Germany’s Western Front: 1915: Translations from the German Official History of the Great War

11. The Central Powers’ Situationat the End of 1915

11  The Central Powers’ Situation at the End of 1915 While the fighting raged in the champagne and the artois, the central Powers met with success on other fronts. On 6 September a new alliance between the Central Powers and Bulgaria was concluded for the campaign against Serbia. On 7 October a combined German and Austro-Hungarian offensive struck Serbia simultaneously across the Sava and the Danube. The Austro-Hungarian Third Army and German Eleventh Army pushed the Serbian troops southwards away from Belgrade and Negotin toward Nis. On 12 October the Bulgarian attack began: First and Second Armies drove westward from the border toward Nis and the retreating Serbian Army. By the end of the month the main Serbian forces had been split and isolated. Once Nis fell on 6 November the supply route to Turkey was open and the remnants of the Serbian armies retreated into the mountains. Except for an unsuccessful French foray up the Vardar River in November, the campaign for Serbia was effectively over. In December, 140,000 Serbian soldiers and 50,000 civilians began a long retreat to the Adriatic port of Durazzo, where on 23 February 1916, 133,000 were evacuated from the coast.1 1 DW IX: 196–286. Meanwhile on the Italian Front, two more Italian offensives across the Isonzo ended in failure. On 18 October, twenty-five Italian divisions supported by 1,363 guns attacked an Austrian army of twelve divisions and 634 guns. By the end of the offensive on 4 November, the Italians had again suffered enormous casualties: 67,000 men, including 2,115 officers. By comparison the defenders lost 42,000 men, including 7,200 missing. The Fourth Battle of the Isonzo, which began a week later on 10 November, was equally unsuccessful and equally costly. By the time it ended in mid-December the Italians had lost a further 49,000 men for a total of 116,000 during the two autumn battles. By comparison, the Austro-Hungarians, who were out numbered more than two to one, lost 71,000 during the Third and Fourth Battles of the Isonzo.2 The Central Powers’ greatest success came against Russia. By the middle of July the two earlier offensives toward the San and in Eastern Prussia had created a huge salient in Russian Poland. On 13 July the German and Austro-Hungarian troops advanced along a continuous line. The Russians fell back in a general retreat. Warsaw fell on 4 August, Kovno on 18 August, and Brest-Litovsk on 24 August.3 By the end of the year the Russian armies had lost more than 2.2 million men, including 1 million missing.4 Thus at year’s end the Central Powers faced 1916 from a position of strength rather than insecurity. As Robert Foley writes, at the end of 1915 the Central Powers stood at the height of their success.5 The tremendous force of the entente’s great offensive in the west caught General von Falkenhayn in the middle of his preparations for the Serbian campaign. Initially it appeared that it would not be possible to continue to implement plans for offensive operations against Serbia as it seemed that the dangerous situation in the West might require a shift in strategic emphasis. However, he 368 part iii: summer and autumn 2 DW IX: 327–34. 3 Foley, German Strategy and the Path to Verdun, 147–51; Stone, The Eastern Front 1914–1917, 174–91. 4 DW VIII: 596. 5 Foley, German Strategy and the Path to Verdun, 151. pursued his operational objectives with a remarkable steadfastness and did not allow the tense situation in the French Theatre to dictate his actions during the Entente’s offensive in the West. Pursuant to an urgent request by Generaloberst von Einem, only 5th Infantry Division—which was about to begin its departure for the Danube on 24 September—was made available to Third Army. The OHL’s remaining directives during the fall battles in the Artois and the Champagne dealt primarily with the deployment of reserves that had already been staged on the Western Front or that had previously been designated to depart for that theatre. Otherwise the preparations for the Serbian campaign were not affected by the Franco-British attacks and reconnaissance. Preparations for crossing the Sava and the Danube continued without interruption. The significance of this should not be underestimated: a change in the Serbian...