The Galician battle of 1914 is brief. Results of the Battle of Galicia

The famous Galician battle was part of the campaign of the Russian army at the very beginning of the First World War. On this section of the division of the South-Western Front fought with Austria-Hungary.

Situation on the eve of the operation

The First World War began with an emergency offensive by the army of the Russian Empire to the west. The conflict erupted suddenly, and in all the capitals of the world until the last day hoped to avoid bloodshed. Nevertheless, the Austria-Hungary ultimatum of Serbia did its job, and Nicholas II issued a manifesto on the outbreak of the war. In the first month of the campaign, not only intense fighting took place, but also the unprecedented mobilization of the civilian population. The peasants passed hasty training and went to the front as privates.

In the north, the Russian army launched an attack on East Prussia, the German province. In the south, the tsarist generals had to face another enemy - Austro-Hungary. The Habsburg monarchy was a faithful ally of Germany, and now both of these countries coordinated their actions against the Romanov empire.

Austria-Hungary was a big country, it included, inter alia, Galicia, Bukovina and Romania. All these provinces were a blind corner of the empire. Western Europeans knew practically nothing about these parts - for them civilization ended in Budapest. It was there that the Galicia battle took place.

Russian Headquarters

For the confrontation with Austria in July 1914, the South-Western Front was operatively established. This strategic alliance included several armies. His commander-in-chief was the artillery general Nikolai Ivanov. During the years of service in the army, he passed several important campaigns - the Russian-Turkish war in Bulgaria, as well as the Russian-Japanese war.

The personality of this general was very popular. For example, Anton Denikin spoke of him as a man who did not have sufficient knowledge of strategy. In the Russian army was a widespread view that all his successes, the commander-in-chief was due to the chief of staff Mikhail Alekseev.

New conditions for warfare

The Galician battle, like any battles of the beginning of the war, showed that the entire military school at that time was simply obsolete. The generals were still guided by the principles adopted in the XIX 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 XX century, the cavalry already became a relic of the past, which was clearly demonstrated by the First World War. The Galician battle and all the horror of her bloodshed was completely unexpected for contemporaries.

Shakkozakidatelskie moods on the eve of the war reigned in all countries-opponents - Germany, Russia, France, etc. Each power believed that it would be enough quick march-throw to defeat the enemy. For example, Berlin was often cited as an example of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871, when in less than a year the entire French army was routed. In fact, both the Entente and the Central Powers were facing a long-term exhausting slaughter.

Failure in the Polish direction

It should be noted that the Battle of Galicia was not a battle as such, but an entire operation consisting of several battles. Five Russian armies under the command of Nikolai Ivanov began their offensive on August 5 (according to the old style). Several connections were on different roads. At the same time, the width of the front was 500 kilometers. The original goal of the offensive was Lviv, or German Lemberg.

The divided armies marched on different roads to the west. The first serious battle took place at Krasnik, when the 4th army of Anton Salz was confronted with 1 army of Viktor Dankl. The Austrians attacked the advancing army. After a long and stubborn battle, Salz ordered the retreat to the strategically important city of Lublin. Thus, the Russian offensive on the Polish sector of the front failed.

Due to the failure in the north, Ivanov had to transfer several divisions to the flank of the advancing Austrian army. Maneuvers took a chaotic nature. They were complicated by bad roads in the ruined front line. From the very beginning, Russian troops operated sporadically on a wide area of the offensive. And during the operation and, especially, after it, this tactic was criticized.

Russian march to the west

If the tsarist army was not lucky in the north, then the Austrians failed in the central direction. The main battles in this region occurred on the bank of the Golden Lime. The army of the Habsburgs retreated. On August 21, Lvov fell, on August 22 - Galich. The Austrians tried to fight off major cities. Strong battles were in 50 kilometers from these settlements. By September, the retreat of Franz Josef 's army had become so unorganized that it seemed more like an escape.

Meanwhile, in East Prussia, the Germans were surrounded and defeated by the army of Samsonov. The general himself committed suicide, unable to withstand shame. This was due to the fact that in East Prussia the Russians acted through two divided armies. And if one was destroyed, the second was now connected to the battle with the Austrians, which gave an additional impetus to the offensive in the south-west.

By September 13, the entire region was occupied by Russian troops. Thus ended the Battle of Galicia in 1914. Subsequently, the months-long siege of Peremyshl followed, during which the front between the two powers stabilized and was about 120 kilometers west of Lviv.

Value

The bloody Galicia battle, the results of which became clear after the war, showed the Austrian army's complete inability to act. This was due to technical backwardness, poor infrastructure and incorrect calculations by the General Staff. The army was corroded from within because of national contradictions. 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 the transition to the side of Russia. The Slavs hoped that the tsar would not only break 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 fought the Entente right up to the very end. In addition, the Battle of Galicia, briefly, took place in conditions when the war has just begun, and the economic crisis has not yet managed to hit the welfare of the belligerent countries.

The reaction of Germany and Russia

The inability of the Austrians to resist Russia led to the fact that the Germans had to help their southern neighbor. From the Western Front, where the war took a positional character, Germany began to move 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, to which the Galicia battle contributed to a considerable degree. Year of the war, all social forces supported the tsarist power. When the front stopped, and the country began an economic crisis, 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 people were taken prisoner. In the country there was a repeated wave of mobilization, in order to somehow compensate for the gap in the army. The losses of Russia were also significant. About 200 thousand people died or were wounded, another 40 thousand were taken prisoner.

The Galician battle (1914), in short, showed all the horrors of a new type of war. After artillery shelling, people received such injuries that field surgeons had not encountered before. The terrible fate of the soldiers led to the beginning of the propaganda campaign in Russia to raise funds for humanitarian assistance. All over the country, infirmaries opened, where they looked after new invalids and crippled. A little later the royal family ordered to open a special hospital in the Winter Palace, where wounded front-line soldiers, including those from the South-Western Front, were wounded.