The Eastern Front was a theatre of war during World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 in Central

Central Europe

Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...

 and, primarily, Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

. The term is in contrast to the Western Front. Despite the geographical separation, the events in the two theatres strongly influenced each other. In Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n sources, the war was sometimes called the Second Fatherland War

Second Fatherland War

The Second Fatherland War was the term given by contemporary Russians to both the Eastern Front of World War I and the Eastern Front of World War II. Both terms attempted to link the current war with the French invasion of Russia in 1812, which had been termed the "Fatherland War" and later the...

.

Theatre of war

The length of the front in the east was much longer than in the west. The theatre of war was roughly delimited by the Baltic Sea

Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...

 in the west and Minsk

Minsk

- Ecological situation :The ecological situation is monitored by Republican Center of Radioactive and Environmental Control .During 2003–2008 the overall weight of contaminants increased from 186,000 to 247,400 tons. The change of gas as industrial fuel to mazut for financial reasons has worsened...

 in the east, and Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

 in the north and the Black Sea

Black Sea

The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...

 in the south, a distance of more than 1600 kilometres (994.2 mi). This had a drastic effect on the nature of the warfare. While World War I on the Western Front developed into trench warfare

Trench warfare

Trench warfare is a form of occupied fighting lines, consisting largely of trenches, in which troops are largely immune to the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery...

, the battle lines on the Eastern Front were much more fluid and trenches never truly developed. This was because the greater length of the front ensured that the density of soldiers in the line was lower so the line was easier to break. Once broken, the sparse communication networks made it difficult for the defender to rush reinforcements to the rupture in the line to mount a rapid counteroffensive and seal off a breakthrough. In short, on the Eastern front the side defending did not have the overwhelming advantages it had on the Western front. However, as in the Napoleonic Wars

Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...

 and World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Russian forces were familiar with their own ground which provided a natural advantage for the Russian emperor's land forces.

1914

At the outbreak of the war, Tsar

Tsar

Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...

 Nicholas II

Nicholas II of Russia

Nicholas II was the last Emperor of Russia, Grand Prince of Finland, and titular King of Poland. His official short title was Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias and he is known as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church.Nicholas II ruled from 1894 until...

 appointed his cousin, Grand Duke Nicholas as Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Russian Army

Imperial Russian Army

The Imperial Russian Army was the land armed force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian army consisted of around 938,731 regular soldiers and 245,850 irregulars . Until the time of military reform of Dmitry Milyutin in...

. On mobilization, the Russian army totaled some 1.2 million men under arms, including 70 infantry and 24 cavalry divisions with nearly 7,900 guns (7,100 field guns, 540 field howitzers and 257 heavy guns). Divisions were allocated as follows: 32 infantry and 10.5 cavalry divisions to operate against Germany, 46 infantry and 18.5 cavalry divisions to operate against Austria-Hungary, 19.5 infantry and 5.5 cavalry divisions for the defence of the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea littorals, and 17 infantry and 3.5 cavalry divisions were to be transported in from Siberia and Turkestan.

The war in the east began with the Russian invasion of East Prussia

East Prussian Campaign (1914)

The Russian invasion of East Prussia occurred during the First World War, lasting from August to September 1914. As well as being the natural course for the Russians to take upon the declaration of war with Germany, it was also an attempt to focus German military eyes on the Eastern Front, as...

 and the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia

Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria

The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria was a crownland of the Habsburg Monarchy, the Austrian Empire, and Austria–Hungary from 1772 to 1918 .This historical region in eastern Central Europe is currently divided between Poland and Ukraine...

. The first effort quickly turned to a defeat following the Battle of Tannenberg

Battle of Tannenberg (1914)

The Battle of Tannenberg was an engagement between the Russian Empire and the German Empire in the first days of World War I. It was fought by the Russian First and Second Armies against the German Eighth Army between 23 August and 30 August 1914. The battle resulted in the almost complete...

 in August 1914. The second incursion was completely successful, with the Russians

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

 controlling almost all of Galicia by the end of 1914. Under the command of Nikolai Ivanov and Aleksei Brusilov

Aleksei Brusilov

Aleksei Alekseevich Brusilov was a Russian general most noted for the development of new offensive tactics used in the 1916 offensive which would come to bear his name. The innovative and relatively successful tactics used were later copied by the Germans...

