Brusilov Offensive - Battle

Battle

On June 8 forces of the Southwestern Front took Lutsk. The Austrian commander, Archduke Josef Ferdinand, barely managed to escape the city before the Russians entered, a testament to the speed of the Russian advance. By now the Austrians were in full retreat and the Russians had taken over 200,000 prisoners. Brusilov's forces were becoming overextended and he made it clear that further success of the operation depended on Evert launching his part of the offensive. Evert, however, continued to delay, which gave the German high command time to send reinforcements to the Eastern Front.

In a meeting held on the same day Lutsk fell, German Chief of Staff Erich von Falkenhayn persuaded his Austrian counterpart Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf to pull troops away from the Italian Front to counter the Russians in Galicia. Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, Germany's commander in the East (Oberkommando-Ost), was again able to capitalize on good railroads to bring German reinforcements to the front.

Finally, on June 18 a weak and poorly prepared offensive commenced under Evert. On July 24 Alexander von Linsingen counterattacked the Russians south of Kovel and temporarily checked them. On July 28 Brusilov resumed his own offensive, and although his armies were short on supplies he reached the Carpathian Mountains by September 20. The Russian high command started transferring troops from Evert's front to reinforce Brusilov, a transfer Brusilov strongly opposed because more troops only served to clutter his front. All forces involved were reaching exhaustion and the offensive finally died down in late September and ended as Russian troops had to be transferred to help Romania, which was being overrun by Austro-Hungarian, German and Bulgarian forces. Romania had been inspired to join the war by Russia's initial success against Austro-Hungarian troops; however, they were quickly defeated and as a result enemy forces moved closer to Russia and opened a new front for Russian forces.