Gorlice-Tarnów Offensive

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Gorlice-Tarnów Offensive
Part of Eastern Front (World War I)
Gorlice-Tarnów breakthrough and Russian withdrawal
Date May 1 to September 18, 1915 Location Gorlice and Tarnów area, south-east of Cracow Result German victory
Combatants
Russian Empire	German Empire Austria-Hungary
Commanders
D.R.Radko-Dmitriev	August von Mackensen
Strength
III Army	XI Army (Germany) IV Army (Austria-Hungary)
Casualties
240,000	90,000

Russian Front
Stalluponen – Gumbinnen – Tannenberg – 1st Lemberg – Krasnik – 1st Masurian Lakes – Przemyśl – Vistula River – Łódź – Bolimov – 2nd Masurian Lakes – Gorlice-Tarnów – Warsaw – Lake Naroch – Brusilov Offensive – Kerensky 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. The continued series of actions lasted the majority of the campaigning season for 1915, starting in early May and only ending due to bad weather in October.

Contents 1 Background 2 Prelude 3 The Battle Continues 4 Outcome

[edit] Background

In the early stages of the Eastern Front, the German Eighth Army had conducted a series of almost miraculous actions against the two Russian armies facing them. After surrounding and then destroying the Russian Second Army at the Battle of Tannenburg in late August, Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff wheeled their troops to face the 1st Army at the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes, almost destroying them before they reached the protection of their own fortresses as they retreated across the border. When the actions petered out in late September, the vast majority of two Russian armies had been destroyed, and all Russian forces had been ejected from German soil.

Things were not going so well to their south, however. Here the bulk of the Russian army faced an equally large group of Austro-Hungarian units, who started their own offensive in late August and initially pushed the Russians back well into what is now central Poland. However, a well executed Russian counterattack in late September pushed them back over their own borders in disarray, allowing the Russians to start the Siege of Przemyśl. The Germans came to their aid by forming up the Ninth Army and attacking during the Battle of the Vistula River, and although it was initially successful, the attack eventually petered out and the Germans returned to their starting points.

The Russians followed up by redeploying their armies for a further offensive into Silesia, placing both Austria and Germany at risk. When they heard of this, the Ninth Army was redeployed to the north, allowing them to put serious pressure on the Russian right flank in what developed as the Battle of Łódź in early November. The Germans failed to encircle the Russian units, and the battle ended inconclusively with an orderly Russian withdrawal to the east near Warsaw. Weather prevented further actions over the next months.

[edit] Prelude

In early 1915 Hindenburg and Ludendorff once again executed a huge maneuver, quickly moving the Ninth Army to the north by train. This put the Ninth, Eight and the newly formed Tenth in a line near the pre-war Prussia borders with Russia, without the Russians being aware of the redeployment. In early February they launched an attack, the Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes, destroying much of the Russian 10th Army before the attack petered out. Although not as successful as initially hoped, the action nevertheless seriously threatened the Russian forces in Poland, which faced the possibility of being cut off had the German forces been able to move further south. A further action in this area seemed certain.

Instead, the German Chief of Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, decided for a major offensive in the Gorlice-Tarnów area, south-east of Cracow, at the far southern end of the Eastern Front. In April 1915 the recently formed German XI Army (10 infantry divisions under General August von Mackensen) was transferred from the Western Front. Along with the Austrian IV Army (8 infantry and 1 cavalry divisions under Archduke Joseph Ferdinand), it had to cope with the Russian III Army (18½ infantry and 5½ cavalry divisions, under General D.R.Radko-Dmitriev), that held that sector.

General Mackensen had been given command of both German and Austro-Hungarian forces, and on May 1, after a heavy artillery bombardment, he launched an attack which caught the Russians by surprise. He concentrated 10 infantry and 1 cavalry division (126,000 men, 457 light, 159 heavy pieces of artillery and 96 mortars) on the 35 km of the breakthrough sector of the front line against 5 Russian divisions (60,000 men with 141 light and 4 heavy pieces of artillery). Russian defenses were shattered and their lines collapsed. The III Army left in enemy hands about 140,000 prisoners and almost ceased to exist as a fighting unit.

The Russians were forced to withdraw, the Central Powers recaptured most of Galicia, and the Russian threat to Austria-Hungary was averted. Particularily gratifying was the recapture of Przemyśl on 3 June. The lines stabilized around 1 June, the penetration about 100 miles at its deepest, reducing the Polish Salient to perhaps a third of its pre-war size.

[edit] The Battle Continues

During this period the buildup of forces generally favored the Central Powers. Four new German armies, the Eleventh, Twelfth, Army of the Niemen and Army Bug, were being formed up, dramatically shifting the balance of power in the area, with thirteen Central armies facing nine Russian. Under pressure from the Kaiser, Falkenhayn gave in to Hindenburg and Ludendorff's insistence that the offensive be continued.

On 13 July the Central armies opened an offensive across the entire front. Outnumbered and still off-balance due to the earlier actions, the southern end of the Russian line collapsed and started moving eastward. More worrying, the German Tenth and Niemen armies pressed through on the extreme north end of the line, once again leading to the possibility of an encirclement of the entire Russian army.

By 13 July the entire southern wing had been pushed back another 100 miles to the River Bug, leaving only a small portion of Poland in Russian hands, anchored on Warsaw. New attacks by the German Eight, Tenth and Twelfth armies moving south out of Prussia soon caused even this front to collapse, sending the entire northern end of the Russian lines streaming backward, eventually forming a line running north-south at about the pre-war eastern Prussian border.

The Germans advanced 150 kilometers (95 miles) in two weeks, expanding the front. Although the Russians, in rear-guard fightings, inflicted severe casualties on the Germans on the San and Dniester rivers, they had not enough resources to halt them. They had to evacuate Przemyśl on June 3, and the Galician capital Lviv (in German: Lemberg; in Polish: Lwów; in Russian: Lvov) on the 22^nd. Between June 23 and 27 the Germans crossed the Dniester.

The Germans, after having received considerable reinforcements, took Brest-Litovsk (about 190 kilometers or 120 miles east of Warsaw) on August 25. With the continuing Russian retreat, the Polish capital itself became isolated, and the German XII Army (under Gallwitz) seized the opportunity and conquered it on August 4–5.

On September 19, Hindenburg's forces captured Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.

At this point, the German advance was finally halted by bad weather. The new front line now ran 290 kilometers (180 miles) east of Warsaw for almost 1,000 kilometers (600 miles), from the Baltic Sea to the Romanian border.

[edit] Outcome

The Russians had had to evacuate Galicia and lost Poland, suffering heavy casualties. On September 8, Nicholas II personally took command of the Russian armed forces, replacing Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolayevich. However, in spite of the severe defeat, the Russian retreat had been in good order, and Russia was not knocked out of the war. Furthermore, in order to sustain a large-scale offensive, Falkenhayn had had to transfer forces from the Western Front, weakening his chances against the Franco-British, without being able to obtain a decisive victory against the Russians.