, the Russians won the Battle of Galicia in September and began the Siege of Przemyśl

Siege of Przemysl

The Siege of Przemyśl was one of the greatest sieges of the First World War, and a crushing defeat for Austria-Hungary. The investment of Przemyśl began on September 24, 1914 and was briefly suspended on October 11 due to an Austro-Hungarian offensive...

, the next fortress on the road towards Kraków

Kraków

Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...

.

This early Russian success in 1914 on the Austro-Russian border was a reason for concern to the Central Powers and caused considerable German

German Empire

The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...

 forces to be transferred to the East to take pressure off the Austrians, leading to the creation of the new German Ninth Army. At the end of 1914 the main focus of the fighting shifted to central part of Russian Poland

Congress Poland

The Kingdom of Poland , informally known as Congress Poland , created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, was a personal union of the Russian parcel of Poland with the Russian Empire...

, west of the river Vistula

Vistula

The Vistula is the longest and the most important river in Poland, at 1,047 km in length. The watershed area of the Vistula is , of which lies within Poland ....

. The October Battle of the Vistula River

Battle of the Vistula River

The Battle of the Vistula River, also known as the Battle of Warsaw, was a Russian victory against the German Empire on the Eastern Front during the First World War.-Background:...

 and the November Battle of Łódź brought little advancement for the Germans, but at least kept the Russians at a safe distance.

The Russian and Austro-Hungarian armies continued to clash in and near the Carpathian Mountains

Carpathian Mountains

The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians are a range of mountains forming an arc roughly long across Central and Eastern Europe, making them the second-longest mountain range in Europe...

 throughout the winter of 1914–1915. Przemysl fortress managed to hold out deep behind enemy lines throughout this period, with the Russians bypassing it in order to attack the Austro-Hungarian troops further to the west. They made some progress, crossing the Carpathians

Carpathian Mountains

The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians are a range of mountains forming an arc roughly long across Central and Eastern Europe, making them the second-longest mountain range in Europe...

 in February and March 1915, but then the Germans sent relief and stopped further Russian advance. In the meantime, Przemysl was almost entirely destroyed and the Siege of Przemysl

Siege of Przemysl

The Siege of Przemyśl was one of the greatest sieges of the First World War, and a crushing defeat for Austria-Hungary. The investment of Przemyśl began on September 24, 1914 and was briefly suspended on October 11 due to an Austro-Hungarian offensive...

 ended in a defeat for the Austrian

Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...

s.

1915

In 1915 the German command decided to make its main effort on the Eastern Front, and accordingly transferred considerable forces there. To eliminate the Russian threat the Central Powers

Central Powers

The Central Powers were one of the two warring factions in World War I , composed of the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria...

 began the campaign season of 1915 with the successful Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive

Gorlice-Tarnów Offensive

The Gorlice–Tarnów Offensive during World War I started as a minor German offensive to relieve Russian pressure on the Austro-Hungarians to their south on the Eastern Front, but resulted in the total collapse of the Russian lines and their retreat far into Russia...

 in Galicia in May 1915. After the Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes

Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes

The Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes, also known as the Winter Battle of the Masurian Lakes, was the northern part of the Central Powers' offensive on the Eastern Front in the winter of 1915...

, the German and Austro-Hungarian troops in the Eastern Front functioned under a unified command. The offensive soon turned into a general advance and then a strategic retreat by the Russian army. The cause of the reverses suffered by the Russian army was not so much errors in the tactical sphere, as the deficiency in technical equipment, particularly in artillery and ammunition. Only by 1916 did buildup of Russian war industries increase production of war material and improve the supply situation.

