"Polish balcony" threatened the collapse of the army, and even the empire
The great retreat in the summer of 1915 from Poland and Galicia, despite numerous works about it, actually remains a blank spot. Under the influence of the post-October political situation in historiography, a stable opinion was formed: this is a catastrophe, a turning point in the struggle on the Eastern front of the war, which led to the degradation of the army and the growth of the revolutionary situation in Russia.
So what was it - a forced strategic maneuver or a consequence of a major miscalculation?
In the course of the most difficult and multi-stage Gorlitsky operation from April 19 to June 10, 1915, the Austro-German troops achieved tactical and operational successes, having managed to give them a strategic color. The enemy decided to encircle the Russian troops in Poland, striking in the north and south of the "Polish salient", to implement the "Summer strategic Cannes". It was in June, after the end of the Gorlitsky operation, that the Russian troops were forced to begin the Great Retreat. But the retreat was carried out according to a single strategic plan, the Russian troops inflicted effective counterattacks. The main reason for the withdrawal was the need to align the front and competently evacuate the advanced theater in order not to allow the armies in central Poland to be locked into a strategic "cauldron".
Fire on the limit
In early June, 106 infantry and 36 cavalry Russian divisions opposed 113 infantry and 19 cavalry divisions of the enemy on a 1400-kilometer front. Its superiority, given our logistics problems, was quite tangible. The number of field guns in the Russian active army was reduced by 25 percent, and production could not even compensate for combat losses.
A meeting at the Russian Headquarters on June 4 revealed that the armies of the Southwestern Front have a shortage of 170 thousand people (replenishment is possible only in the amount of 20 thousand fighters), shells and cartridges are so small that it is necessary to limit the consumption of ammunition (because of it, even "extra artillery ", although the number of guns has decreased), there was an acute shortage of weapons, trained reserves and officers. The declining number of combat units reduced the capabilities of fire defense and impeded the conduct of counterattacks. Deteriorated maneuverability.
Nevertheless, at that time, the Russian front chained 1 million 333 thousand German and Austrian soldiers and officers (they were opposed by 1 million 690 thousand of ours), while the French front - 1 million 800 thousand enemy servicemen (versus 2 million 450 thousand Anglo-French with equivalent technical equipment).
The decision to start a withdrawal in order to avoid encirclement of the central army group of the North-Western Front in Poland was made at a headquarters meeting on June 22 in the city of Siedlec. Attention was focused on the need to save manpower, without which the continuation of the struggle is impossible.
Counterattack tactics
The author of the concept of active strategic defense in the summer campaign of 1915 - the commander-in-chief of the armies of the North-Western Front (August 4-18 - Western Front), General of Infantry M. V. Alekseev, proposed the following tactical methods: 1) to keep the minimum number of troops for defense of positions, and the rest should be concentrated in reserve on the main axes where an enemy offensive can be expected; 2) when the enemy is advancing, carry out short counterattacks with these reserves. Alekseev's concept introduced an element of activity into passive defense, to which, in the presence of weak maneuverability and powerlessness of fire, the Russian armies were doomed. The enemy was allowed to the positions almost unhindered, but the losses of the defenders from artillery fire were minimized. A counterattack restored the position.
During the first month of the Great Retreat of the Russian troops (by the beginning of July), the enemy advanced 55 kilometers along the Vistula and 35 kilometers along the Western Bug - a rather modest result for two weeks of continuous fighting that began after the end of the Gorlitsk strategic operation.
Since the beginning of July, by the simultaneous efforts of two army groups concentrated: one on the Narew front and aimed at the Lomza - Ostrolenka - Rozhan sector, the other on the southern face of the forward ledge between Vepr and Bug, with access to the Kholm - Wlodawa line, the Germans set themselves the task of cutting off and to encircle the Russian troops located on the Narew-Middle Vistula arc and between the Vistula and the Upper Vepr. But the armies on the flanks of the "Polish bag" held back the enemy, and the troops in the central part of the kingdom, leaving Warsaw on July 21, slowly retreated to the Sokolov - Siedlec - Lukov railway. By the end of July, the armies of the North-Western Front withdrew to the Osovets - Drogichin - Wlodava - Turiysk line. The enemy was unable to quickly overcome the resistance of the Russian troops, who escaped encirclement and safely escaped the intended defeat. But they had to retreat in extremely unfavorable operational-tactical and organizational conditions, moreover, adjusting to the pace of the Polish evacuation.
As a result of fierce fighting, the shortage in the armies of the North-Western Front, which received almost no reinforcements, increased from 210 thousand to 650 thousand people. Despite the difficult conditions of fighting the enemy, who was superior in strength and possessed an unlimited limit of ammunition with a large number of guns, he was not allowed to either cut off or surround a single military unit.
In early August, the enemy was especially pressing in the direction of Bialystok - Brest - Kovel. On August 26, the new leadership of the Stavka issues a directive to end the Great Retreat and begins to fight the inertia of the prolonged withdrawal.
In the course of offensive operations in August - October 1915 (Vilenskaya, Lutskaya, Chartoriyskaya, offensive on Seret), the front was stabilized along the line Chernivtsi - Dubno - Pinsk - Baranovichi - Krevo - Lake Naroch - Dvinsk - Yakobstadt.
Went away but didn't run
The great retreat was carried out according to plan, in stages. It can be qualified as a strategic rollback, a maneuver characteristic of the confrontation of massive armies. Russian troops conducted an active defense, delivered effective counterattacks. The rollback was associated with the solution of the most important strategic tasks, the main of which was the evacuation of the "Polish balcony". The enemy saw it too. M. Hoffman noted: “Apparently, the Russians are really repeating the year 1812 and are retreating along the entire front. They burn hundreds of settlements and take away the population."
The great retreat had extremely unfavorable military and economic consequences for Russia. From the end of April to September 5, 1915 (the fall of Vilno), the maximum recoil of the Russian army was up to 500 kilometers. The enemy completely averted the threat from Hungary and East Prussia. Russia has lost important regions, a network of strategic railways, and suffered significant human losses.
But the army was saved, and the enemy was unable to achieve the desired strategic success, even at the cost of a lot of blood. M. Hoffmann wrote in his diary on August 3 (in a new style), summing up some of the actions of the German troops on the northern flank of the "Polish balcony": those 25,000 people that we lost killed and wounded will not be returned to us."
Paradoxically, it was the strategic pullback called the Great Retreat that marked the collapse of the enemy's plans to withdraw Russia from the war. It made it possible to preserve the second front of the struggle against the Austro-Germans (fatal for them by the very fact of its existence), and this circumstance deprived the Quadruple Alliance of even a hypothetical prospect for a successful outcome of the First World War.
