100 years ago, on June 4, 1916, the offensive of the Russian armies of the Southwestern Front against the Austro-German troops began. This operation became known as the Brusilovsky breakthrough, and is also known as the Lutsk breakthrough and the 4th Battle of Galicia. This battle became the most memorable for Russia in the First World War, as Russian troops in Galicia under the command of General Alexei Brusilov broke through the defenses of the Austro-German troops and rapidly advanced. In the very first days of the operation, the number of prisoners reached tens of thousands. The opportunity arose to withdraw the Austro-Hungarian Empire from the war. After the severe setbacks of the 1915 campaign, this operation temporarily strengthened the army's morale. The operation of Russian troops lasted from May 22 (June 4) until the end of August 1916.

The successful actions of the Southwestern Front were not supported by other fronts. The headquarters turned out to be unable to organize the interaction of the fronts. Command errors also had an impact at the level of the command of the Southwestern Front and the command of the front armies. As a result, the Lutsk breakthrough did not lead to the fall of the enemy front and a major strategic success leading to victory in the war. However, the operation in Galicia was of great importance. The Austro-Germans lost up to 1.5 million people in May-August 1916, of which up to 400 thousand were prisoners (however, Russian troops suffered heavy losses in May-June alone, 600 thousand people). The strength of the Austro-Hungarian military machine, which had already suffered a terrible defeat during the 1914 campaign and was able to more or less recover in 1915, was completely undermined. Until the end of the war, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was no longer able to conduct active military operations without the support of German troops. In the Habsburg monarchy itself, the processes of disintegration sharply intensified.

To stop the advance of the Russian army, the German command had to transfer 11 divisions from the Western Front to the Eastern Front, and the Austrians had to remove 6 divisions from the Italian Front. This contributed to the weakening of the pressure of the German army in the Verdun area and the overall victory of the Allied forces in the Battle of Verdun. The Austrian command was forced to stop the Trentino operation and significantly strengthen the army group in Galicia. The operation of the Southwestern Front was a major achievement of military art, proving the possibility of breaking through the enemy's strong positional defenses. Romania, which in 1914-1915 waited, expecting a major success for one of the parties in the Great War, took the side of the Entente, which scattered the forces of the Central Powers. The Lutsk breakthrough, along with the Battle of Verdun and the Battle of the Somme, marked the beginning of a strategic turn in the course of the world war in favor of the Entente, forcing the Central Powers to switch to strategic defense in 1917.

As a result, this battle will go down in official historiography as the “Brusilov breakthrough” - this was a unique case when the battle was named not by geographical (for example, the Battle of Kalka, the Battle of Kulikovo or the Erzurum operation) or other related characteristics, but by the name of the commander. Although contemporaries knew the operation as the Lutsk breakthrough and the 4th Battle of Galicia, which was in accordance with the historical tradition of naming the battle after the location of the battle. However, the press, predominantly liberal, began to praise Brusilov, as they did not praise other successful commanders of the Great War (like Yudenich, who inflicted severe defeats on the Turkish army several times in the Caucasus). In Soviet historiography, given the fact that Brusilov went over to the side of the Reds, this name stuck.

Plan for the 1916 campaign

In accordance with the decision of the conference of the Entente powers in Chantilly (March 1916) on the general offensive of the allied armies in the summer of 1916, the Russian Headquarters decided to launch an offensive on the Eastern Front in June. In its calculations, the Russian Headquarters proceeded from the balance of forces on the Eastern Front. On the Russian side there were three fronts: Northern, Western and Southwestern. Kuropatkin's northern front (chief of staff Sivers) covered the St. Petersburg direction and consisted of the 12th, 5th and 6th armies. The front headquarters was located in Pskov. They were opposed by the 8th German Army and part of Scholz's army group. Evert's Western Front defended the Moscow direction. It included the 1st, 2nd, 10th and 3rd armies (the 4th army was added in May). The front headquarters is in Minsk. The Russian troops were opposed by part of the Scholz army group, the 10th, 12th and 9th and part of the Linsingen army group. Brusilov's Southwestern Front covered the Kiev direction and included the 8th, 11th, 7th and 9th armies. Front headquarters - Berdichev. The Linsingen army group, the Böhm-Ermoli army group, the Southern Army and the 7th Austro-Hungarian Army acted against these troops. According to Alekseev, on three Russian fronts there were more than 1.7 million bayonets and sabers against over 1 million people from the enemy. The Northern and Western Fronts had a particularly great advantage: 1.2 million people against 620 thousand Germans. The Southwestern Front had 500 thousand people against 440 thousand Austro-Germans.

Thus, according to the Russian command, on the northern sector of the front, Russian troops had double superiority over the enemy. This advantage could be significantly increased after the units were recruited to full strength and reserves were transferred. Therefore, Alekseev intended to launch a decisive offensive in the sector just north of Polesie, with the forces of the Northern and Western fronts. The strike groups of the two fronts were to advance in the general direction of Vilna. The Southwestern Front was given a defensive mission. Brusilov had only to prepare for a strike from the Rivne region in the direction of Kovel if the offensive in the north was successful.

Alekseev believed that it was necessary to seize the strategic initiative into one’s own hands and prevent the enemy from going on the offensive first. He believed that after the failure at Verdun, the Germans would again turn their attention to the Eastern Theater and launch a decisive offensive as soon as the weather permitted. As a result, the Russian army had to either give the initiative to the enemy and prepare for defense, or forestall him and attack. At the same time, Alekseev noted the negative consequences of the defensive strategy: our forces were stretched along a 1200-kilometer front (the Anglo-French defended only 700 km and could concentrate a larger number of forces and means without fear of enemy attacks); the underdeveloped communications network did not allow the rapid transfer of reserves in the required quantities. In Alekseev’s opinion, it was necessary to launch an offensive in May in order to forestall enemy actions.

However, the March failure (Naroch operation) had a catastrophic effect on the commanders-in-chief of the Northern and Western Fronts - Alexei Kuropatkin and Alexei Evert. Any decisive offensive seemed unthinkable to them. At a meeting at Headquarters on April 1 (14), Generals Kuropatkin and Evert spoke out for complete passivity; given the technical state of our army, our offensive should, in their opinion, end in failure. However, the new commander-in-chief of the Southwestern Front, Alexei Brusilov, believed in the Russian troops and demanded an offensive mission for his front, vouching for victory.

According to the plan approved by Headquarters on April 11 (24), the main blow was delivered by troops of the Western Front in the Vilna direction. Auxiliary strikes were carried out by the Northern Front from the Dvinsk region to Novo-Alexandrovsk and further to Vilno, and by the Southwestern Front in the Lutsk direction. In connection with the difficult situation on the Italian front, where Austro-Hungarian troops launched the Trentino operation in May 1916 and threatened to break through the front and withdraw Italy from the Entente camp, the allies turned to Russia with an urgent request to speed up the start of the offensive in order to pull enemy troops from the Italian directions. As a result, the Russian Headquarters decided to launch an offensive earlier than planned.

Thus, instead of two main blows by the forces of the Northern and Western Fronts, it was decided to deliver a decisive blow by the forces of only one - the Western Front. The Northern Front supported this offensive with an auxiliary strike. The task of the Southwestern Front, which was supposed to deliver an auxiliary attack on Lutsk and thereby facilitate the actions of the Western Front troops in the main direction, changed significantly.

The offensive operation was different in that it did not provide for the depth of the operation. The troops were supposed to break through the enemy’s defenses and inflict damage on them; the development of the operation was not envisaged. It was believed that after overcoming the first line of defense, a second operation to break through the second line would be prepared and carried out. The Russian high command, taking into account the French and its own experience, did not believe in the possibility of breaking through the enemy’s defenses with one blow. To break through the second line of defense, a new operation was required.

Preparing the operation

After the General Headquarters adopted the plan of operation for the 1916 campaign, the fronts began preparing a strategic offensive. April and most of May were spent preparing for a decisive offensive. As military historian A. A. Kersnovsky noted: “The training camps of the Northern Front were baggy. Kuropatkin hesitated, doubted, losing his spirit. In all his orders there was an unfounded fear of a German landing in Livonia - to the rear of the Northern Front.” As a result, Kuropatkin constantly asked for reinforcements and sent all the troops (in total 6 infantry and 2 cavalry divisions) to guard the Baltic Sea coast. Thus, he weakened the strike group, which was supposed to support the main attack of the Western Front.

A similar situation was on Evert's Western Front, whose troops were to play a major role in the operation. Evert could not be accused of poor work; he carried out titanic paperwork, literally bombarded the troops with countless orders, instructions, instructions, trying to provide for literally every little detail. The command of the Russian Western Front was guided by the experience of the French Front, but it could not create its own, or find a way out of the strategic impasse of positional warfare. As a result, behind the bustle of the headquarters of the Western Front, there was a sense of uncertainty in their own strength, and the troops felt it. Evert concentrated 12 corps of the 2nd and 4th armies of Smirnov and Ragoza to attack Vilna in the Molodechensk region - 480 thousand soldiers against 80 thousand Germans. In addition, behind them in the second line, in the reserve of the Headquarters there were 4 corps (including the 1st and 2nd Guards, Guards Cavalry Corps). However, it seemed to the commander-in-chief that this was not enough. And the closer the deadline for the start of the offensive on May 18 approached, the more disheartened Evert became. At the last moment, when the operation was already prepared, he suddenly changed the entire plan and, instead of attacking Vilna, chose an attack on Baranovichi, transferring the headquarters of the 4th Army to a new direction. He demanded a delay to prepare a new strike - from May 18 to May 31. And he immediately asked for a new extension - until June 4. This angered even the calm Alekseev and he ordered an attack.

The best preparations for the offensive were carried out on the Southwestern Front. When Commander-in-Chief Ivanov surrendered the front to Brusilov, he described his armies as “unfit for combat,” and called the offensive in Galicia and Volyn “hopeless.” However, Brusilov was able to reverse this unfavorable trend and instill confidence in the troops in their abilities. True, Kaledin and Sakharov (8th and 11th armies) did not expect anything good from the operation, Shcherbachev and Lechitsky (7th and 9th armies) showed skepticism. However, everyone set to work energetically.

Brusilov's idea, which formed the basis of the front's offensive plan, was completely new and seemed adventurous. Before the start of the war, the best form of offensive was considered to be bypassing one or two flanks of the enemy in order to encircle him. This forced the enemy to retreat or led to complete or partial encirclement. Positional warfare with a solid front well prepared for defense buried this method. Now we had to break through the enemy’s defenses with a powerful frontal attack and suffer huge losses. Having fully taken into account the experience of the failed offensive and attempts to break through the positional front on the French and Russian fronts, the commander-in-chief refused to concentrate the strike force in one place, which was always identified in advance by the enemy, and demanded that an offensive be prepared along the entire front in order to mislead the enemy. Brusilov ordered each army and some corps to select a breakthrough site and immediately begin engineering work to approach the enemy. For the same reason, artillery preparation was reduced to ensure surprise of the attack. Each army commander had to attack in the direction he himself chose. As a result, the front did not deliver one concentrated blow, but launched 20-30 attacks in different places. The Austro-German command was deprived of the opportunity to determine the location of the main attack and concentrate artillery, additional troops and reserves here.

