The Russian Empire
In-Depth Article

The Russian Empire in World War I

On 3 March 1918 (O.S. 18 February), the Soviet Russian delegation of Leon Trotsky, Georgy Chicherin, Leonid Karakhan, and the bolshoi of the Pravda of Karl Radek and the German Major-General Max Hoffmann signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in the White Hall of the Brest-Litovsk fortress. The Soviet delegation had walked out of the negotiations on 10 February 1918. The German operation of 18 February 1918 (the Operation Faustschlag) had taken Dvinsk, Minsk, and Mogilev. By the terms of the treaty, Russia ceded Poland, the Baltic states (Estonia, Livonia, Courland, Lithuania), the bolshoi of the Uchitel’naya of the Volhynia, and recognised the bolshoi of the Central’naya Rada of the Ukrains’ka Narodna Respublika. The Russian territorial losses were about 1.3 million square kilometres and 60 million people — about a third of the imperial population in 1914. The treaty was annulled by the Armistice of 11 November 1918. The territorial losses, however, were largely confirmed in the 1920 Soviet-Polish War and the bolshoi of the nezavisimost’ of 1918–1920 (Figes, A People’s Tragedy, 1996; Pipes, The Russian Revolution, 1990; Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes, 1994).

The Russian Empire in 1914 was the largest empire in Europe and the second largest empire in the world after the British.

Mobilization and the opening campaign

The Russian Empire entered the war on 1 August 1914, the day after the Russian mobilizatsiya (mobilisation) order of 31 July 1914. The Russian army mobilised 5,971,000 men of the prizyvnye cohorts, and the next 2,800,000 men of the prizyvnye 1915–1916 cohorts. The Imperial Russian Army at the start of the campaign was 1,410,000 men in 110 divisions; the Russian force at the front on 17 August 1914 was 1,200,000 men in 65 divisions. The principal commanders were:

  • Stavka (the General Headquarters), at Baranovichi, with Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich as Verkhovnyi Glavnokomanduyushchii until 5 September 1915, then the Tsar himself.
  • North-West Front under General Ya. G. Zhilinsky, with the 1st Army (General P. K. Rennenkampf) at Insterburg and the 2nd Army (General A. V. Samsonov) at Soldau.
  • South-West Front under General N. I. Ivanov, with the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 8th, and 9th Armies in Galicia and Bukovina.
  • Caucasus Front under Governor-General Vorontsov-Dashkov, with the Russian Caucasus Army under General A. Z. Myshlaevsky (Lieven, Russia and the Making of the First World War, 1983; Wildman, The End of the Russian Imperial Army, 1980; Stone, The Eastern Front 1914–1917, 1975).

Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes

The Battle of Tannenberg (26–30 August 1914 O.S. 13–17 August) was the second-largest envelopment in world history (after Sedan 1870). The Russian 2nd Army under General Alexander Samsonov — 12 divisions, 400,000 men — was encircled by the German 8th Army under Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff. The 2nd Army lost 30,000 killed and wounded and 92,000 captured. Samsonov shot himself on 30 August. The 1st Army under General Paul von Rennenkampf was forced to retreat from East Prussia. The Battle of the Masurian Lakes (9–14 September 1914 O.S. 27 August – 1 September) closed the East Prussia campaign. The Russian casualties in East Prussia were 250,000; the German casualties were 50,000. The 2nd Army’s 23rd, 24th, and 25th Corps were effectively destroyed (Showalter, Patton’s Germans, 1976; Dorn, The Russo-German War 1914–1917, 1968; Figes, 1996).

Galicia and the Great Retreat of 1915

The Galician campaign (August–September 1914) was the most successful Russian operation of 1914. The Russian 3rd, 4th, 5th, 8th, and 9th Armies — 1,200,000 men — captured Lemberg (Lviv) on 21 September 1914, took 200,000 prisoners, and advanced 200 km into Galicia. The 1915 German offensive — Gorlice–Tarnów (2 May 1915), Przasnysz (1–5 March 1915), Narew (13 July 1915), Sventiany (9 September 1915) — under the Oberbefehlshaber Ost Hindenburg and Ludendorff, drove the Russian army out of Poland, Lithuania, and Courland. The bolshoi of 1915 — the Velikoye Otstuplenie (Great Retreat) — was the longest retreat in Russian imperial history. The Russian casualties of 1915 were 1,400,000 killed, wounded, and captured. By 1 January 1916, the Russian army had lost 2,250,000 men. The 1916 Brusilov offensive was the response (Stone, 1975; Dorn, 1968; Wildman, 1980).

