Kerensky offensive
Operations on the Eastern Front, 1917
| date | July 1st to 19th, 1917 |
|---|---|
| place | Galicia / Bukovina / Romania |
| output | Advance of the Central Powers |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
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| Troop strength | |
 Southwest Front: 7th , 8th and 11th Armies |
Army Group Böhm-Ermolli: South Army 2nd and 3rd Army
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Eastern Front (1914-1918)
1914
East Prussian operation ( Stallupönen , Gumbinnen , Tannenberg , Masurian Lakes ) - Galicia ( Kraśnik , Komarów , Gnila Lipa , Lemberg ,
Rawa Ruska ) - Przemyśl - Vistula - Krakow - Łódź - Limanowa - Lapanow - Carpathians
1915
Humin - Mazury - Zwinin - Przasnysz - Gorlice-Tarnów - Bug Offensive - Narew Offensive - Great Retreat - Novogeorgiewsk - Rovno - Swenziany Offensive
1916
Lake Narach - Brusilov offensive - Baranovichi offensive
1917
Aa - Kerensky offensive ( Zborów ) - Tarnopol offensive - Riga - Albion company
1918
Operation Punch
The Kerensky Offensive , named after the then Russian War and Navy Minister Alexander Kerensky was an offensive of Russian troops against the Central Powers on the Eastern Front in the First World War . Its aim was to stabilize the Russian nation , which had been shaken by war and revolution , and to prevent the Central Powers from advancing into Russian territory. With the offensive Kerensky wanted to prevent an annexed peace and create more favorable conditions for the peace negotiations.
background
In 1917 there were great political and social upheavals in the Russian Empire . After the February Revolution , in which the Tsar was overthrown, several political groups sought to seize power. The Provisional Government was initially formed to the exclusion of the left parties. After the April crisis, triggered by the Miliukov Note , Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks entered the government. The Social Revolutionary Kerensky became the new Minister of War in May.
After the February Revolution there was fraternization between the fronts. The German leadership avoided disrupting this development through offensive action and relied on Russia's internal disintegration. In this situation Kerensky ordered a new offensive in order to improve the position of the young state in relation to the Central Powers and to stabilize the internal situation. In addition, the allied states of the Entente urged rapid action, fearing a collapse of Russia. A US mission under Elihu Root offered the Provisional Government loans in exchange for continuing the fight. The preparations for the offensive were accompanied by a propaganda campaign. Kerensky personally traveled to the front and deployed commissioners to restore morale. He also replaced the force as a supporter of the Tsar commander in chief of the armed forces Mikhail Alexeyev by Alexei Brusilov , who had supported the revolution.
Russian deployment
At the end of June Kerensky had convinced most of the Russian soldiers of the need for a new offensive. The offensive that he was planning was to begin against the southwest of the Eastern Front , where the Brusilov offensive had been relatively successful a year earlier . The aim of the offensive was to conquer Lviv , which had already been the target of the Brusilov offensive of the previous year. In addition, the oil wells of Drohobych , which were of particular importance for the warfare of the Central Powers, were to be conquered.
The main attack was to be carried out by the armies of the Russian Southwest Front under Alexei Gutor , while the remaining fronts were to carry out diversionary attacks. About 40 infantry and 8 cavalry divisions were assembled for the attack, many of them Finnish, Siberian and Caucasian units. The artillery counted about 800 tubes, of which 158 were medium and 370 heavy guns.
- On the north wing, the 11th Army under General Iwan Erdeli was deployed between Brody and Konjuchy against Lemberg. On the first day of the attack, it led the main thrust with the V Siberian Corps and the XVII., XXXXIX. and VI. Army Corps. The 1st Guard Corps and the XXXXV were in the Tarnopol area . Army corps available as a front reserve.
- In the middle, the room had Buchach concentrated Russian 7th Army under General Vladimir Seliwatschow both sides Brezany and the Dniester in Halicz against the portion of the German southern army attack. About 12 infantry and four cavalry divisions, formed by the III. Caucasian and the XXII. Army corps in the middle, the XXXIII. Army Corps on the left and the XXXIV. and XXXXI. Army Corps on the right wing. The VII Siberian and the II and V Cavalry Corps acted as reserves behind it.
- Concentrated south of the Dniester in the Kolomea area, the Russian 8th Army under General Lawr Kornilov was supposed to intervene late and launch the attack against the front of the Austro-Hungarian 3rd Army under Colonel General Karl Křitek .
Course of the offensive
Already on June 29, 1917 the preparatory fire of the Russian 11th Army began with surprising force in the Zborow section against the positions of the Austro-Hungarian 2nd Army of the Army Group of Colonel General Eduard von Böhm-Ermolli in eastern Galicia. On June 30th, investigative attempts followed, but no real rush. Opposite the German southern army under General von Bothmer's infantry , the artillery fire of the Russian 7th Army in the Brezany area did not begin until June 30th.