This method of breaking through the enemy front had not only advantages, but also serious disadvantages. It was impossible to concentrate such an amount of forces and resources on the direction of the main attack that would have made it possible to develop the first success. Brusilov himself understood this well. “Every course of action,” he wrote, “has its downside, and I believed that it was necessary to choose the course of action that is most beneficial for a given case, and not blindly imitate the Germans.” “... It can easily happen,” he noted, “that at the site of the main attack we may receive little or no success, but since the enemy is attacked by us, greater success may appear where we do not currently expect it.” . These bold ideas confused the high command. Alekseev tried to object, but as usual, without much energy, in the end, having received a rebuff from his subordinate, he resigned himself.

General Brusilov assigned the main role to his right flank - Kaledin's 8th Army, as adjacent to the Western Front, which was supposed to deliver the main blow to the enemy. Brusilov always remembered that he was solving an auxiliary problem, that the role of his front was secondary, and subordinated his calculations to the plan developed at Headquarters. As a result, the main direction of the Southwestern Front, Lvov, where the 11th Army was located, was sacrificed. A third of the infantry (13 divisions out of 38.5) and half of the heavy artillery (19 batteries out of 39) of the entire front were sent to the 8th Army. Kaledin's armies pointed in the direction of Kovel-Brest. Kaledin himself decided to deliver the main blow with his left flank in the Lutsk direction, with well-trained troops of the 8th and 40th corps.

In the 11th Army, General Sakharov planned a breakthrough from Tarnopol in the sector of his left flank 6th Corps. The 7th Army of General Shcherbachev, against which the strongest section of the Austro-German front was located, was the weakest and consisted of only 7 divisions. Therefore, Shcherbachev decided to break through the enemy defenses where it was easiest, in the sector of the left flank of the 2nd Corps at Yazlovets. In the 9th Army, Lechitsky decided to first defeat the enemy in Bukovina, so he struck with his left flank - the reinforced 11th Corps, in a southwestern direction, towards the Carpathians. Then, having secured the left flank, he planned to transfer the attack to the right flank, in Transnistria.

Thus, the Southwestern Front planned four battles, not counting the diversionary and auxiliary actions of other corps. Each army commander chose the direction for his attack, regardless of his neighbors. All four armies attacked with their left flanks. What was especially bad was that the 8th and 11th armies operated in discord. Sakharov's 11th Army, in theory, was supposed to activate its right flank, facilitating the main attack of the 8th Army on Lutsk. Instead, Sakharov directed all his efforts to the left flank, and the right-flank 17th Corps had the task only of demonstrating the offensive. With normal coordination of the actions of the 8th and 11th Army, the breakthrough of the enemy front could have been more impressive.

However, the headquarters of the Southwestern Front did not set out to link together the actions of four armies, or even two - the 8th and 11th. After all, the main battle in the southwestern strategic direction was not at all included in the calculations of the Russian Headquarters, even as a plan “B” if the offensive of the Western Front failed. The main role in the strategic offensive was assigned to the Western Front. Brusilov’s front was only supposed to “demonstrate.” Therefore, Brusilov planned several battles, hoping to distract and pin down the Austro-German forces with numerous blows. The development of the offensive, in the event of a breakthrough of the enemy’s defenses, was simply not envisaged, except for the Lutsk direction in the 8th Army, and then depending on the success of the Western Front. Brusilov had only one corps in reserve.

The preparation for breaking through the enemy defense itself was carried out perfectly by Brusilov’s armies. The headquarters of the 8th Army organized the “fist of fire” well, and the headquarters of the 7th Army carefully prepared the infantry assault. Our aviation photographed enemy positions along the entire front of the South German Army. Based on these photographs, the headquarters of the 7th Army drew up detailed plans, where they included all the fortifications, communication passages and machine gun nests. In the rear of the 7th Army, training camps were even erected, where they reproduced the enemy defense areas planned for the assault. The troops trained in such a way that they would then feel at enemy positions as if they were at home. Huge earthworks etc. were carried out.

Under the command of General A.A. Brusilova The Southwestern Front carried out the most successful strategic operation of the First World War in 1916

During the First World War, Russia and its Entente allies tried to coordinate the actions of their armies. In the summer of 1916, a general offensive of the Allied forces was planned. At a meeting in Chantilly (France) in February 1916, it was decided, in particular, that Russian troops would strike no later than June 2 (15). And no later than June 18 (July 1), the British and French were to launch an offensive. But in February, the Germans launched attacks near Verdun, and in May, Austro-Hungarian troops unleashed a severe blow on the Italians.

The temperamental Italians got scared and began sending panicked telegrams to the French and Russians. They demanded from the former to influence the Russians, and from the latter to immediately go on the offensive in order to distract the Austrians from Italy. Let us note that the Russians always fulfilled their allied obligations, but the allies acted as they saw fit. For example, they did not move when in 1915 the Russian army was retreating, suffering heavy losses and in need of support. But in 1916, the Russians were required to attack in order, among other things, to pull German forces away from the French Verdun. As it turned out later, the British then refused to go to the aid of the French.

And the Italian king Victor Emmanuel III sent a telegram to Nicholas II. According to his “highest” logic, for some reason only the Russians had to save Italy from defeat.

However, on May 18 (31), the king answered the Italian king as follows: “My chief of staff reported to me that on May 22 (June 4) my army will be able to launch an attack on the Austrians. This is even somewhat earlier than the date set by the Allied Military Council... I decided to undertake this isolated offensive in order to assist the brave Italian troops and in consideration of your request.”

The Italians, by the way, even thought about whether they should capitulate to the Austrians. Later it turned out that their fears were greatly exaggerated. At the same time, they diverted more than 20 Austrian divisions to themselves, and the collapse of Italy would have dealt the Entente both a military and, what was no less important for the allies, a moral blow.

The defense of the Austro-Hungarian troops was considered impregnable. The Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Infantry General M. Alekseev, reported to the Tsar on March 31 (April 13), 1916: “The totality of the actions of troops under modern conditions, as experience on the French and our fronts shows, indicates that it is hardly possible to count on execution in one a method of deep penetration into the enemy’s position, although a second line of corps would be placed behind the shock corps.” In other words, the Headquarters did not plan to defeat the enemy. She set more modest tasks for the troops: to inflict losses on the enemy. Although, it would seem, when planning a major operation, it should have clearly and clearly reflected in its directive the operational-strategic goal for which the operation was planned.

At the April meeting at Headquarters, when discussing the plan for the upcoming campaign, the generals, for the most part, were also not particularly eager to go into battle. The Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Front, General A. Kuropatkin, said, for example: “It is absolutely impossible to break through the German front, because their fortified zones are so developed and strongly fortified that it is difficult to imagine success.” In turn, the Commander-in-Chief of the Western Front, General A. Evert, completely agreed with Kuropatkin and said that the most acceptable way of conducting combat operations for the Western Front was defense. But the commander-in-chief of the Southwestern Front, General Brusilov, had a different opinion. He decisively stated that the Southwestern Front was not only ready for an offensive, but also had a good chance of operational success.

To assert this, of course, required military talent and great courage.

Unlike many generals, Brusilov adhered to Suvorov’s rule “Fight not with numbers, but with skill!” He insisted on broad offensive actions for the Southwestern Front.

“I am firmly convinced,” he said, “that we can attack... I believe that the disadvantage that we have suffered so far is that we do not attack the enemy on all fronts at once, in order to stop the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of internal action. operational lines, and therefore, being significantly weaker than us in the number of troops, he, using his developed network of railways, transfers his troops to one place or another at will. As a result, it always turns out that in the area that is being attacked, at the appointed time he is always stronger than us, both technically and quantitatively. Therefore, I urgently ask permission for my front to act offensively simultaneously with my neighbors; even if, beyond my expectations, I had not even been successful, then at least I would not only have delayed the enemy’s troops, but also attracted part of his reserves to myself and in this powerful way would have facilitated the task of Evert and Kuropatkin.”

Brusilov, later describing this meeting at Headquarters, noted that General Kuropatkin approached him during the lunch break and made the remark: “You have just been appointed commander-in-chief, and you are fortunate enough not to go on the offensive, and, therefore, not to risk your fighting reputation, which now stands high. Why do you want to be subjected to major troubles, perhaps being replaced from your position and losing that military aura that you have managed to earn so far? If I were you, I would do my best to disavow any offensive operations..."

The Headquarters Directive of April 11 (24), 1916 defined the following tasks: “1. The general goal of the upcoming actions of our armies is to go on the offensive and attack the German-Austrian troops... 4. The South-Western Front, disturbing the enemy throughout its entire location, makes the main attack with the troops of the 8th Army in the general direction of Lutsk.” The headquarters did not plan operations in depth, trying to limit themselves to a breakthrough and the desire to inflict as many losses on the enemy as possible. And the Southwestern Front was generally assigned a supporting role. But General Brusilov thought differently.

The troops of Archduke Joseph-Ferdinand defended against the Southwestern Front. Initially, Brusilov was opposed by four Austrian and one German army (448,000 bayonets, 38,000 sabers, 1,300 light and 545 heavy guns).

The enemy compensated for the slight numerical disadvantage with an abundance of equipment and the power of defense. In nine months, three defensive lines were built at a distance of 5 km from one another. The first was considered the most durable - with support units, pillboxes, cut-off positions that lead the enemy into a “bag” for extermination. The trenches had concrete canopies, deep dugouts were equipped with reinforced concrete vaults, and machine guns were located under concrete caps. There were also 16 rows of barbed wire, some with electric current running through them. Bombs were hung on the wire, mines and landmines were placed around, abatis, “wolf pits”, and slingshots were made. And in the Russian trenches, Austro-German flamethrowers were waiting.

Behind such a skillfully equipped first strip there were two more, albeit a little weaker. And although the enemy was sure that it was impossible to break through such a defense, he prepared a rear defensive position 10 km from the first line. When Kaiser Wilhelm II visited the front, he was delighted: he had not seen such strong positions, as it seemed to him then, even in the West, where opponents had been very successful in this matter over several years of trench warfare. At the same time, at an exhibition in Vienna, models of defensive structures from the Austro-Hungarian front were demonstrated as the highest achievement of German fortification. And the enemy believed so much in the impregnability of his defense that a few days before the Brusilov offensive, the question was even discussed about whether it would be dangerous to remove a couple of divisions from this front in order to defeat Italy as quickly as possible. It was decided that there would be no danger, since the Russians had been constantly plagued by misfortunes for the past year, and this trend was unlikely to change.

However, the Germans and Austrians relied primarily on heavy artillery. Its ratio was as follows: 174 heavy guns against 76 Russians in the 8th Army sector, 159 against 22 in the 11th Army sector, 62 against 23 in the 7th Army sector, 150 against 47 in the 9th Army sector.

With such superiority, the Germans still complained that too many heavy batteries were transferred to the Italian front. But the most important thing: the enemy did not believe that after the severe defeats of 1915, the Russians were generally capable of anything more or less serious. The chief of staff of the German army group, General Stolzmann, boastfully declared: “The possibility of Russian success is excluded!”

Apparently the Germans have forgotten who they are dealing with. The Commander-in-Chief of the Southwestern Front was not one of those generals who are called parquet (their entire service takes place at headquarters - on parquet floors, not in the trenches - from second lieutenant to general). Alexey Alekseevich Brusilov (1853 - 1926) came from a family of hereditary military men. He lost his parents early and at the age of 4 was enrolled in the Corps of Pages, where guard officers were trained. However, he did not aspire to join the elite units, and, frankly speaking, the funds for service in the guard were not enough. After completing his studies in the Corps of Pages in the summer of 1872, the young officer chose to serve in the 15th Tver Dragoon Regiment, which was stationed in Kutaisi. (Brusilov, by the way, was born in Tiflis). There, the 19-year-old warrant officer was appointed junior platoon officer of the 1st squadron. When the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878 began, Brusilov took part in hostilities literally from the first days. For the military campaign he was awarded the Order of St. Stanislaus, 3rd degree. And then there was service in various positions in the Russian Imperial Army. In the summer of 1913, cavalry general A. Brusilov took command of the 12th Army Corps in the Kiev Military District.

