The famous Battle of Galicia was part of the campaign of the Russian army at the very beginning of the First World War. In this sector, divisions of the Southwestern Front fought with Austria-Hungary.
The situation on the eve of the operation
The First World War began with an emergency offensive of the army of the Russian Empire to the west. The conflict broke out suddenly, and in all the capitals of the world, until the last day, they hoped to avoid bloodshed. Nevertheless, the ultimatum of Austria-Hungary to Serbia did its job, and Nicholas II issued a manifesto on the outbreak of war. In the first month of the campaign, there were not only intense battles, but also an unprecedented mobilization of the civilian population. The peasants underwent hasty training and went to the front as privates.
In the northern direction, the Russian army launched an attack on East Prussia, a German province. In the south, the tsarist generals had to face another enemy - Austria-Hungary. The Habsburg monarchy was a staunch ally of Germany, and now both of these countries were coordinating their actions against the Romanov Empire.
Austria-Hungary was a large country, including, among other things, Galicia, Bukovina and Romania. All these provinces were a back corner of the empire. Western Europeans are practically nothingknew about these parts - for them, civilization ended in Budapest. It was there that the Battle of Galicia took place.
Russian Headquarters
To confront Austria in July 1914, the Southwestern Front was promptly created. This strategic association included several armies. Artillery General Nikolai Ivanov became its commander in chief. During the years of service in the army, he went through a number of important campaigns - the Russian-Turkish war in Bulgaria, as well as the Russian-Japanese war.
The personality of this general enjoyed mixed popularity. So, for example, Anton Denikin spoke of him as a person who did not have sufficient knowledge of strategy. There was a widespread point of view in the Russian army that the commander-in-chief owed all his successes to the chief of staff Mikhail Alekseev.
New conditions for warfare
The battle of Galicia, like any battle at the beginning of the war, showed that the entire military school of that time was simply outdated. The generals were still guided by the principles adopted in the 19th century. At the same time, the importance of new types of weapons - artillery and aviation - was not taken into account. At the beginning of the 20th century, cavalry had already become a relic of the past, as the First World War clearly showed. The Galician battle and all the horror of its bloodshed turned out to be completely unexpected for contemporaries.
On the eve of the war, captivating moods reigned in all opponent countries - Germany, Russia, France, etc. Each power believed that ita quick march will be enough to defeat the enemy. For example, in Berlin, the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871 was often cited as an example, when the entire French army was defeated in less than a year. In fact, both the Entente and the Central Powers were facing many years of debilitating slaughter.
Failure in the Polish direction
It should be noted that the Battle of Galicia was not a battle as such, but a whole operation consisting of several battles. Five Russian armies under the command of Nikolai Ivanov began their offensive on August 5 (old style). Several connections followed different paths. The width of the front was 500 kilometers. The initial target of the attack was Lvov, or Lemberg in German.
The divided armies took different roads to the west. The first serious battle took place at Krasnik, when the 4th army of Anton Salz faced the 1st army of Viktor Dunkl. The Austrians attacked the advancing army. After a protracted and stubborn battle, Salz gave the order to retreat to the strategically important city of Lublin. Thus, the Russian offensive on the Polish sector of the front failed.
Due to failure in the north, Ivanov had to transfer several divisions to the flank of the advancing Austrian 1st Army. The maneuvers took on a chaotic character. They were complicated by bad roads in the devastated front line. From the very beginning, Russian troops acted dispersed over a wide sector of the offensive. Both during the operation and, especially, after it, this tactic was criticized.
Russian march to the west
If the tsarist army had no luck in the north, the Austrians failed in the central direction. The main battles in this region took place on the banks of the Golden Linden. The Habsburg army retreated. August 21 fell Lvov, August 22 - Galich. The Austrians tried to recapture the major cities. Stubborn battles were going on 50 kilometers from these settlements. By September, the retreat of Franz Joseph's army had become so disorganized that it looked more like a rout.
Meanwhile, in East Prussia, the Germans surrounded and defeated Samsonov's army. The general himself committed suicide, unable to bear the shame. This happened due to the fact that in East Prussia the Russians operated through two divided armies. And if one was destroyed, the second is now connected to the battle with the Austrians, which gave an additional impetus to the offensive in the southwest.
By September 13, the entire region was occupied by Russian troops. Thus ended the Battle of Galicia in 1914. This was followed by a months-long siege of Przemysl, during which the front between the two powers stabilized and was located about 120 kilometers west of Lviv.
Meaning
The bloody Galician battle, the results of which became clear after the war, showed the complete inability of the Austrian army to take military action. This was due to technical backwardness, poor infrastructure and incorrect calculations of the general staff. The army was corroded from the inside due to nationalcontradictions. The fact is that in the army there were not only Austrians and Hungarians, but also representatives of the Slavic peoples. They were Czechs, Slovaks, Croats. Many of them were critical of the Habsburg monarchy, considering their native lands occupied. Therefore, in the Austrian army there were frequent cases of desertion and going over to the side of Russia. The Slavs hoped that the tsar would not only defeat the Habsburgs, but also grant freedom to their own countries.
Of course, this view was not universal. And among the Czechs there were many royalists who faithfully fought the Entente to the very end. In addition, the Battle of Galicia, in short, took place in conditions when the war had just begun, and the economic crisis had not yet had time to hit the well-being of the warring countries.
Reaction from Germany and Russia
The inability of the Austrians to resist Russia led the Germans to help their southern neighbor. From the Western Front, where the war took on a positional character, Germany began to transfer its divisions. Such measures became regular and continued until the signing of peace with the Soviet government.
In Russia, there has been a patriotic upsurge, which was largely facilitated by the Battle of Galicia. During the year of the war, all social forces supported the tsarist government. When the front stopped, and the economic crisis began in the country, the inhabitants of the empire radically changed their minds about the entire campaign.
Losses of the parties
The Austrians lost 300 thousand people killed and wounded, another 100 thousand peoplewere in captivity. A second wave of mobilization took place in the country in order to somehow compensate for the gap in the army. Russian losses were also significant. About 200 thousand people died or were injured, another 40 thousand were captured.
The Battle of Galicia (1914), in short, showed all the horrors of a new type of war. After shelling by artillery, people received such injuries that field surgeons had not encountered before. The terrible fate of the soldiers led to the start of a propaganda campaign in Russia to raise funds for humanitarian aid. Infirmaries were opened all over the country, where they looked after the new invalids and the crippled. A little later, the royal family ordered the opening of a special hospital in the Winter Palace, where wounded front-line soldiers, including those from the Southwestern Front, were taken.
