Brusilov Offensive
Launched on 4 June 1916 in Galicia, General Aleksei Brusilov's offensive was Russia's greatest feat of arms in the war and one of the most lethal offensives in history. Using innovative tactics — short surprise bombardments, attacks on broad fronts, specially trained shock troops — Brusilov shattered the Austro-Hungarian Fourth and Seventh Armies, taking some 400,000 prisoners within weeks and forcing Germany to transfer divisions from Verdun and Austria-Hungary to abandon its offensive in Italy. Yet the offensive consumed perhaps a million Russian casualties by its end in September, and the gains could not be exploited for want of reserves, railways, and competent coordination from neighbouring fronts. The losses fatally undermined what remained of the Russian army's morale and the population's tolerance of the war. The offensive simultaneously crippled Austria-Hungary as an independent military power — Vienna was thereafter strategically subordinate to Berlin — and accelerated the internal collapse of Russia that produced the revolutions of 1917.
- Year: 1916 CE
- Category: Military