With the outbreak of World War I, Brusilov was appointed commander of the 8th Army. The troops of his army advanced to the border and soon entered into battle with the Austrian cavalry. The enemy was defeated, his remnants fled across the river. Zbruch. On the river The enemy Koropets tried to stop Brusilov’s troops, but was again defeated. And he retreated to the Galician city of Galich. And Brusilov moved to Lvov. Along the way we took Galich. The battle lasted three days. The Austrians lost more than five thousand people killed. For the capture of Galich, General Brusilov received the Order of St. George, 4th degree.

Soon the Austrians tried to make a detour west of Lvov. Brusilov, with the troops of the right flank and center, gave the enemy a counter battle (the most difficult type of combat operations), and with the troops of the left flank he took up a strong defense. The enemy suffered massive losses, retreated and decided to gain a foothold in the Carpathian passes in order to block the Russian troops from reaching the Hungarian plain.

In the Battle of Galicia, the first major battle of the Russian army in the Great War, the troops of General Brusilov defeated the 2nd Austro-Hungarian Army, only taking more than 20 thousand prisoners. Brusilov's army repelled all enemy attempts to relieve the city of Przemysl, besieged by the Russians.

In the most difficult year for the Russian army, 1915, the troops of General Brusilov carried out active defensive actions, inflicting serious losses on the enemy. The successes of A. Brusilov could not go unnoticed. In March 1916, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the Southwestern Front, and in April he was awarded the rank of adjutant general. The army headquarters was then located in Zhitomir. There was a little more than a month left before the attack...

The front commander, General Brusilov, did not waste time. He paid special attention to intelligence - from regimental to army and front-line. All information obtained about the enemy was concentrated at the front headquarters. For the first time in that war, Brusilov made extensive use of aerial reconnaissance data, including photographs. Let us add that a fighter air group was also formed for the first time on the Southwestern Front. It ensured the dominance of Russian aviation in the air. Our pilots carried out bombing attacks, fired machine guns at the enemy, and supported the infantry on the battlefield.

To mislead the enemy, false radio messages were widely used on the Southwestern Front. Genuine orders, instructions, and instructions were transmitted to the troops exclusively by courier, by courier mail. False artillery positions were created. The front headquarters spread misinformation about the offensive that the Germans were allegedly preparing to the north of Polesie. Therefore, they say, the Southwestern Front must be ready to come to the rescue of General Evert. To be more convincing, the corps were ordered to prepare for an offensive in many places, using trench work to turn their positions into a springboard for an attack. Brusilov told the army commanders: it is necessary to create a complete illusion that the front will strike at 20 points.

As a result, the Austro-Hungarian command was unable to determine where the Russians would deliver the main blow. The Austrians thought in a stereotyped way: where Russian cannons would continuously fire for several days, that’s where they should wait for the main attack.

And it was a miscalculation. Brusilov gave precise instructions to the artillery for the period of breaking through the enemy defenses. Light guns were supposed to first destroy the wire fences, then destroy the machine guns. The targets of medium and heavy artillery were communication trenches and main defensive positions. As soon as the infantry rose to attack, the light artillery had to concentrate fire on the enemy's artillery batteries. Then the heavy guns immediately transferred the fire to the far lines of the enemy’s defense.

The Brusilov breakthrough gave rise to such a thing as a barrage of fire. This was a short shelling of targets, under the direct cover of which the attack began. Under dense artillery fire, the enemy could not offer decisive resistance. The attacking units broke into the first line of enemy trenches. Before this, literally in seconds, the barrage of fire was transferred to the second line of defense, then to the third, etc. And almost closely behind the rampart walked the grenadiers or, as they were called, “trench cleaners.” Grenadier teams burst into enemy trenches as soon as the barrage of fire moved further. The enemy was still sitting in the dugouts, and one grenade thrown there was enough to destroy a dozen enemy soldiers.

Based on the situation on the fronts, General Brusilov foresaw that Headquarters would order the offensive to begin on May 28-29. In order to completely mislead the enemy, he ordered all preparations to be completed by May 19. And on the 20th, the Commander-in-Chief of the Southwestern Front received an order to begin the offensive on May 22 (old style) - two weeks earlier than planned. When Brusilov asked whether other fronts would attack simultaneously, General Alekseev answered evasively that Evert would be ready by May 28, but in the meantime Brusilov would have to attack on his own.

It must be emphasized that General Brusilov largely inherited Suvorov. One very typical example: before the offensive, he created a copy of the defensive line of the Austro-German fortifications and trained soldiers on it. Suvorov did this more than once. And yet - the Suvorov-like suddenness of the blow inherent in Brusilov. Brusilov paid the main attention to this issue. The disinformation worked: the Austrians did not understand where the Russians would strike the main blow. It never occurred to them that there would be no main strike as such.

The strategic surprise of the Brusilov breakthrough was achieved by the fact that all four armies struck simultaneously. This, as they said then, was against all the rules. But Suvorov also won, breaking all the rules of war (as if there could be any rules in war!).

A day before the offensive, General Alekseev, via direct wire, conveyed to Brusilov the tsar’s order to conduct the offensive not in four sectors, but in one, and with all the forces intended for operations. Brusilov replied: report to the Emperor that I cannot regroup the corps and armies within 24 hours. Then Alekseev very diplomatically remarked: His Majesty is sleeping, I’ll report tomorrow. And tomorrow it was already too late...

And all four armies achieved success!

Brusilov relied not on artillery, as was customary in trench warfare, but on an infantry breakthrough. In the direction of the main attack, an operational density of 3-6 battalions (3000-5000 bayonets) and 15-20 guns per 1 km of front was created with a consumption of 10,000-15,000 shells. In some areas of the breakthrough, the total number of light and heavy guns was brought to 45-50 per 1 km of front. The operational density of enemy troops ranged from 4 to 10 km per infantry division, i.e. 2 battalions per 1 km of front and 10-12 guns. Thus, the Russians managed to obtain a double, and in some areas even a triple superiority of forces.

Another tactical discovery of Brusilov is an attack with rolls. He abandoned the idea of ​​covering long distances in tight formation. The infantry was divided into the so-called. waves that moved one after another at a distance of 150-200 m. The enemy positions should have been attacked in four waves and from close range. The first two waves took a trench and immediately attacked the second, where they tried to gain a foothold. The remaining waves “rolled” over the first ones and with fresh forces took the next line of defense. The cavalry was supposed to be used only in the event of a breakthrough of the enemy front. This method of attack, by the way, like other methods and methods of Brusilov, was widely used in European armies.

The battle began with a surprise artillery barrage by the troops of the Southwestern Front. On the night of June 3-4 (new style), 1916, at 3 a.m., powerful artillery fire was opened, which continued until 9 a.m. In the areas planned for the breakthrough of Russian troops, the enemy's first line of defense was destroyed. Thanks to well-organized reconnaissance, including aerial photography, Russian artillery was able to suppress many of the identified enemy guns.

The front, with the forces of four armies, broke through the Austro-Hungarian defenses simultaneously in 13 sectors and launched an offensive in depth and on the flanks. During the breakthrough, the troops of the Russian Imperial Army broke the Austro-Hungarian defenses stretching from the Pripyat marshes to the Romanian border, advanced 60-150 km in depth and occupied a significant territory of Galicia (present-day Western Ukraine).

Enemy losses amounted to 1.5 million people killed, wounded and captured. The losses of our troops were three times less. And this is in the offensive, where the ratio of losses should be the opposite!

Therefore, the talk that still exists about the low qualities of the commanders of the Russian Imperial Army is a shameless lie. It is enough to compare its losses with the losses of enemies and allies in the First World War, as well as with the losses of the Red Army in 1941–1945. The victory of the Southwestern Front naturally caused an unprecedented triumph in Russia. In his memoirs, German General Erich Ludendorff wrote: “The Russian attack in the Stryi bend, east of Lutsk, was a complete success. The Austro-Hungarian troops were broken through in several places, and the German units that went to the rescue also found themselves in a difficult situation here. It was one of the worst crises on the Eastern Front."

Both the Russian triumph and the German-Austrian crisis are associated with the name of General Alexei Brusilov. Moreover, it is also necessary to recall the names of the commanders of the armies who, under the leadership of an outstanding commander, achieved great success: the commander of the 7th Army D. G. Shcherbachev, the 8th Army - A. M. Kaledin, the 9th Army P. A. Lechitsky , 11th Army - K.V. Sakharov. As a result of this strategic operation, Italy was saved, the French held out at Verdun, the British withstood the onslaught of the Germans on the river. Somme.

It has long been known that the success of the Southwestern Front was not adequately supported by other fronts. But that's another story. As for the results of the offensive of the Southwestern Front, they were stunning and were of utmost importance for the further course of the war and the later reorganization of the world.

Then, in 1916, the Entente countries received all the conditions for a victorious end to the war. Supporting the Brusilov breakthrough with all the forces of the Entente would have led to the defeat of the enemy. This, alas, did not happen - the Allies began to attack only 26 days after the attack by Brusilov’s troops. And the war ended only in 1918. The defeat, as could have been predicted already in 1916, of Germany and Austria-Hungary. Officially, Russia was not among the winners, and justice has not yet been restored. Nevertheless, this battle became a world classic of military art. By the way, I. Stalin had great respect for General Brusilov, whose ideas formed the basis for the largest strategic offensive operations of 1944, which went down in the history of the Great Patriotic War under the name “Stalin’s ten strikes.”

The Brusilov breakthrough is the only military operation named after the commander. Military operations until 1916 did not have code names.

They were usually named after the location where the battles took place. At first, this operation was known as the Lutsk breakthrough. But already from the first days of the fighting, the success of the advancing Russian troops became so obvious that not only the domestic, but also the foreign press started talking about Brusilov. Even in military circles, especially among officers of the Southwestern Front, the offensive was named after General Brusilov. Then this name spread throughout the country. And it has survived to this day. History simply does not give laurels of encouragement to anyone. In 1916, the Southwestern Front carried out the most successful strategic operation of the Entente forces during the entire war. Adjutant General Alexey Alekseevich Brusilov rightfully deserves eternal memory in Russia.

Especially for "Century"

The offensive of the armies of the Russian Southwestern Front in May–June 1916 became the first successful front-line operation of the Entente coalition. Moreover, this was the first breakthrough of the enemy front on a strategic scale. The innovations applied by the command of the Russian Southwestern Front in the sense of organizing a breakthrough of the enemy’s fortified front became the first and relatively successful attempt to overcome the “positional impasse”, which became one of the priority characteristics of military operations during the First World War of 1914–1918.

Nevertheless, it was not possible to achieve victory in the struggle through the withdrawal of Austria-Hungary from the war. In the battles of July–October, the blinding victories of May–June were drowned in the blood of enormous losses, and the victorious strategic results of the war on the Eastern Front were lost in vain. And in this matter, not everything (although, undoubtedly, a lot) depended on the High Command of the Southwestern Front, which had the honor of organizing, preparing and carrying out the breakthrough of the enemy defense in 1916.

