Russia's Part in the World War

by C. M. Shumsky-Solomonov

Notwithstanding the lack of arms and munitions the Russian Army rendered the Allies, in the critical days of 1915, assistance that was not less important and serious than that of the days of the Marne and Ypres. Russia, by diverting upon herself, towards the close of 1914, all the efforts of the Central Powers, thereby offered France and England the opportunity for a whole year to prepare for the prosecution of the War. Throughout 1915, when Germany, Austria and Turkey were diverted by Russia, France was enabled quickly to accumulate new reserves, munitions, shells, to recover from the serious wounds of 1914, and to prepare for that inevitable blow from Germany which subsequently took the form of a determined offensive at Verdun in 1916.

At the same time England, owing to the fact that Russia had in 1915 taken upon herself the whole burden of the struggle, was enabled in the course of one year to carry out Kitchener's stupendous plan of expanding the small, 150 thousand-strong English Army of volunteers into the four million-strong Army of the English nation in arms. On the other hand Germany, having called to the colors new reserves, was compelled by Russia to expend these reserves on the Russian front, and not on the main front, in France, where the fate of the whole War was to be decided for Germany.

All these opportunities, all this stupendous preparation in the creation and development of new armed forces by the Allies, took place undisturbed and in favorable circumstances, solely because 1915 was the year of Russia's single-handed fight against three enemy powers, the year of the greatest self-sacrifice of the Russian Army for the common cause. Who knows what might have been the result of the German offensive in France had those German reserves which perished in Russia broken through somewhere in the north of France simultaneously with the storming of Verdun, in February. Who knows how far the German military catastrophe might have been averted had all the fresh reserves of the Germans, which were being incessantly swallowed up by the Russian front, found themselves in the West!

To these questions Ludendorf himself happens to give the answers in his memoirs. Speaking of the offensive of the Germans at Verdun and of the offensive of the Austrians in Italy, he says: "Both offensives suffered from the fact that inadequate reserves prevented the first successes from being followed up."

Where did these reserves, which were lacking for the capture of Verdun, where did they go to after Germany had in 1915 created a great many new formations? In 1915 they were swallowed up by the Russian front during the German offensive in Poland, and the Verdun operation was frustrated because, as Ludendorf declares, there were no reserves with which to develop the first success of the Germans. For this reason the unbiased investigator will admit that Russia in 1915 contributed to a tremendous extent towards the calm and systematic preparation of the Allies for the decisive German blow, struck at Verdun, but planned to go beyond Paris. If the firm stand of the French at Verdun, if the talent of Castelnau, who stopped the withdrawal of the French to the other bank of the Meuse, directly repulsed the attack of the Germans, the true ally, Russia, certainly aided by diverting upon herself all the German reserves in 1915 and giving the Allies a whole year of respite in which to create new armed forces.

The Russian front incessantly drew to itself all new German formations and reserves, and thereby automatically forced the German Army in the West to carry on unproductive operations which never reached their objective. Not one single German operation in France could obtain full development, and inevitably spent itself just because of lack of reserves which were always opportunely swallowed by the Russian front.

Turning to the operations of 1915 we see that the Germans, notwithstanding all their efforts and partial successes, never gained any decisive results on the Russian front. The Russian Army, having neither munitions nor arms, was naturally unable to win at this time, and was compelled to retreat from Poland. But the Russian Army was not crushed, which, however, had been the main objective of Ludendorf's offensive.

In his memoirs Ludendorf plainly states: "The German General Staff now resolved to try to obtain a decision against Russia." This, translated from military parlance into plain English, simply means that it was the object to settle, to "finish" with Russia, in other words, to crush her Army, for otherwise there would have been no sense in starting operations against Russia, and in wasting against her the reserves so much needed on the main front, against France. Neither does Ludendorf conceal this object further on in his memoirs, but he admits that it was not accomplished. For this failure he blames General Falkenhayn, the Chief of the General Staff, who, it was supposed, prevented Ludendorf from crushing the Russian Army. We shall not enter into the personal disputes between Ludendorf and Falkenhayn, whom Ludendorf throughout criticises sharply. We shall only note that Ludendorf attempted four times during the summer of 1915 to surround or break through the several retreats of the Russian Army, but the latter in every instance retreated in perfect order, carrying their arms with them. In which one of these four instances, then, did Falkenhayn interfere? How preposterous this shifting of the blame to Falkenhayn is, may be seen even from Ludendorf's own statement: "Throughout the whole War we never succeeded, either on the Eastern or Western front, in exploiting a big break-through to the full!" In this way he himself admits that the Germans did not even once succeed, at the proper time, in utilizing a big success to the full, i. e., Falkenhayn's role was immaterial. It is but natural that the resistance of the Russians in 1915 prevented the Germans from exploiting that success which they regarded as a big one, but which, as a matter of fact, consisted only in the systematic retreat of the Russian Army which was without arms and munitions. However, the most inopportune statement made by Ludendorf is contained in the following remark of his concerning the operations against the Russians in 1915: "We had brought the final overthrow of Russia a step nearer."