incapable of further offensive action. “The Russian armies have not been completely overthrown but their offensive powers have been so shattered that she can never revive in anything like her old strength,” Falkenhayn had written the kaiser in December 1915. He assumed that any Russian attack was likely to result in the destruction of the tsar’s armies, if not a complete revolution in Russia.1 The Austrian staff planners on the Russian Front believed that the Habsburg forces had broken the enemy; one officer even opined that “it will soon be over.” Conrad still expected the Russians to mount another attack, but at the same time he was so confident the Habsburg defenses would hold that he pressed ahead with a plan to pull two divisions from Galicia to assist with a spring offensive against Italy.2 Ludendorff was so unconcerned that when rumors of a new Russian offensive began circulating in early March 1916, he dismissed them out of hand and took two days’ vacation.3 The 36 The Brusilov Offensive Russian failures around Lake Narotch only confirmed the judgment of the Central Powers’ commanders. The Russian strikes, Falkenhayn wrote, “might, however, be described as bloody sacrifices rather than attacks.” Russian power, he believed, was broken.4 Repairing the Damage The problems in the Russian army were readily apparent and, at least numerically, seemed to justify Falkenhayn’s assessment. By July 1915, the Russian army had suffered some 60,000 casualties among its officer corps—and there had been only 40,000 officers serving in August 1914. With an annual intake of only 35,000 or so officers, the Russian Imperial Army was effectively crippled in the first year of the war. Beneath the surface , however, lay grounds for hope. The retreat of 1915 had shortened the Russian lines, making supply easier, and by early 1916 Russian armaments production had reached respectable levels, producing almost 1.3 million rifles and 1.5 billion cartridges per year.5 Improved connections to England and France, while still tenuous, had provided additional supplies as well. According to one estimate, the Russian army possessed 1.2 million rifles in its front lines in January 1916, and another 2 million were either already in Russian ports or due to arrive from abroad by April.6 At the same time, foreign suppliers had shipped over 1,900 field guns to Russia, along with 355 mountain guns, twelve 4.2-inch guns, forty-three 4.8-inch howitzers, and sixty 6-inch howitzers, increasing the available artillery by between 60 and 70 percent from August 1914. The Russians also received nearly 5 million shells of various calibers to alleviate the shortages experienced in the first year of the war.7 “We began to receive rifles—of various types and calibers to be sure—but in quantity and with sufficient cartridges nonetheless ,” Brusilov wrote in his memoirs. “Artillery shells, especially for light guns, also began to arrive in great quantities. They increased the number of machine guns, and organized in every unit so-called grenadiers who were armed with hand grenades and bombs.”8 In his few short months as minister of war from July 1915 to March 1916, moreover, General Aleksei A. Polivanov had drafted an additional 2 million men into the Russian armed forces, reorganized recruitment to emphasize the physical fitness of the men, and reformed Russian infantry training. New recruits received far more combat training than previously, and they were often rotated into quiet sectors of the front lines prior to Making Preparations 37 being deployed in combat. By the end of 1915, the Russian armies had almost 2 million men at the front, all with a rifle and an average of some...