The operational-strategic planning of the Russian Headquarters of the Supreme High Command for the 1916 campaign implied a strategic offensive on the Eastern Front by the combined efforts of troops of all three Russian fronts - the Northern (commander - General A. N. Kuropatkin, from August 1 - General N. V. Ruzsky ), Western (commander - General A. E. Evert) and South-Western (commander - General A. A. Brusilov). Unfortunately, due to certain circumstances of a predominantly subjective nature, this planning was never implemented. Due to a number of reasons, the supposed Supreme Command Headquarters represented by the Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General. M.V. Alekseev’s operation of a group of fronts resulted only in a separate front-line operation of the armies of the Southwestern Front, which included from four to six armies.

German Minister of War and Chief of the Field General Staff, General. E. von Falkenhayn

Positional struggle involves heavy losses. Especially from the attacking side. Especially if you failed to break through the enemy’s defenses and thereby compensate for your own losses incurred during the assault. In many ways, the stubbornness of the command of the Southwestern Front in a given direction and the disdain of the higher headquarters for losses in the personnel of the active forces are explained by the internal logic of the positional struggle that suddenly confronted all sides and the ensuing methods and methods of conducting combat operations.

As modern authors say, the “exchange” strategy developed by the Entente countries as a means of resolving the deadlock of positional warfare could not but lead to the most disastrous results, since, first of all, “such a course of action is extremely negatively perceived by its own troops.” The defender suffers fewer losses because he can take greater advantage of the technology. It was precisely this approach that broke the German armies thrown at Verdun: the soldier always hopes to survive, but in the battle where he is probably destined to die, the soldier experiences only horror.

As for losses, this issue is very, very controversial. Moreover, not so much the number of losses in general, but their ratio between the warring parties. The figures for the ratio of losses established in Russian historiography are: one and a half million, including a third as prisoners of war, for the enemy versus five hundred thousand for the Russians. Russian trophies amounted to 581 guns, 1,795 machine guns, 448 bomb throwers and mortars. These figures originate from an approximate calculation of data from official reports, subsequently summarized in the “Strategic Outline of the War of 1914–1918,” M., 1923, part 5.

There are many controversial nuances here. Firstly, this is the time frame. The Southwestern Front lost about half a million people only in May - mid-July. At the same time, Austro-German losses of one and a half million people are calculated until October. Unfortunately, in a number of reputable works the time frame is not indicated at all, which only makes it difficult to understand the truth. Moreover, figures even in the same work can be different, which is explained by the inaccuracy of sources. One might think that such silence might overshadow the feat of the Russian people, who did not have weapons equal to the enemy and were therefore forced to pay with their blood for the enemy’s metal.

Secondly, this is the ratio of the number of “bloody losses”, that is, killed and wounded, with the number of prisoners. Thus, in June–July, the maximum number of wounded during the entire war arrived from the armies of the Southwestern Front: 197,069 people. and 172,377 people. respectively. Even in August 1915, when the bloodless Russian armies were rolling back to the east, the monthly influx of wounded was 146,635.

All this suggests that the bloody losses of the Russians in the 1916 campaign were greater than even in the lost campaign of 1915. This conclusion is given to us by the outstanding domestic military scientist General N.N. Golovin, who held the position of chief of staff of the 7th Army during the offensive of the armies of the Southwestern Front. N.N. Golovin says that in the summer campaign of 1915 the percentage of bloody losses was 59%, and in the summer campaign of 1916 it was already 85%. At the same time, in 1915, 976,000 Russian soldiers and officers were captured, and in 1916 - only 212,000. The figures of Austro-German prisoners of war taken as trophies by the troops of the Southwestern Front also vary in various works from 420,000 to “ more than 450,000,” or even “equalized” to 500,000 people. Still, the difference of eighty thousand people is quite significant!

In Western historiography, sometimes absolutely monstrous figures are mentioned. Thus, the Oxford Encyclopedia tells its general reader that during the Brusilov breakthrough, the Russian side lost a million people killed. It turns out that the Russian Active Army suffered almost half of all irretrievable losses during the period of participation of the Russian Empire in the First World War (1914–1917) on the Southwestern Front in May–October 1916.

A logical question arises: what did the Russians do before? This figure is presented to the reader without any hesitation, despite the fact that the British military representative at the Russian Headquarters, A. Knox, reported that about a million people were the total losses of the Southwestern Front. At the same time, A. Knox rightly pointed out that “The Brusilov breakthrough became the most outstanding military event of the year. It surpassed other Allied operations both in the scale of the territory captured, in the number of enemy soldiers killed and captured, and in the number of enemy units involved.”

The figure of 1,000,000 losses (this is based on official data from the Russian side) was given by such an authoritative researcher as B. Liddell-Hart. But! He clearly states: “The total losses of Brusilov, although terrible, amounted to 1 million people...” That is, it quite rightly says here about all the losses of the Russians - killed, wounded and prisoners. And according to the Oxford Encyclopedia, one might think that the armies of the Southwestern Front, following the usual ratio between irretrievable and other losses (1:3), lost up to 4,000,000 people. Agree that a difference of more than four times is still quite significant. But they just added one single word “killed” - and the meaning changes in the most radical way.

It is not for nothing that in Western historiography they hardly remember the Russian struggle of 1915 on the Eastern Front - the same struggle that allowed the Allies to create their own armed forces (primarily Great Britain) and heavy artillery (France). The same struggle when the Russian Active Army lost most of its sons, paying with Russian blood for the stability and rest of the French Front.

Ambush in the forest

And here the losses are only in killed: a million people in 1916 and a million before the Brusilov breakthrough (the total figure of two million killed Russians is given in most Western historical works), so the logical conclusion is that the Russians made no more efforts in battles on the continent in 1915 efforts compared to the Anglo-French. And this at a time when a sluggish positional “shoveling” was going on in the West, and the entire East was on fire! And why? The answer is simple: supposedly the leading Western powers got involved with backward Russia, but they didn’t know how to fight properly.

It is undeniable that serious historical studies of Western historiography still adhere to objective figures and criteria. It’s just that for some reason the data in the most authoritative and publicly accessible Oxford Encyclopedia is distorted beyond recognition. This appears to be a consequence of a tendency to deliberately underestimate the importance of the Eastern Front and the contribution of the Russian army to achieving victory in the First World War in favor of the Entente bloc. After all, even the same relatively objective researcher B. Liddell-Hart also believes that “the true history of the war of 1915 on the Eastern Front represents a stubborn struggle between Ludendorff, who tried to achieve decisive results using a strategy that, at least geographically, was indirect actions, and Falkenhayn, who believed that through a strategy of direct action he could reduce the losses of his troops and at the same time undermine Russia's offensive power." Like this! The Russians, consider, did nothing, and if they were not knocked out of the war, it was only because the top military leaders of Germany could not come to an agreement with each other about the most effective way to defeat the Russians.

The most objective seems to be the data of N.N. Golovin, who names the total number of Russian losses in the summer campaign of 1916 from May 1 to November 1 at 1,200,000 killed and wounded and 212,000 prisoners. It is clear that this should also include the losses of the armies of the Northern and Western Fronts, as well as the Russian contingent in Romania since September. If we subtract the estimated losses of Russian troops on other sectors of the front from 1,412,000, then no more than 1,200,000 losses will remain for the Southwestern Front. However, these figures cannot be final, since N.N. Golovin could be wrong: his work “Russia’s Military Efforts in the World War” is extremely accurate, but with regard to the calculation of human losses, the author himself stipulates that the data provided are only the maximum approximate, according to the author's calculations.

To a certain extent, these figures are confirmed by the data of the Chief of Military Communications at the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General. S.A. Ronzhina, who says that during the spring and summer of 1916, over a million wounded and sick were transported from the Southwestern Front to the near and far rear.

It can also be noted here that the figure of Western researchers of 1,000,000 people lost by the Russian armies during the Brusilov breakthrough for the entire period of attacks by the Southwestern Front from May to October 1916 is not “taken from the air.” The figure is 980,000 people lost by the armies of the general. A. A. Brusilova, was indicated by the French military representative at the Petrograd Conference in February 1917, General. N.-J. de Castelnau in a report to the French War Ministry dated February 25, 1917. Obviously, this is the official figure that was given to the French by Russian colleagues at the highest level - first of all, the acting Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General. V. I. Gurko.

As for the Austro-German losses, here too you can find a variety of data, differing by almost a million people. Thus, the largest numbers of enemy losses were named by the General Command itself. A. A. Brusilov in his memoirs: over 450,000 prisoners and over 1,500,000 killed and wounded for the period from May 20 to November 1. These data, based on official reports from Russian headquarters, were supported by all subsequent Russian historiography.

At the same time, foreign data does not give such a huge ratio of losses between the parties. For example, Hungarian researchers, without giving, however, a time frame for the Brusilov breakthrough, call the losses of Russian troops at more than 800,000 people, while the losses of the Austro-Hungarians (without the Germans) were “approximately 600,000 people.” This ratio is closer to the truth.

And in Russian historiography there are rather cautious points of view on this issue, correcting both the number of Russian losses and the ratio of losses of the warring parties. Thus, S. G. Nelipovich, who specially studied this issue, rightly writes: “...The breakthrough at Lutsk and on the Dniester really shocked the Austro-Hungarian army. However, by July 1916, it had recovered from defeat and, with the help of German troops, was able not only to repel further attacks, but also to defeat Romania... Already in June, the enemy guessed the direction of the main attack and then repelled it with the help of mobile reserves at key sectors of the front.” Further, S. G. Nelipovich believes that the Austro-Germans lost “just over 1,000,000 people” on the Eastern Front by the end of 1916. And if thirty-five divisions were deployed against the armies of General Brusilov from other fronts, Romania required forty-one divisions for its defeat.

Machine gun point guarding the headquarters

Thus, the additional efforts of the Austro-Germans were directed to a greater extent not so much against the Russian Southwestern Front as against the Romanians. True, it should be taken into account that Russian troops also operated in Romania, which by the end of December 1916 formed a new (Romanian) front of three armies, numbering fifteen army and three cavalry corps in their ranks. This is more than a million Russian bayonets and sabers, despite the fact that the actual Romanian troops at the front were no longer more than fifty thousand people. There is no doubt that since November 1916, the lion's share of the allied troops in Romania were already Russians, against whom, in fact, those same forty-one Austro-German divisions fought, which suffered not so heavy losses in the fight against the Romanians in Transylvania and near Bucharest losses.

At the same time, S. G. Nelipovich also cites data on the losses of the Southwestern Front: “Only according to rough calculations according to the Headquarters statements, Brusilov’s Southwestern Front lost 1.65 million people from May 22 to October 14, 1916.” , including 203,000 killed and 152,500 captured. “It was precisely this circumstance that decided the fate of the offensive: the Russian troops, thanks to the “Brusilov method,” choked on their own blood.” Also, S.G. Nelipovich rightly writes that “the operation did not have a clearly defined goal. The offensive developed for the sake of the offensive itself, in which it was a priori assumed that the enemy would suffer heavy losses and involve more troops than the Russian side.” The same thing could be observed in the battles of Verdun and the Somme.

Let us remember that Gen. N.N. Golovin pointed out that from May 1 to November 1, all Russian troops on the Eastern Front lost 1,412,000 people. That is, this is on all three fronts of the Russian Active Army, plus the Caucasian Army, where in 1916 three large-scale operations were carried out - the Erzurum and Trebizond offensive and the Ognot defensive. Nevertheless, the reported figures for Russian losses in various sources differ significantly (more than 400,000!), and the whole problem obviously lies in the calculation of enemy losses, which are given, first of all, according to references to official Austro-German sources, which are not very reliable.

