Eastern Front (World War I) - 1916

1916

By June 1916 there were 140 Russian infantry divisions against 105 Austro-German infantry divisions and 40 Russian cavalry divisions against 22 Austro-German. The mobilization of industry and increase of imports enabled the Russian army to resume the offensive. A large attack on the southwestern front under the leadership of General Aleksey Brusilov (the Brusilov Offensive) started in June. The attack, aimed against the part of the front held by Austro-Hungarians, was initially a spectacular success. The Russian army advanced to a depth of 50–70 kilometres (31–43 mi), capturing several hundred thousand prisoners and several hundred guns. The arrival of important enemy reinforcements from the west, the defeat of the Romanians, and failure of Russia's western allies to shake German defenses, brought the Russian advance to an end in September.

On 27 August 1916, Romania entered the war on the side of the Entente and had a successful offensive until September. After that it started to suffer great losses and several defeats from German-Austrian-Bulgarian-Ottoman forces, as the Romanian Army was poorly equipped and their Russian allies offered little support on the front.

During the Winter of 1916—1917, starving wolves had amassed in great numbers in Kaunas, Vilnius and Minsk and began attacking Imperial Russian and Imperial German fighting forces. This caused the two armies to negotiate a truce to fight off the animals.