Brusilov Offensive
The most successful Russian operation of the First World War began on 4 June 1916 and cost both sides about a million men. Aleksei Brusilov commanded the south-western front and proposed something the Russian high command disliked: instead of massing everything at one point, which advertised where the blow would fall and let the enemy move reserves, he would attack along a front of some 300 miles at many places at once, after a short, accurate bombardment rather than a week-long one. He had sapped trenches forward to within seventy metres of the Austrian lines, built full-scale models of the positions for the assault troops to rehearse on, and dug shelters for reserves close behind. The Austro-Hungarian front broke almost everywhere in the first days. Some 200,000 prisoners were taken in a fortnight, and the advance reached fifty miles in places. The Austro-Hungarian army never recovered as an independent fighting force and was effectively subordinated to German command afterwards. The offensive then did what Russian offensives did: it outran its supply, the neighbouring fronts did not attack as promised, the Germans moved fifteen divisions from Verdun and the west, and Brusilov kept pushing into the Kovel marshes long after the opportunity had passed. Russian casualties were around a million. The consequences ran wide. Verdun and the Somme were relieved, Romania joined the Allies and was overrun, and the Russian army's losses in its best troops fed directly into the collapse of 1917. Brusilov's methods anticipated the German infiltration tactics of 1918.
- Year: 1916 CE
- Category: Military