Claims about the unreliability of Austro-German sources have already been repeatedly raised in world historiography. At the same time, the figures and data from reputable monographs and generalizing works are based precisely on official data, in the absence of others. Comparison of different sources usually gives the same result, since everyone mainly comes from the same data. For example, Russian data also suffers from great inaccuracy. Thus, the latest domestic work, “World Wars of the 20th Century,” based on official data from the states participating in the war, calls Germany’s losses in the war: 3,861,300 people. total, including 1,796,000 deaths. If we take into account that the Germans suffered most of their losses in France, and, in addition, fought on all fronts of the World War without exception, then it is clear that large numbers of losses against the Russian Southwestern Front cannot be expected.

Indeed, in another of his publications, S. G. Nelipovich presented Austro-German data on the losses of the armies of the Central Powers on the Eastern Front. According to them, during the 1916 campaign the enemy lost 52,043 people in the East. killed, 383,668 missing, 243,655 wounded and 405,220 sick. These are the same “just over 1,000,000 people.” B. Liddell-Hart also points out that three hundred and fifty thousand prisoners, and not half a million, were in the hands of the Russians. Although it appears that the ratio between wounded and killed as nine to two is an understatement of irretrievable losses.

Still, the reports of Russian commanders in the zone of military operations of the armies of the Southwestern Front and the memories of Russian participants in the events give a largely different picture. Thus, the question of the ratio of losses of the warring parties remains open, since the data of both sides is likely to be inaccurate. Obviously, the truth, as always, is somewhere in the middle. Thus, the Western historian D. Terrain gives slightly different figures for the entire war, presented by the Germans themselves: 1,808,545 killed, 4,242,143 wounded and 617,922 prisoners. As you can see, the difference with the above figures is relatively small, but Terrain immediately stipulates that, according to Allied estimates, the Germans lost 924,000 people as prisoners. (a difference of a third!), so “it is very possible that the other two categories are underestimated to the same extent.”

Also, A. A. Kersnovsky, in his work “History of the Russian Army,” constantly points to the fact that the Austro-Germans underestimated the actual number of their losses in battles and operations, sometimes three to four times, while at the same time excessively overestimating the losses of their opponents, especially Russians. It is clear that such data from the Germans and Austrians, submitted during the war as a report, was completely transferred to official works. Suffice it to recall the figures of E. Ludendorff about the sixteen Russian divisions of the 1st Russian Army at the first stage of the East Prussian offensive operation in August 1914, wandering throughout Western and even Russian studies. Meanwhile, in the 1st Army at the beginning of the operation there were only six and a half infantry divisions, and there were no sixteen at all by the end.

For example, the defeat of the Russian 10th Army in the August Operation of January 1915 and the capture of the 20th Army Corps by the Germans look like the Germans allegedly captured 110,000 people. Meanwhile, according to domestic data, all losses of the 10th Army (at the beginning of the operation - 125,000 bayonets and sabers) amounted to no more than 60,000 people, including most, undoubtedly, prisoners. But not the entire army! It is not without reason that the Germans not only failed to develop their success, stopping opposite the Russian defensive lines on the Beaver and Neman rivers, but were also repulsed after the approach of Russian reserves. In our opinion, B. M. Shaposhnikov once rightly noted that “German historians have firmly adopted Moltke’s rule: in historical works “write the truth, but not the whole truth.” In relation to the Great Patriotic War, S. B. Pereslegin also speaks about the same thing - the deliberately false exaggeration of the enemy’s forces by the Germans in the name of extolling their own efforts. Tradition, however: “In general, this statement is a consequence of the Germans’ ability, through simple arithmetic manipulations, to create an alternative Reality after the battle, in which the enemy would always have superiority (in the event of a German defeat, multiple).”

Junker of the Nikolaev Cavalry School in the Active Army

Here it is necessary to cite one more interesting evidence, which, perhaps, at least to a small extent, can shed light on the principle of calculating losses in the Russian armies during the Brusilov breakthrough. S. G. Nelipovich, calling the losses of the South-Western Front at 1,650,000 people, indicates that this is data on the calculation of losses, according to the statements of the Headquarters, that is, obviously, according to information, first of all, presented by the headquarters of the South-Western Front to the highest authorities. So, regarding such statements, interesting evidence can be obtained from the general on duty at the headquarters of the 8th Army, Count D. F. Heyden. It was this headquarters institute that was supposed to compile loss records. Count Heyden reports that when he was Gen. A. A. Brusilov commander-8, General Brusilov deliberately exaggerated the losses of the troops entrusted to him: “Brusilov himself often persecuted me because I adhere too closely to the truth and show the higher authorities, that is, the front headquarters, what really is, and I am not exaggerating the figures for losses and needed replacements, as a result of which we were sent less than what we needed.”

In other words, General Brusilov, trying to achieve the sending of a large number of reinforcements, already in 1914, while still commander of Army-8, ordered to exaggerate the loss figures in order to get more reserves at his disposal. Let us remember that the reserves of the Southwestern Front by May 22, 1916, concentrated behind the 8th Army, amounted to only two infantry and one cavalry divisions. There were not enough reserves even to build on the success: this circumstance, for example, forced the commander of the 9th Gen. P. A. Lechitsky put the 3rd Cavalry Corps of General in the trenches. Count F.A. Keller, since there was no one else to cover the front that had been exposed as a result of the withdrawal of infantry corps to the areas planned for a breakthrough.

It is quite possible that in 1916, as commander-in-chief of the armies of the Southwestern Front, General. A. A. Brusilov continued the practice of deliberately inflating the losses of his troops in order to receive significant reinforcements from Headquarters. If we mention that the General Headquarters reserves concentrated on the Western Front were never used for their intended purpose, then such actions of General Brusilov, whose armies had enormous successes compared to their neighbors, seem quite logical and at least deserving of sympathetic attention.

Thus, official data is not a panacea for accuracy, and therefore, it is probably necessary to look for a middle ground, relying, among other things, on archival documents (which, by the way, also tend to be untruthful, especially in relation to the always deliberately exaggerated losses of the enemy), and on the testimony of contemporaries. In any case, it seems that in such controversial issues one can only talk about the most accurate approximation to the truth, but not about it itself.

Unfortunately, certain figures presented by scientists, shown in archives and undoubtedly in need of clarification, are later disseminated in the literature as the only true ones and having far-reaching consequences. At the same time, each such “subsequent distributor” takes into account those figures (and they can be very different from each other, as in the example with the same Brusilov breakthrough - half a million losses) that are beneficial for his own concept. Thus, it is indisputable that the heavy losses of the 1916 campaign broke the will of the personnel of the Active Army to continue the fight, and also influenced the mood of the rear. However, right up to the fall of the monarchy, the troops were preparing for a new offensive, the rear continued its work, and it would be premature to say that the power was collapsing. Without certain political events orchestrated by the liberal opposition, the morally broken country would obviously continue to fight until victory.

Let's give a specific example. Thus, B.V. Sokolov, trying (in many respects rightly) to combine in his conclusions the practice of warfare by Russia/USSR in the 20th century in relation to human losses, tries to name the extreme highest figures for both the First World War and the Great Patriotic War. Simply because this is his concept - the Russians are waging war, “overwhelming the enemy with mountains of corpses.” And if in relation to the Great Patriotic War, which B.V. Sokolov, in fact, studies, these conclusions in the works are confirmed by one or another of the author’s calculations (it doesn’t matter whether they are correct or not, the main thing is that the calculations are carried out), then for the First World War the numbers that are most suitable for the concept are simply taken. Hence the general results of the struggle: “... the successful offensive of the Russian imperial army - the famous Brusilovsky breakthrough - finally undermined the power of the Russian army and provoked the revolution from a formal point of view. Huge irretrievable losses, significantly exceeding the enemy’s, demoralized the Russian troops and the public.” Further it turns out that “significantly exceeding losses” is two to three times.

Domestic historiography provides various figures, but no one says that Russian losses in the Brusilov breakthrough exceeded the losses of the Austro-Germans by two to three times. If, however, only B.V. Sokolov has in mind exclusively irretrievable losses, then the extreme figures he took are really present. Although, we repeat that one cannot count on the reliability of Austro-German data, and yet they are the only ones presented almost as the ideal of military statistics.

Characteristic evidence: despite the mobilization of twenty percent of the population into the armed forces during the Second World War, the irretrievable losses of the troops of Nazi Germany appear to be three to four million people. Even if we assume that the number of cripples is approximately the same, it is surprising to believe that in 1945 at least an army of ten million could capitulate. With half the contingent after the Vyazemsky “cauldron,” the Red Army overthrew the Nazis in the Battle of Moscow in December 1941.

And these are the extreme figures of German statistics. Only for Soviet losses are the highest extreme figures taken, and for German losses are the lowest extreme figures taken. At the same time, Soviet losses are calculated by theoretical calculations based on the Books of Memory, where numerous overlaps are inevitable, and German losses are simply based on official data from the lowest level of calculation. That’s the whole difference - but how tempting is the conclusion about “filling the enemy with corpses.”

One thing is clear: the Russian troops of the Southwestern Front lost a lot of people in 1916, so many that this circumstance cast doubt on the possibility of achieving final victory in the war under the auspices of the regime of Nicholas II. According to the same gene. N.N. Golovin, in 1916 the percentage of bloody losses remained at 85%, while in 1914–1915 it was only 60%. That is, without a doubt, the matter is not so much in losses in general, but in the ratio of the payment for the victory that beckoned. The replacement of the stunning successes of maneuver battles with a stupid and extremely bloody frontal “meat grinder” could not help but lower the morale of the soldiers and officers, who, unlike higher headquarters, understood everything perfectly well. It was clear to the troops, but not to the headquarters, that a frontal attack in the Kovel direction was doomed to failure.

In many ways, the large losses are explained by the fact that the Russian divisions were too “overloaded” with people compared to the enemy. Before the war, the Russian infantry division had sixteen battalions compared to twelve in the armies of Germany and Austria-Hungary. Then, during the Great Retreat of 1915, the regiments were consolidated into three battalions. Thus, an optimal ratio was achieved between the human “filling” of such a tactically independent unit as a division and the firepower of this tactical unit. But after the Active Army was replenished with recruits in the winter and spring of 1916, the fourth battalions of all regiments began to consist of only recruits (the Russian command was never able to abandon the fourth battalions altogether, which only increased losses). The level of equipment supply remained at the same level. It is clear that the excess of infantry in frontal battles, which were also carried out in conditions of breaking through strong enemy defensive lines, only increased the number of needless losses.

The essence of the problem here is that in Russia they did not spare human blood - the times of Rumyantsev and Suvorov, who beat the enemy “not with numbers, but with skill,” are irrevocably over. After these “Russian victorious” military “skills” of the commander inevitably included the proper “numbers”. The Commander General himself. A. A. Brusilov said this about this: “I heard reproaches that I did not spare the expensive soldier’s blood. In good conscience, I cannot admit that I am guilty of this. True, once the matter began, I urgently demanded that it be brought to a successful conclusion. As for the amount of blood shed, it depended not on me, but on the technical means with which I was supplied from above, and it was not my fault that there were few cartridges and shells, there was a lack of heavy artillery, the air fleet was ridiculously small and of poor quality and etc. All such serious shortcomings, of course, influenced the increase in our losses in killed and wounded. But what do I have to do with it? There was no lack of my urgent demands, and that was all I could do.”