By mid-1915, the Russians had been expelled from Russian Poland

Congress Poland

The Kingdom of Poland , informally known as Congress Poland , created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, was a personal union of the Russian parcel of Poland with the Russian Empire...

 and hence pushed hundreds of kilometers away from the borders of the Central Powers, removing the threat of Russian invasion of Germany or Austria-Hungary. At the end of 1915 German-Austrian advance was stopped on the line Riga

Riga

Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...

–Jakobstadt

Jekabpils

Jēkabpils is a city in Selonia, Latvia roughly halfway between Riga and Daugavpils. The Daugava River runs through the town, and the ancient valley, branches, and islands of the river are considered picturesque...

–Dvinsk–Baranovichi

Baranovichi

Baranovichi , is a city in the Brest Province of western Belarus with a population of 173,000. It is a significant railway junction and home to a state university.-Overview:...

–Pinsk

Pinsk

Pinsk , a town in Belarus, in the Polesia region, traversed by the river Pripyat, at the confluence of the Strumen and Pina rivers. The region was known as the Marsh of Pinsk. It is a fertile agricultural center. It lies south-west of Minsk. The population is about 130,000...

–Dubno

Dubno

Dubno is a city located on the Ikva River in the Rivne Oblast of western Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of Dubno Raion , the city itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast...

–Ternopil

Ternopil

Ternopil , is a city in western Ukraine, located on the banks of the Seret River. Ternopil is one of the major cities of Western Ukraine and the historical region of Galicia...

. The general outline of this front line did not change until the Russian collapse in 1917.

1916

By June 1916 there were 140 Russian infantry divisions against 105 Austro-German infantry divisions and 40 Russian cavalry divisions against 22 Austro-German. The mobilization of industry and increase of imports enabled the Russian army to resume the offensive. A large attack on the southwestern front under the leadership of General Aleksey Brusilov

Aleksei Brusilov

Aleksei Alekseevich Brusilov was a Russian general most noted for the development of new offensive tactics used in the 1916 offensive which would come to bear his name. The innovative and relatively successful tactics used were later copied by the Germans...

 (the Brusilov Offensive

Brusilov Offensive

The Brusilov Offensive , also known as the June Advance, was the Russian Empire's greatest feat of arms during World War I, and among the most lethal battles in world history. Prof. Graydon A. Tunstall of the University of South Florida called the Brusilov Offensive of 1916 the worst crisis of...

) started in June. The attack, aimed against the part of the front held by Austro-Hungarians, was initially a spectacular success. The Russian army advanced to a depth of 50–70 km (31.1–43.5 mi), capturing several hundred thousand prisoners and several hundred guns. The arrival of important enemy reinforcements from the west, the defeat of the Romanians, and failure of Russia's western allies to shake German defenses, brought the Russian advance to an end in September.

On 14 August 1916, Romania

Kingdom of Romania

The Kingdom of Romania was the Romanian state based on a form of parliamentary monarchy between 13 March 1881 and 30 December 1947, specified by the first three Constitutions of Romania...

 entered the war on the side of the Entente

Allies of World War I

The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...

 and had a successful offensive until September. After that it started to suffer great losses and several defeats from German-Austrian-Bulgarian-Ottoman

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 forces, as the Romanian Army was poorly equipped and their Russian allies offered little support on the front.

1917–1918

By 1917, the Russian economy finally neared collapse under the strain of the war effort. While the equipment of the Russian armies actually improved due to the expansion of the war industry, the food shortages in the major urban centres brought about civil unrest, which led to the abdication of the Tsar and the February Revolution

February Revolution

The February Revolution of 1917 was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Centered around the then capital Petrograd in March . Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the end of the Russian Empire...

. The large war casualties also created disaffection and mutinous attitudes in the army, which was fueled by Bolshevik

Bolshevik

The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....

 agitators and the Russian Provisional Government

Russian Provisional Government

The Russian Provisional Government was the short-lived administrative body which sought to govern Russia immediately following the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II . On September 14, the State Duma of the Russian Empire was officially dissolved by the newly created Directorate, and the country was...

