Eastern Front (World War I) - Theatre of War

Theatre of War

The front in the east was much longer than that in the west. The theatre of war was roughly delimited by the Baltic Sea in the west and Minsk in the east, and Saint Petersburg in the north and the Black Sea in the south, a distance of more than 1,600 kilometres (990 mi). This had a drastic effect on the nature of the warfare. While World War I on the Western Front developed into trench warfare, the battle lines on the Eastern Front were much more fluid and trenches never truly developed. This was because the greater length of the front ensured that the density of soldiers in the line was lower so the line was easier to break. Once broken, the sparse communication networks made it difficult for the defender to rush reinforcements to the rupture in the line, mounting rapid counteroffensives to seal off any breakthrough. In short, on the Eastern front the side defending did not have the overwhelming advantages it had on the Western front. However, as in the Napoleonic Wars and World War II, Russian forces were familiar with their own ground which provided a natural advantage for the Russian emperor's land forces.