The Brusilov Offensive

One Russia in the First World War

c h a p t e r o n e Russia in the First World War The High Command of the Russian Imperial Army met at its headquarters (Stavka) in Mogilev on 14 April 1916 to discuss plans for the coming spring. In attendance were three commanders: General Aleksei N. Kuropatkin, commanding the Northern Front; General Aleksei Evert, in charge of the Northwestern Front; and General Aleksei A. Brusilov, who had recently replaced Nikolai Y. Ivanov on the Southwestern Front; along with the chief of the general staff, General Mikhail V. Alekseev. General Dmitri Shuvaev, the Russian war minister, Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, inspector general of the artillery, and the chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral A. I. Rusin, were also present.1 Tsar Nicholas II, who had assumed the post of supreme commander of the Russian armed forces at the end of August 1915, presided over the meeting, though he offered neither comment nor criticism. Few of the military leaders at Imperial Headquarters were in a positive mood, but the Russians were committed. Their representatives at the meeting of Allied commanders at Chantilly, France, in December 1915 had pledged a Russian attack in support of the British and French offensive on the Somme River planned for the following spring. The idea was to pin down the German forces on the Eastern Front and prevent their transfer to the west. This would, in theory, swing the balance of forces to the Allies and create the opportunity for a decisive breakthrough on the Western Front. The plan was largely the work of General Joseph Joffre, the French commander in chief, but the tsar had reviewed it in February 2 The Brusilov Offensive 1916 and given his personal assurances to the Allies that they could count on Russian assistance to execute the design. The Russian commanders were not so confident. A March 1916 offensive against the Germans on the Northern and Western fronts in the area around Lake Narotch, undertaken in response to French pleas for relief from the incessant German pressure on Verdun, had achieved little. Despite some initial success, 300,000 Russian troops had been unable to defeat 50,000 Germans or even force them to transfer reinforcements from the west. In the process, the Russians had suffered nearly 100,000 casualties —including 10,000 men who died of exposure. Kuropatkin and Evert argued that a renewed offensive against the Germans would be futile. A breakthrough was impossible. The Russian army, they contended, had not had sufficient rounds for its artillery in March, and it did not have enough now. Alekseev insisted on going ahead. According to his calculations, once the new levies had been incorporated the Russian army would dispose of some 700,000–800,000 men along the sectors of the Northern and Western fronts by summer.2 With these overwhelming numbers, he intended to launch a two-pronged offensive on a 20-kilometer front along the Dvina River in mid-May using the Russian Second and Tenth armies. The adjoining interior wings of the armies would drive on Vilnius; the northern and western wings, where the Russians figured to outnumber the German forces by five to one and six to one respectively, would hold their reserves to deal with any German counterstroke. Evert and Kuropatkin were not convinced and continued to argue against the action. Alekseev had to concede an additional two-month preparation period and promise to commit at least one thousand heavy guns to the offensive before the two commanders reluctantly agreed to the undertaking. Then Brusilov spoke. He had been appointed as commander of the Southwestern Front only two weeks before; “with his mustaches twirled, his hair clipped short, and his body slim and straight, Brusilov still remained the dashing cavalry officer he had been during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877.”3 His predecessor, Ivanov, was present at the meeting, looking frail and shattered from the breakdown of late 1915 that had cost him the post. Brusilov offered, on his own initiative, to launch an offensive on the Southwestern Front to support the plan. It was a mistake, he said, not to take advantage of the numerical superiority the Russians held over the Central Powers by attacking on all fronts simultaneously. “I ask only the express permission to attack on my front at the same time as my colleagues,” he Russia in the First World War 3 said. “Should it be...