Battle of Zborów
On July 1st at around 9 o'clock in the morning the mass assault of the Russian infantry began on the entire front; in the first three days it brought the hoped-for successes. Most of the Austro-Hungarian troops were thrown back, and the Russian troops advanced rapidly west in mild weather. The front of the kuk IX. Corps under General Kletter von Gromnik was torn up, the main battle line of the 19th, 32nd and 54th Infantry Divisions between Zborów and Konjuchi collapsed. Only the third line could be stabilized after the intervention of the German 197th and 223rd divisions . The Bohemian Infantry Regiments Nos. 35 and 75 offered only weak resistance on July 1st and then surrendered. The Czechoslovak legions , formed from prisoners of war on the Russian side , achieved a surprise victory in the battle of Zborów against their own compatriots of the Austro-Hungarian army despite their military inferiority, and thus wrote Czechoslovak history. On July 2, around 3 p.m., the Czechoslovak legions had already penetrated up to 5 kilometers into enemy territory. 3,300 soldiers were captured and large amounts of military equipment were captured. At Zborow, the Russian 11th Army took a total of 18,000 prisoners and captured 21 cannons.
Fight at Brzezany
Gradually, until July 3, attacks by 12 Russian divisions of the Russian 7th Army against the front of the Southern Army in the area south of Brzezany erupted . The German XXV. Reserve Corps under General von Heineccius and the kuk XXV, which was on the left wing as far as Konjuchy. Corps under General Hofmann were able to maintain their positions. The attack of the Russian XII. Army corps against the front of the kuk XV. Corps was shattered by the steadfastness of the Turkish 20th Division deployed there. All attacks against the front of the XXVII deployed between the Narajowka and the Ceniowka . Reserve Corps was also turned away by the 75th and 53rd Reserve Divisions .
Battle for Kalusz
On July 6th, General Gutor shifted the focus of the offensive to the southern 8th Army. The southern wing of Kornilov's army remained defensive in front of the Forest Carpathians , while the northern wing between Jampol on the Dniester and Nadworna defended the attack with the XII. and XVI. Army corps from the Stanislau area to the west. 8 infantry divisions and 4 cavalry divisions attacked the front of the Austro-Hungarian 3rd Army, which defended the attack field with six divisions. After a strong artillery strike, Kornilov's troops broke through the front of the Austro-Hungarian 15th Division northwest of Stanislau. The capture of Halicz by the Russians on July 7th severed the rail link between Lemberg and Stanislau, and by the end of the day the Russians had crossed the Lomnica valley on their way to Kalusz . On July 8th, the dominant height of Jutrena Gora (height 354) fell into Russian hands.
From July 8th, the German Commander-in-Chief , Field Marshal Leopold von Bayern , was able to stop the Russian offensive in the Zloczow area. The hastily arriving German reserves began to restore the situation. Until July 11th, the Russian XII. Army Corps on the southern section extend the penetration in the direction of Kalusz to a depth of 18 kilometers. The losses of the Russians rose rapidly, the 8th Army alone had lost 40,000 men since July 6th. Disintegration undermined the morale of the divisions ordered to attack, and many soldiers refused to continue fighting.
Cessation of the offensive
While the offensive was still going on, the domestic political situation also worsened in the hinterland: an uprising of the Bolsheviks against the new offensive broke out in Petersburg and Moscow, but it was quickly put down. The Bolsheviks were disarmed and Lenin had to flee to Finland . After Prime Minister Lvov's resignation , Kerensky became the new head of the Provisional Government on July 21, 1917 .
After the successful counterattack by the Central Powers, which was initiated on July 19 by the Winckler army group from the Zloczow area to the southeast, the Russian troops were almost completely expelled from Galicia by the beginning of August during the offensive to Tarnopol . Kerensky let the attacks of the 8th Army continue at Kalusz until July 24th, then the German breakthrough on Tarnopol forced him to break off the offensive.
consequences
The offensive accelerated Russia's exit from the war. The Russian troops were now finally morally and physically tired and showing the first signs of mutiny. In support of the oppressed Russians in Galicia and Bukovina, the allied Romanians also attacked between Măraşti-Nămoloasa. On July 26, the first relief attack against the Austro-Hungarian VIII Corps began in the battle of the Oituz Pass . On July 30th, the Romanian 2nd Army counterattacked in the Forest Carpathians and wrested large parts of their positions at the Oituz Pass from the Austro-Hungarian 1st Army (under General Rohr von Denta since early March ) by August 10th .
The failure of the Russian summer offensive was accompanied by the growing rejection of the Kerensky government, which led in particular to the strengthening of the left political wing. As early as mid-July, after parts of the garrison of the Petrograd military district had been relocated to the front, the Bolshevik July uprising in the capital took place, but it was suppressed. A few months later, the Bolsheviks were able to take advantage of the Kerensky government's collapse in authority to take over power in the course of the October Revolution . The failure of the offensive contributed indirectly to the start of the peace negotiations in Brest-Litovsk .
literature
- Alexander Fyodorowitsch Kerensky: The Kerensky Memoirs. Russia and the turning point in history. Zsolnay, Vienna et al. 1966 (licensed edition: Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1989, ISBN 3-499-12477-7 ( Rororo 12477)).
- Austrian War Archives: Austria-Hungary's Last War 1914-1918, Volume VI: The War Year 1917 , Federal Ministry of Defense, Vienna 1936, pp. 213–280.