’s new liberalization policies towards the army (stripping officers of their mandate by giving wide sweeping powers to "soldier committees", the abolition of the death penalty). The very last offensive undertaken by the Russian Army in the war was the brief and unsuccessful Kerensky Offensive

Kerensky Offensive

The Kerensky Offensive was the last Russian offensive in World War I. It took place in July 1917.- Background :...

 in July 1917.

On 29 November 1917, the Communist Bolsheviks took power under their leader Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...

. Lenin’s new Bolshevik government tried to end the war but the Germans demanded enormous concessions. Finally, in March 1918, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a peace treaty signed on March 3, 1918, mediated by South African Andrik Fuller, at Brest-Litovsk between Russia and the Central Powers, headed by Germany, marking Russia's exit from World War I.While the treaty was practically obsolete before the end of the year,...

 was signed and the Eastern Front ceased to be a war zone. While the treaty was practically obsolete before the end of the year, it did provide some relief to Bolsheviks, who were embroiled in a civil war, and affirmed the independence of Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

, Estonia

Estonia

Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...

, Latvia

Latvia

Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...

, Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

, and Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

. The Germans were able to transfer substantial forces to the west in order to mount an offensive in France

Spring Offensive

The 1918 Spring Offensive or Kaiserschlacht , also known as the Ludendorff Offensive, was a series of German attacks along the Western Front during World War I, beginning on 21 March 1918, which marked the deepest advances by either side since 1914...

 in the spring of 1918. However, this offensive failed to achieve a decisive breakthrough and the arrival of more and more American units

American Expeditionary Force

The American Expeditionary Forces or AEF were the United States Armed Forces sent to Europe in World War I. During the United States campaigns in World War I the AEF fought in France alongside British and French allied forces in the last year of the war, against Imperial German forces...

 in Europe was sufficient to offset the German advantage. Even after the Russian collapse, about a million German soldiers remained tied up in the east until the end of the war, attempting to run a short-lived addition to the German Empire in Europe. In the end, Germany and Austria lost all their captured lands, and more, under various treaties (such as the Treaty of Versailles

Treaty of Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...

) signed after the armistice in 1918.

Casualties

The Russian casualties in the First World War are difficult to estimate, due to the poor quality of available statistics. Some official Russian sources list 775,400 battlefield fatalities. More recent Russian estimates give 900,000 battlefield deaths and 400,000 dead from combat wounds, or a total of 1,300,000 dead. This is about equal to the casualties suffered by France and Austria-Hungary and about one-third less than those suffered by Germany.

Cornish gives a total of 2,006,000 military dead (700,000 killed in action, 970,000 died of wounds, 155,000 died of disease and 181,000 died while POWs). This measure of Russian losses is similar to that of the British Empire, 5% of the male population in the 15 to 49 age group. He says civilian casualties were five to six hundred thousand in the first two years, and were then not kept, so a total of over 1,500,000 is not unlikely. He has over five million men passing into captivity, the majority during 1915.

When Russia withdrew from the war, 3,900,000 Russian POWs were in German and Austrian hands. This by far exceeded the total number of prisoners of war (1,300,000 million) lost by the armies of Britain

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....

, France and Germany combined. Only the Austro-Hungarian Army

Austro-Hungarian Army

The Austro-Hungarian Army was the ground force of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy from 1867 to 1918. It was composed of three parts: the joint army , the Austrian Landwehr , and the Hungarian Honvédség .In the wake of fighting between the...

, with 2,200,000 POWs, came even close.

External links

• WWI Eastern Front Foto.
• WWI Eastern Front Part II
• With the Russian army, 1914–1917 by Alfred Knox
• War And Revolution In Russia 1914–1917 by General Basil Gourko.
• WWI German Military Cemeteries in Belarus modern photos by Andrey Dybowski (rus).