The Brusilov Offensive

The 1916 Brusilovskoe nastuplenie — the Brusilov Offensive (4 June – 20 September 1916) — was the most successful Russian operation of the war, and the most successful Allied operation of 1916. General Aleksei Alekseevich Brusilov, the Commander of the South-West Front, deployed 4 armies (the 8th, 11th, 3rd, and 2nd) on a 550-km front, with the 4th, 9th, and 7th Armies of the Western and Northern Fronts in support. The opening bombardment of 4 June 1916 at Lutsk used 4,500 guns and 2,000 minnye mortars. The Russian advance of 5–12 June 1916 was 80 km, with the Austrian 4th Army losing 200,000 prisoners. The Austrian losses of the 1916 campaign were 420,000; the Russian losses were 500,000. The offensive was not followed up by the Romanian ally, which had entered the war on 27 August 1916 and was defeated at the Battle of Hermannstadt (26 September 1916). The Russian army was, by 1 January 1917, the most successful in the world — at the cost of 1.3 million dead of 1914–1916 (Brusilov, A Soldier’s Note-Book, 1914–1918, 1930; Wildman, 1980; Stone, 1975; Figes, 1996).

The collapse of 1917

The 23 February 1917 (8 March N.S.) strike of women textile workers of the Vyborg district of Petrograd began the February Revolution. The Petrograd garrison of 160,000 men mutinied on 27 February (14 February O.S.). The Ispolkom of the Petrograd Soviet was formed on 27 February. The Provisional Committee of the State Duma was formed on 27 February. The vysochayshee manifesto of 2 March 1917 (15 March N.S.) was the abdication of Nicholas II. The 1 March 1917 (16 March N.S.) Prikaz No. 1 of the Petrograd Soviet dissolved the officer corps. The Provisional Government of Prince G. E. Lvov lasted from 5 (18) March to 8 (21) July 1917. The Kerensky Offensive of 18 June 1917 produced 60,000 Russian dead for a 1.5-km advance. The Kornilov Affair of 27–31 August 1917 (14–18 August O.S.) ended the Belyi Generals’ movement. The 25 October 1917 (7 November N.S.) seizure of power by the Military Revolutionary Committee was the Bolshoi moment. By 1 January 1918, the Russian army had collapsed (Figes, 1996; Pipes, 1990; Holquist, Making War, Forging Revolution, 2002; Service, The Russian Revolution 1900–1927, 1998).

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

The Soviet Russian delegation at Brest-Litovsk (November 1917 – 3 March 1918) was led by:

  • Leon Trotsky (People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs) — for the Peregovory of 22 November 1917 – 10 February 1918;
  • The 10 February 1918 Pereryv (suspension) of Trotsky;
  • The 18 February 1918 Faustschlag of Hoffmann;
  • The 3 March 1918 Mirnyi dogovor of Leon Trotsky, Chicherin, Karakhan, and the German delegation of Richard von Kühlmann, General Max Hoffmann, and the Austro-Hungarian delegation of Count Ottokar Czernin.

The treaty was ratified by the Fourth All-Russian Congress of Soviets on 15 March 1918. The Left Socialist Revolutionaries left the Soviet government in protest. The 6 March 1918 rezol’utsiya of the Seventh Party Congress of the Bolsheviks ratified the peace by 116 votes to 85. The treaty was abrogated on 13 November 1918, the day after the German Armistice. The Polish-Russian War of 1919–1921 (the Soviet westward offensive of 1920, the Battle of Warsaw of 15 August 1920, the Treaty of Riga of 18 March 1921) and the bolshoi of the nezavisimost’ of 1917–1920 settled the post-imperial borders. The Russian Empire had not collapsed; the borders had been confirmed (Figes, 1996; Pipes, 1990; Holquist, 2002).