It is unlikely that General Brusilov’s references to the lack of technical means of combat can be used as an undoubted justification for the huge losses. The persistence of Russian attacks in the Kovel direction speaks, rather, of the lack of operational initiative at the headquarters of the Southwestern Front: having chosen a single target for attacks, the Russian side tried in vain to take possession of it even when it became clear that the prepared reserves would not be enough to attack by Vistula and the Carpathians. How would it be necessary to develop a breakthrough to Brest-Litovsk and beyond, if those people who were trained during the period of positional calm had already died in these battles?

Nevertheless, such heavy losses are still justified in objective terms. It was the First World War that became a conflict in which the means of defense immeasurably exceeded the means of attack in their power. Therefore, the attacking side suffered incomparably greater losses than the defending side, in the conditions of that “positional impasse” in which the Russian Front froze since the end of 1915. In the event of a tactical breakthrough of defensive lines, the defender lost many people captured, but killed - much less. The only way out was for the attacking side to achieve an operational breakthrough and expand it into a strategic breakthrough. However, neither side was able to achieve this in a positional struggle.

Approximately a similar ratio of losses was characteristic of the Western Front in the 1916 campaign. Thus, in the Battle of the Somme, only on the first day of the offensive, July 1, according to the new style, British troops lost fifty-seven thousand people, of whom almost twenty thousand were killed. The British historian writes about this: “The British crown has not known a more severe defeat since the time of Hastings.” The reason for these losses was the attack of the enemy defensive system that had been built and improved for many months.

The Battle of the Somme - an offensive operation of the Anglo-French on the Western Front to overcome the deep defense of the Germans - took place at the same time as the offensive of the armies of the Russian Southwestern Front on the Eastern Front in the Kovel direction. During the four and a half months of the offensive, despite the high availability of technical means of combat (up to tanks in the second stage of the operation) and the valor of British soldiers and officers, the Anglo-French lost eight hundred thousand people. German losses were three hundred and fifty thousand, including one hundred thousand prisoners. Approximately the same ratio of losses as in the troops of the general. A. A. Brusilova.

Of course, we can say that the Russians still hit the Austrians, and not the Germans, whose qualitative potential of the troops was higher than that of the Austro-Hungarians. But the Lutsk breakthrough stalled only when German units appeared in all the most important directions of advance of the Russian troops. At the same time, in the summer of 1916 alone, despite the fierce battles at Verdun and especially on the Somme, the Germans transferred at least ten divisions from France to the Eastern Front. What are the results? While the Russian Southwestern Front advanced 30 to 100 kilometers along a 450-kilometer-wide front, the British advanced only ten kilometers into German-held territory along a thirty-kilometer-wide front.

It can be said that the Austrian fortified positions were worse than the German ones in France. And this is also true. But the Anglo-French also had much more powerful technical support for their operation. The difference in the number of heavy guns on the Somme and on the Southwestern Front was tenfold: 168 versus 1700. Again, the British did not need ammunition like the Russians.

And, perhaps most importantly, no one questions the valor of British soldiers and officers. Here it is enough to remember that England gave its armed forces more than two million volunteers, that in 1916 the front was almost exclusively volunteers, and, finally, that the twelve and a half divisions that the British Dominions gave to the Western Front were also composed of volunteers.

The essence of the problem is not at all in the inability of the generals of the Entente countries or the invincibility of the Germans, but in that very “positional impasse” that formed on all fronts of the First World War because the defense in combat terms turned out to be incomparably stronger than the offensive. It was this fact that forced the attacking side to pay for success with enormous blood, even with proper artillery support for the operation. As an English researcher absolutely rightly says, “in 1916, the German defense on the Western Front could not be overcome by any means at the disposal of the generals of the Allied armies. Until some means are found to provide the infantry with closer fire support, the scale of losses will be enormous. Another solution to this problem would be to stop the war altogether.”

Siberian flying sanitary squad

It only remains to add that the German defense was built just as irresistibly on the Eastern Front. That is why the Brusilov breakthrough stopped and the attack of the armies of the Western Front was stifled. A.E. Evert near Baranovichi. The only alternative, in our opinion, could only be to “swing” the enemy’s defense by permanently shifting the direction of the main attack, as soon as the previous such direction would be under the protection of a strong German group. This is the Lvov direction according to the Headquarters directive of May 27. This includes the regrouping of forces in the 9th Army of General. P. A. Lechitsky, against which there were not enough German units. This is also a timely use of Romania’s entry into the war on the side of the Entente on August 14.

In addition, perhaps cavalry should have been used to the maximum extent not as a strike group, but as a means of developing a breakthrough into the enemy’s defenses in depth. The lack of development of the Lutsk breakthrough, along with the desire of the headquarters of the Southwestern Front and personally the General Commander General. A. A. Brusilov’s attack precisely in the Kovel direction led to the incompleteness of the operation and excessive losses. In any case, the Germans would not have enough troops to “plug all the holes.” After all, fierce battles took place on the Somme, and near Verdun, and in Italy, and near Baranovichi, and Romania was also about to enter the war. However, this advantage was not used on any of the fronts, although it was the Russian Southwestern Front, with its brilliant tactical breakthrough, that received the greatest opportunities to break the back of the armed forces of the Central Powers.

One way or another, the Russian human losses of the 1916 campaign had a lot of important consequences for the further development of events. Firstly, the huge losses that bled the armies of the Southwestern Front did not make a significant change in the overall strategic position of the Eastern Front, and therefore V.N. Domanevsky, an emigrant general, believed that “the offensives in 1916 turned into a prelude to March and November 1917." The gene echoes him. A. S. Lukomsky, head of the 32nd Infantry Division, which fought as part of the Southwestern Front: “The failure of the operation in the summer of 1916 had the consequence not only that it delayed the entire campaign, but the bloody battles of this period also had a bad impact on the moral condition of the troops." In turn, the future Minister of War of the Provisional Government, Gen. A.I. Verkhovsky generally believed that “we could have ended the war this year, but we suffered “huge, incomparable losses.”

Secondly, the death of soldiers and officers trained over the winter, drafted into the Armed Forces after the disastrous campaign of 1915, meant that the advance westward would again, as in 1914, be fueled by hastily prepared reserves. It is unlikely that such a position was a way out of the situation, but for some reason in Russia they did not make a difference between first-line and second-line divisions, between cadre and militia regiments. They almost didn’t do it, believing that once the task was set it had to be completed at any cost, regardless of the cost of victory in a given sector of the front.

Undoubtedly, a successful breakthrough to Kovel would have created a huge “hole” in the Austro-German defense. The armies of the Western Front would also have to go on the offensive. A. E. Evert. And in the event of a successful advance forward, the troops of the Northern Front were also in line. A. N. Kuropatkina (in August - N. V. Ruzsky). But all this could have been achieved with a strike on another sector of the Southwestern Front. The one that was least fortified, less saturated with German divisions, would have had a greater range of alternatives regarding the development of a breakthrough.

However, as if in mockery, the Russian command preferred to overcome the enemy’s defenses along the line of greatest resistance. And this is after an outstanding victory! Approximately the same thing will happen in 1945, when, after the dazzling Vistula-Oder offensive operation, the Soviet command rushed to storm Berlin head-on, through the Seelow Heights, although the offensive of the armies of the 1st Ukrainian Front provided much greater successes with much smaller losses. True, in 1945, unlike 1916, the matter ended in victory, and not in repelling attacks from our side, but what was the price.

So, the cost of the blood of troops for the victory of the Brusilov breakthrough was incomparable with anything, and in addition, the victories in the shock army actually ended in June, although the attacks continued for another three months. However, the lessons were taken into account: for example, at the Meeting of the senior command staff at Headquarters on December 17, 1916, it was recognized that unnecessary losses only undermine the mobilization capabilities of the Russian Empire, which were already close to exhaustion. It was recognized that it was necessary to “be extremely attentive to operations so that there are no unnecessary losses... operations cannot be carried out where it is unprofitable in tactical and artillery terms... no matter how advantageous the direction of attack may be in strategic terms.”

The main consequence of the outcome of the 1916 campaign was the deliberately incorrect and unfair thesis perceived by Russian society about the decisive undermining of the prestige and authority of the existing state power in the sense of ensuring the final victory in the war. If in 1915 the defeats of the Active Army were explained by shortcomings in equipment and ammunition, and the troops, who understood everything perfectly, nevertheless fought with full faith in ultimate success, then in 1916 there was almost everything, and victory again slipped through the fingers. And we are talking here not about victory on the battlefield in general, but about the dialectical relationship between victory, the payment for it, as well as the visible prospect of the final favorable outcome of the war. Distrust in the commanders raised doubts about the possibility of achieving victory under the auspices of the existing supreme power, which during the period described was authoritarian-monarchical and headed by Emperor Nicholas II.

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Among the Russian successes of the First World War, the Brusilov breakthrough stands apart as the most successful and large-scale offensive operation. Its results are a subject for controversy, because after such a brilliant victory the expected destruction of the Austro-Hungarian armies and the capture of all of Galicia did not occur, but the breakdown of the enemy’s military machine and a radical turning point in the war in favor of the Entente still emerged.

The question is: what exactly was the purpose of this offensive by the senior military leadership at Headquarters? As is known, the offensive of the Southwestern Front became part of Alekseev’s overall strategy in 1916. What goals did this strategy pursue in 1916 and how did it affect the planning and development of Brusilov’s offensive on the Southwestern Front? What factors were decisive?

Theory and strategy.

With the establishment of a positional deadlock on the Eastern Front in the fall of 1915, the Russian command faced a special strategic situation. As a result of the “Great Retreat,” the troops retreated to the swampy and wooded areas of Belarus. Their path to the operational space of Poland, Silesia and Galicia was blocked by forests and swamps, including Polesie, which divided the front into two parts - a forested area in Volyn and Southern Poland, separating the territories of Ukraine from Belarus. The only way to overcome this obstacle was to master the railway junctions, with the help of which the troops could overcome natural obstacles and enter the operational space.

Historian M.V. Oskin attributed this strategy to the influence of the “Key Theory”, popular in the 19th century, according to which the capture of a point that ensured control of the region was considered important in a military operation. Despite all the inaccuracies that abound in the works of this historian, there is some truth in them. famous military historian A.A. Kersnovsky wrote in his “History of the Russian Army” about this strategy during the First World War: “ Russian strategists of the World War did not at all consider the defeat of the enemy’s manpower to be a “real goal”, believing that such only in the occupation of geographical objects. «…» purely philistine view of the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, who assessed successes only from the point of view of occupying the “points” marked in bold on the map
 font».

Eastern Front in March 1916

Actually, as modern researchers wrote, “The Russian command revealed a desire to capture geographical points, and not to wide maneuver. These geographical points... represent “keys”, the capture of which should give victory. The concept of position keys solving operational and tactical problems, propagated at one time by Archduke Charles and transferred by General Jomini in the first half of the 19th century to the Russian military academy, still found a place among Russian generals at the turn of the 20th century...».

The role of these “keys” was explained in detail by B. Liddle-Hart in his famous work “The Strategy of Indirect Actions”. Since Germany and Austria had a fairly dense railway network, the rolling railways, their junctions and road networks were of particular importance in the Eastern Theater. A similar situation was observed only in Poland, and, taking advantage of this, the Germans initially planned to lure Russian troops closer to Silesia, and then, encircling them, destroy them with attacks from East Prussia and Galicia.

Since 1915, the loss of Russian railway junctions has put our Headquarters in a hopeless situation. It was doomed to ram the German positional defenses in order to reach these nodes and capture them, and only then could it be possible to develop a full-scale offensive in order to break the positional deadlock, allowing for a quick victory over the enemy.

Positional deadlock and Russian plans

The problem of a positional deadlock arose in the methods and means of overcoming it. A positional impasse had been established on the Eastern Front since the fall of 1915, stretching along continuous lines of fortified strips from the Baltic to the Dniester, and the command of both sides encountered such a phenomenon for the first time, completely unaware of how to overcome this defense. According to modern historian A.B. Astashov, positional warfare is a struggle at close distances for fortified positions, in the absence of large maneuver operations, slow advance of opponents across the terrain, and a significant presence of engineering and technical armed means.

Also, its positional nature was manifested in the parity of defensive and offensive means, taking into account the low activity of attacking divisions in the breakthrough zone and the high activity of reserve divisions transported by means of a railway maneuver(emphasis added) . Brusilov also mentioned the importance of railways when he wrote that the Germans would have time to transfer several divisions via railways, but he would only have one. He meant that the speed of concentration of troops, and therefore victory, depended on the presence of railways.

The Russian armies were forced into roadless areas, and their supplies depended exclusively on internal lines and the Moscow railway junction. The troops were deprived of the ability to quickly transport and regroup troops, depriving themselves of the ability to maneuver, making the army slow and immobile, which raised the issue of strategic necessity to capture the railway junctions occupied by the Germans. To reach them, it was necessary to overcome the positional deadlock and move on to maneuver warfare.

In December 1915, the first attempt was organized to overcome the positional deadlock in the east - an operation on the Strypa River by the troops of Infantry General D.G. Shcherbachev, which ended in failure. According to Zayonchkovsky, the operation became a prelude to the summer battles of 1916, showing the degree of unpreparedness of the Russian army to fight against enemy fortifications and equipment.

In March 1916, the offensive in the area of ​​Lake Naroch by the forces of the Western and Northern Fronts also crashed against the German defenses, due to the fact that it was impossible to establish communications and support for the advancing troops through the terrain torn apart by artillery. The battles on Strypa and Naroch turned out to be unsuccessful attempts to break through the positional deadlock, since there was no artillery cooperation, and continued implementation of plans led to unjustified losses.

Initially, it was exclusively about defending one’s own positions, since the Russian army was weakened by the “Great Retreat.” According to the Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Headquarters, Infantry General M.V. Alekseev, defense and offensive were possible only with superior manpower, which was achieved north of woodland on the Northern and Western fronts; According to plans, the Southwestern Front was supposed to play only a supporting role.

General Alekseev at Headquarters

Brusilov himself strongly and actively defended the version from which it followed that his auxiliary role was to capture Kovel, an important railway junction in Volyn, which opened the way to Southern Poland. The role of these rocker units was emphasized back in the 80s of the 19th century by the Minister of War, Field Marshal General D.A. Milyutin. In his plans, he indicated that in fact the connection between the probable theater of war and central Russia rested on the Brest-Litovsk railway junction, which made it possible to transfer Russian troops through Polesie and the swamps to Pripyat.

With the development of railway construction, the role of Kovel as a new hub also increased. In the offensive plans of the fronts for 1916, an important role was assigned to the capture of large railway junctions that could give the Russians an advantage in the fight against the Germans.

Through Galicia to the Balkans, or through Polesie to Berlin?

North of Polesie, Russian troops had to fight with the Germans, who were strong in defense and overcome powerful defensive lines. Alekseev was counting on a plan that could decide the outcome of the war of maneuver: Russian troops were supposed to break through the Austrian defenses in Galicia and move south to join the advancing Thessaloniki Front of the Allies.

General Alekseev wanted this offensive because he considered the Balkans as the main direction of Russian foreign policy, and, in connection with the military defeat of Serbia and Montenegro, he considered it necessary to coordinate the allied forces in order to resist the Austro-Germans in an organized manner and finally persuade the hesitant Greeks and Romanians to side of the Entente.

He proposed not to strike at the direct defenses of the Germans, but to strike at their allies and weak points, i.e. defend on the Anglo-French and Russian fronts, and strike at Austria through the Balkans and with the forces of the Southwestern Front. He needed the Balkan front as an opportunity to pull back enemy forces from Bukovina and develop the success of the Russian strike in this direction in order to tighten the ring around Austria-Hungary, clear the way for Italy to attack and draw Romania into the Entente camp.

He hoped that with just such blows he would be able to oust the Austrians and resolve the Balkan issues, but, moreover, the Russian army, crushing its opponents one by one, was supposed to weaken Germany, and then it would be more than possible to crush the German defense if it did not go to its rear through the Hungarian plain and southern Poland. But the allies, in view of the preparation of a decisive offensive in France, could not allocate enough forces to Macedonia, and Alekseev had to follow the plans approved at the February inter-allied conference in Chantilly - to look for a solution to the war in the main theaters, one of which was Russian.

Balkans in 1916

Nevertheless, the Russians and French were looking for methods to attract new allies into their ranks in the Balkans, counting on them to solve issues of allied strategy with bayonets. Even on the eve of the war, Russia and France did everything possible to ensure that Romania did not enter the war on the side of the Central Powers, and in 1914-1915. the struggle was already underway for action in the Entente camp. By 1916, the question of Romania's entry into the war was reduced to military issues only.

In the spring-summer of 1916, Romanian Prime Minister Ian Bratianu made it a condition for Romania to have 250,000 Russian soldiers in Dobruzhda to provide cover from Bulgaria, while the Romanian army would move against Austria-Hungary. Alekseev was categorically against such a large number of troops, which weakened the army before the impending general offensive.

The French military attaché in Russia, General Poe, informed Alekseev of his opinion regarding such great demands of the Romanians: these troops will be a reliable rear on which the Romanian offensive will rely; pulling the Bulgarians towards themselves will contribute to the Allies’ attack from Thessaloniki. Alekseev politely refused, pointing out that due to the weakness of the Bulgarians and Austrians and the defeat of the Turks in the Caucasus, the Romanians were not in danger, although in a letter to Foreign Minister Sazonov he named another reason for the rejection of the Allied plan - the weakening of the Russian front and the deprivation of its offensive capability.

At the same time, the Romanians did not give clear guarantees of their actions, which Joffre did not like, who believed that such a grouping in Dobruja would only weaken the Russian front on the eve of its offensive. The exorbitant demands of the Romanians forced Alekseev to refuse their help, and this led to a delay in negotiations, which the French command did not like, which attached great importance to Romania.

While Romania was neutral and bargaining was going on for the price of its entry into the ranks of the Entente, Alekseev decided to solve pressing problems of the front and strategy. On March 22, he outlined to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Emperor Nicholas II, his thoughts on the future campaign of the summer of 1916, based on the experience of the battles in Strypa and Naroch.

He proposed two options for an offensive on the front - an offensive north of Polesie and an offensive in the south. The offensive in the north was in accordance with the all-Union decisions at the Chantilly conference - to conduct a decisive offensive on the main fronts through joint offensive operations. In view of the numerical superiority achieved by the Russians north of Polesie, he proposed leaving troops there in order to, if necessary, have the strength to eliminate the likely offensive of the Austro-Germans.

Romanian officers in 1914

Waiting on the defensive was, in his opinion, pointless, since defense required the same material costs as an offensive, and on the 1200-verst front, the Russians were vulnerable everywhere due to poor railways and stretched forces. These circumstances, coupled with the obligations in Chantilly, forced Alekseev to become convinced of the futility of a war of attrition and make a choice in favor of an offensive in order to “ to forestall the enemy, to strike at him, to force him to comply with our will, and not to find ourselves in the difficult complete submission to his plans, with all the unfavorable consequences of an exclusively passive defense».

He hoped to carry out two short but very strong strikes with the forces of the Northern and Southwestern Fronts, which would divert the enemy’s strategic reserves in order to develop the success of the Western Front in the Berlin direction. The Vilna direction was chosen as the main attack, where the Western and Northern fronts directed their forces.

The Southwestern Front was only supposed to pin down the Austro-Hungarians and German units in the south and go on the offensive only after success at Evert and Kuropatkin in the direction of Lutsk-Kovel from the Rivne region. This plan was approved in Directive No. 2017\806 at a meeting at Headquarters on April 1 (14), 1916.

Brusilov’s new victory and Alekseev’s old plans

On May 22 (June 4), between 4 and 5 a.m., a long artillery barrage began, after which Russian troops went on the offensive throughout the entire Southwestern Front. This offensive went down in history as the Brusilov breakthrough - the only battle in history named after a commander, which achieved impressive successes in the first days.

The Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Emperor Nicholas II wrote in his diary: “ Yesterday, in many sectors of the Southwestern Front, after heavy shelling of enemy positions, their lines were broken through, and in total 13,000 people, 15 guns and 30 machine guns were captured. May God bless our valiant troops with further success».

The commander-in-chief of the Southwestern Front himself, cavalry general A.A. Brusilov noted this in his memoirs as follows: “ I will not describe in detail, as before, step by step the military operations of this memorable period of the offensive of the armies entrusted to me. I will only say that by noon on May 24 we had captured 900 officers, over 40,000 lower ranks, 77 guns, 134 machine guns and 49 bomb launchers, by May 27 we had already captured 1,240 officers, over 71,000 lower ranks and captured 94 guns , 179 machine guns, 53 bombs and mortars and a huge amount of all other military booty».

In addition to rich military trophies, the troops broke through a 480-kilometer-long front, the 4th and 7th Austro-Hungarian armies were destroyed, and the Russian troops received a moral victory after long defeats. This was noted later by Lieutenant General Andrei Andreevich Svechin: “ There were no lagging behind in the attacks».

Meanwhile, from June 5 (17) to June 14 (27), the Austrians were withdrawing troops to the Russian front. On June 14, the Austrian command gave the order to stop the offensive in Italy, which allowed the Italians to prepare for a counteroffensive, and the Austrians began to retreat.

The Brusilov breakthrough became the first successful offensive operation in conditions of trench warfare. True, entering the operational space of Galicia, according to military historian Strokov, did not yet mean overcoming the positional impasse.

The rate decided to take advantage of such a major success. Alekseev, who initially intended to attack Berlin with the forces of the Western Front, now returned to his idea of ​​attacking the Balkans. The general wanted this offensive because he considered the Balkans as the main direction of Russian foreign policy, and in connection with the military defeat of Serbia and Montenegro, he considered it necessary to coordinate the allied forces in order to organizely resist the Austro-Germans and finally win over the wavering Greeks and Romanians to the side of the Entente.

He proposed defending on the Anglo-French and Russian fronts, and striking at Austria through the Balkans and with the forces of the Southwestern Front. He needed the Balkan front as an opportunity to draw back enemy forces from Bukovina and develop the success of the Russian strike in this direction: tighten the ring around Austria-Hungary, clear the way for Italy to attack and draw Romania into the Entente camp.

They died heroically, but never turned the tide of the war

Alekseev hoped that it was with such blows that he would be able to oust the Austrians and resolve the Balkan issues. This strategy was more conducive to overcoming the positional deadlock than direct head-on attacks on the fortified German positions, and made it possible to use the Russian advantage in manpower.

His proposals were rejected by the French command due to the fact that the failure at the Dardanelles convinced the Anglo-French of the ineffectiveness of this kind of action. The French decided to achieve victory through the shortest strike directly against the main enemy - Germany, since the Germans were at the gates of Paris, and the French command did not have any extra forces for Thessaloniki.

Personally, Joffre supported the idea of ​​​​a strike in the Balkans, despite the active protests of the British and their statements that such an operation would not succeed. The British representative in Chantilly, General Robertson, stated that due to the mountainous terrain, the hostility of the Greek population and the impending future offensive in the west, it was impossible to concentrate enough troops to guard communications, organize supply for the troops and provide for the advancing units. From his point of view, this operation would be pointless and would not yield strategic results, so it would be better to wait on the Thessaloniki front. However, Alekseev foresaw such a situation and described it in a letter to cavalry general Yakov Grigorievich Zhilinsky, the Russian representative in Chantilly.

Alekseev tried to push the allies to decide to attack on the Thessaloniki front in order to inflict more significant losses on Austria-Hungary. Zhilinsky telegraphed to Alekseev that the allies themselves had not yet come to a complete agreement on the issue of Thessaloniki.

According to Zhilinsky's report, the Allied plans at the meeting in Amiens on May 26 were that it might be necessary in the future to retreat to the Ypres-Valenciennes-Hirson-Verdun line, where the reduction of the front would strengthen strategic reserves. Next, it was planned to push the German center back to the Belgian border, which would give space and free up reserves, and with a decisive blow push the Germans back to the Rhine. The Allies decided on a war to deplete the resources of Germany and its allies.

So the Allies wanted to provide themselves with a numerical and technical advantage before the decisive blow, which was supposed to break the forces of Germany and bring victory in the shortest direction.

In view of such opposition, Alekseev again had to abandon the attack on the Balkans and continue to conduct an offensive in the western direction - against Germany. With the beginning of the offensive on the South-Western Front, Alekseev advised Brusilov to transfer efforts to the south - to Lvov, in order to cut off the communications of the Austrians in Galicia and bring Austria out of the war. In the directives of the headquarters of the Headquarters, Brusilov was instructed to cut off the Austrians from the line of the San River and destroy them, not allowing them to retreat.

It is interesting to note that the Russian command nevertheless took into account the lessons of the Galician battle of August-September 1914, when the weakened armies of the northern flank could not pursue the Austrians, and the southern armies were busy capturing large points. The Austrians then managed to leave the San without any hindrance and retreat to the Carpathians. Now Alekseev and the emperor wanted to destroy the enemy’s manpower in order to calmly occupy strategically important areas. Headquarters knew the requirements of modern warfare, but the front-line command did not always rise to the occasion.

Meanwhile, a correspondence began between the front commanders and the Chief of Staff of Headquarters, which actually resolved one question - where to move next and how to do it?

The fight for the main direction

Alekseev sincerely wanted to launch a general offensive of the Russian armies to the West, so he tried to coordinate the attacks of the Commander-in-Chief of the Western Front, Infantry General A.E. Evert and the Commander-in-Chief of the Southwestern Front, cavalry general A.A. Brusilova. Alekseev outlined the idea of ​​the Russian front: to concentrate forces into one fist and strike at Brest with attacks near Kovel, Pinsk and Baranovichi with the further advance of Brusilov to the San River in order to separate the Germans and Austrians, cut them off from rear communications, and stretch the German front. The Germans would have to withdraw forces from France in time for the expected Allied offensive on June 15th.

Evert clearly outlined the benefits of the offensive of the Southwestern Front: a strike from the Pinsk region in the direction of Brest-Kobrin would lead to much greater results than a frontal strike on Vilna, which was originally planned. He will lead the enemy to unfortified terrain, and the war will turn into a maneuverable one, which will increase the Russian advantage in manpower. For all this, it is necessary to strengthen troops in the Pinsk-Baranovichi area and the Southwestern Front.

The offensive on Vilna would have been long, the South-West would have had time to exhaust its reserves, and the surprise of the attack would have been lost. In view of the expected imminent fall of Kovel and Vladimir-Volynsk under the attacks of Brusilov’s troops, the armies could threaten Brest-Litovsk, the Germans would immediately clear the Pinsk area. A strike from Baranovichi, which was planned as auxiliary, could create a threat to them in the direction of Brest and Grodno, force them to retreat, expose their flanks and thereby weaken the Germans at Vilna. If the offensive near Pinsk is successful, the battle near Baranovichi will become much easier.

Alekseev was concerned about his proposal regarding Baranovichi, because, in his opinion, this might not distract the enemy’s forces and not produce results, especially since he initially planned to achieve success in this area in a different way: the 4th Army of the Western Front was supposed to attack in the Novogrudok region. Slonim, and the 8th Army, with a blow from Kovel, will assist it in the attack on the Kobrin-Brest area. Thus, the Pinsk direction became increasingly important for the command. Alekseev wanted to speed up the attack on Kovel and strengthen Brusilov with three corps, which, after capturing it, would develop an attack on Pinsk in order to free up Brusilov’s forces to defeat the Austrians.

Evert told Alekseev that if Brusilov succeeded, he would immediately begin preparing a strike on Baranovichi. As a result, Alekseev conveyed to him the final decision on the offensive at Baranovichi and Pinsk in order to ensure Kaledin’s success at Kovel, and on June 2 indicated that “ the defeat in the Pinsk region and the use of success cannot remain without a significant impact on the development of your operation».

The importance of Baranovichi was determined by the railway line, which provided a short and fast connection for the Austro-German front: Vilno-Lida-Baranovichi-Brest-Litovsk-Kovel-Lutsk, and in the event of the capture of Baranovichi, communication for the Germans would be interrupted along the entire front.

As can be understood from such detailed descriptions of the attacks planned by Alekseev and Evert, the whole essence of the strategy came down to mastering the junctions of the rock railways, which made it possible to overcome forested and swampy areas, forced the Germans to retreat under the threat of encirclement, clearing Belarus, and brought armies to the vastness of Poland and Galicia . There, a war of maneuver had already begun, where the Russians, who had enormous manpower, had the advantage, and the capture of railway junctions made it possible both to operate with these masses of troops and to keep strategically important areas under control for a further offensive.

If we return to the events that took place, as a result of the unsuccessful attacks of the 8th and 3rd armies against the Germans in the swampy areas of Pripyat, Brusilov and Evert were clearly despondent and did not want to begin a serious movement of troops one without the other. The result was the transfer of the 3rd Army to Brusilov to capture Pinsk and Kovel in the Pripyat region, creating a threat to the Germans from the flank and even a real break in the Austro-German front, and the demand for an immediate start of an offensive on the Western Front.

Evert launched an attack on Baranovichi, believing that this frontal attack, not supported by either the strength or movement of neighbors, was doomed to failure, and he turned out to be right - the positional struggle led to large losses and zero results. Then Alekseev used another method from his strategy.

Alekseev in 1916, with the offensive of Brusilov, decided to develop his idea of ​​​​a shock fist, which would break through enemy defenses and ensure the capture of important positions. After the failure of the attack on Baranovichi, Alekseev decided to try the “fist” on the Brusilov front, since there was already an unsuccessful precedent for using breakthrough strike groups on Strypa and Naroch. The general himself even designated the location of the offensive, which had long ago appeared in operational correspondence and was still considered an independent goal of Brusilov’s armies, and now has become the main direction - Kovel: “ Fate itself made the Kovel region the theater of the main actions of the moment».

Back in early June, he considered it the main direction of Brusilov’s front, which, in general, coincided with the opinion of Brusilov himself: “ Now gather the appropriate forces for the immediate development of the attack and the capture of the Kovel region.” Alekseev concentrates the efforts of Brusilov’s front there, hoping that with the fall of Kovel, the troops could destroy the Austrians, since the capture of this region would break the enemy front and force both the Germans and Austrians to retreat.

On July 15 (28), the Guard offensive began on Stokhod: “ The companies marched forward, like guards, chain by chain, measuredly, persistently, stubbornly... Strength and power were felt. In front are officers in gold shoulder straps with regimental insignia on their chests. Behind them are soldiers with distinctive piping on their protective shirts. They walked, they died, and behind them the reserve companies also rolled valiantly in waves... But there were few passages in the wire, the swamp dragged in, hundreds of brave men died in the entire line».

According to one former guardsman, " Not a single infantry in the world would have given greater success under this exceptionally difficult situation, which was not in the power of the attacking troops to change. “...” As a result, two beautiful corps were stuffed into a swamp bag and thrown into the attack in conditions in which only a miracle could give victory" Russian troops were never able to break through the fortified Austro-German defensive line on Stokhod, losing a huge number of people in attempts to seize a bridgehead on the left bank of the river.

The Balkans again

In August 1916, Romania's long-awaited entry into the war took place. Even in the first days of the Brusilov offensive, the allied command set strict conditions for Romania - it would enter the war on allied terms or it would be too late, which forced the Romanians to drop the issue of the Russian army in Dobruja.

Romanians are always Romanians - whether in Transylvania or near Stalingrad

The Anglo-French hoped that they would attract the Austrians and Germans, and this would allow them to resume the offensive on the Somme and hit the Bulgarian army with troops in Thessaloniki. Alekseev also counted on this blow, expecting that the Romanians, together with Sarrail’s army, would “squeeze” and defeat Bulgaria. The expected attack of General Sarrail failed, which led to the curtailment of the offensive from Thessaloniki and a return to the old strategy.

On August 17 (30), 1916, a military-political convention between the Entente and Romania was signed, which included a clause on the start of the offensive no later than August 28.

Back in the July days, Alekseev still decided to send symbolic assistance to Dobruja, and he sought strength for it on inactive fronts. Since there were battles in the Kovel direction, he asked Brusilov to receive troops from the Western Front. He informed Evert that Romania could perform on August 1st.

Now, after the obvious failure of the attacks of the 3rd Army and Bezobrazov’s detachment on Kovel at Stokhod, Alekseev was able to switch his attention to Romania by strengthening the 9th and 7th Armies, advancing in the south, hoping that the performance of Romania would be able to open up the passes in the Carpathians for him and give him the opportunity to strike at the Hungarian plain from the rear. On August 2, Alekseev informed Evert that the concentration of German forces south of Polesie could be destroyed by the expected arrival of Romania on August 15, whose forces would draw upon the reserves accumulated by Hindenburg in Galicia and near Kovel.

Meanwhile, the front south of Polesie truly became more significant than expected. The accumulation of huge German reserves, supporting the weakened Austrians and holding the front from Kovel to the Carpathians, forced Alekseev to telegraph to the commander-in-chief that all other fronts should now become auxiliary: “ We have to continue the operation south of Polesie, accompanied by heavy fighting all the way from the mouth of the Stokhod to the demarcation line with the Romanians».

On August 18, the Southwestern Front resumed its offensive, but it was already eroding the strength of the armies. However, the attacks at Kovel continued from the beginning of September to the beginning of November, and their significance for the strategy turned out to be as follows: “ Nevertheless, the main goal was achieved - the Germans did not manage to remove a single division from this section of the front, they even had to reinforce this section with fresh units. Meanwhile, our troops managed to occupy designated positions in Transylvania and blocked the Austro-Germans’ access to Moldova».

As a result, Russian troops did not capture the railway junctions during the 1916 campaign, since they were unable to break through the positional defenses of the Austro-Germans and carry out their strategic plans to take Austria out of the war and enter the Balkans. The higher headquarters could not coordinate the efforts of the commanders, which led to individual operations, such as the Battle of Baranovichi and the Kovel operation, which were not successful. The war dragged on, the Brusilov breakthrough came to naught by September 1916, and the country was already on the verge of revolution.

The 1916 campaign was their last