{"id":56579,"date":"2016-03-31T06:34:07","date_gmt":"2016-03-31T11:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=56579"},"modified":"2016-03-31T06:34:07","modified_gmt":"2016-03-31T11:34:07","slug":"death-by-committee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=56579","title":{"rendered":"Death by Committee"},"content":{"rendered":"

What had been a roar of artillery weeks earlier had quieted to a trickle of distant, infrequent thuds. \u00a0Where the men of the Russian Second Army had charged forward over snow-capped passes days earlier, on March 31st, 1916, survivors now limped back through a morass of mud and blood at Lake Naroch, in what is now modern Belarus.<\/p>\n

It should have been a momentum-changing victory for Russia and the Entente. \u00a0Eager to recover from their rout in the summer of 1915<\/a>, 373,000 Russian soldiers had attacked only 82,000 Germans holding one of the weakest portions of the Eastern Front. \u00a0887 pieces of field artillery had pounded the German line for two days – an eternity by Eastern Front standards – under a battle plan crafted by the Russian Imperial Army’s own Chief of Staff. \u00a0The Russians had optimistically believed they were about to achieve their breakthrough.<\/p>\n

Instead, it was yet another major Russian defeat. \u00a0Only this time, it had the fingerprints of the rest of the Entente all over it.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\"\"

Lake Naroch carried all the hallmarks of early Russian defeats – bad intelligence, terrible tactical execution, and overconfidence. \u00a0The difference was the Russians thought they had addressed these issues before the battle<\/p><\/div>\n

The seeds of the Russian debacle at Lake Naroch had been planted months earlier in the French city of\u00a0Chantilly. \u00a0Indeed, many of the Entente defeats of 1916 could trace their lineage to the Inter-Allied Conference at Chantilly in December of 1915. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

For the nearly one-and-a-half years of the Great War, the Entente had embarked upon offensive operations with little to no central planning between the major powers. \u00a0Save for the Anglo-French cooperation in France, and less so in Salonika<\/a>, a larger coordinated strategy to win the war had yet to materialize. \u00a0In the eyes of the French Commander-in-Chief, Gen. Joseph Joffre, the Entente had been fighting at cross purposes. \u00a0Only together could they possible inflict offensives that had a chance of defeating the Central Powers.<\/p>\n

At Joffre’s headquarters in Chantilly, representatives of the Entente’s major powers – Britain, France, Russia and Italy – gathered to lay out a coordinated strategy for 1916 and beyond.<\/p>\n

\"\"

The Chantilly Agreement – “coordination” quickly became code for “doing what the British and French wanted”<\/p><\/div>\n

In principle, Entente coordination was supported by all of the representatives, including Russia. \u00a0And why not? \u00a0If all four powers could launch attacks at once, they might be able to achieve a decisive breakthrough somewhere. \u00a0In execution, the Entente’s concept of “coordination” largely devolved into obligating each member of the Alliance into conducting last-minute offensives if asked to by another member. \u00a0And in practicality, the conference had affirmed the diplomatic and military dominance of Britain and France at their allies’ expense. \u00a0Despite their armies being stretched to their breaking point, the Russians and Italians were forced to contribute men to Salonika and France. \u00a0The Chantilly Agreement, as it would come to be known, contained a “poison pill” for Entente members who refused to “coordinate” as the British and French wished – supplies and armaments would be cut.<\/p>\n

Russia’s and Italy’s military planning was now being dictated in London and Paris.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\"\"

Russian artillery hammers the German lines – or so the Russians believe<\/p><\/div>\n

The Chantilly Agreement would be put to its first test with Verdun.<\/p>\n

As France bled in their protracted duel with Germany<\/a>, Joffre invoked the coordination clause of Chantilly in a desperate bid to lure German units away. \u00a0For most of the Entente, the response resulted in either delayed or minimal attacks. \u00a0The Italians would be the first to respond, attacking Isonzo for the fifth time<\/a> since May of 1915. \u00a0But within six days, the Italians would stop their token effort, having lost 1,900 men. \u00a0The British wouldn’t attack until the summer at the Somme, albeit an attack to that led to among the worst bloodletting of the entire Great War.<\/p>\n

The Russians intended to honor not just the letter of the Chantilly Agreement, but its spirit. \u00a0A major offensive at Lake Naroch had already been contemplated, as the Russians knew they significantly outnumbered German forces in the area.<\/p>\n

The attack had been the brainchild of Mikhail Alekseyev, the Russian Army’s Chief of Staff. \u00a0Born to a poor private, Alekseyev had advanced in the Imperial Army due to being a smart and ambitious officer. \u00a0In functionality, Alekseyev was the nation’s Commander-in-Chief. \u00a0Despite Tsar Nicholas II having officially taken over the duty in the early fall of 1915, Nicholas had little concept of the organizational nightmare of running such an army – Alekseyev did.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Gen. Mikhail Alekseyev – historians criticize Alekseyev’s limited strategic creativity, but he was able to partially address Russia’s abysmal military infrastructure<\/p><\/div>\n

Alekseyev had taken a number of factors into consideration. \u00a0The logistical challenges of transporting supplies in the winter were dealt with – Russian gunners would have their shells, and Russian soldiers plenty of ammunition. \u00a0Diversionary assaults against the Austrians would keep the Central Powers confused. \u00a0But the one factor Alekseyev hadn’t fully considered was\u00a0the incompetence of the Russian officer corps.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

The Russian bombardment that started on March 18th, 1916 went according to plan. \u00a0The shelling lasted for two days, as intended, and the 373,000 men of the Russian Second Army rushed forward in anticipation of claiming their victory.<\/p>\n

The bombardment had missed its mark. \u00a0Badly. \u00a0Little of the German front lines had been affected by the shelling, and the Germans, although vastly outnumbered, were in far better fortifications than Russian intelligence had believed. \u00a0Russian troops moved forward in human wave formations, a tactic that been disregarded in the West many months earlier because of the easy targets such waves made for machine guns. \u00a0The Russians were mowed down by the thousands without so much as sniffing the German trenches. \u00a0In response, the Russians attempted to attack at night – using searchlights to blind the German line. \u00a0The tactic had worked against the Japanese in the Russo-Japanese War 11 years earlier. \u00a0But at Lake Naroch, the searchlights only served to\u00a0silhouette the advancing troops, making them even easier to shoot.<\/p>\n

\"\"

German trenches – the Germans had mastered trench building techniques and the Russians had badly underestimated how fortifications could help a smaller force withstand an assault by a larger army<\/p><\/div>\n

Even the elements were refusing to cooperate. \u00a0Spring rains turned the mushy snow into mud, making reinforcement or advancement all but impossible. \u00a0Communications between Alekseyev and his commanders broke down. \u00a0The lack of passable roads made receiving orders difficult, and the lack of success emboldened the aristocratic generals to defy the poor private’s son. \u00a0When it was over, what minimal gains the Russians had made were quickly undone in the weeks to follow. \u00a0110,000 Russians had been added to the casualty rolls, 12,000 of them from inadequate winter clothing. \u00a0The Germans lost 20,000 men. \u00a0Anticipating a major victory, the Russians were reduced to arguing that they had inflicted greater losses than the Germans were willing to admit.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, the objective of the entire operation – drawing German forces away from Verdun – had failed.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\"\"

Russian POWs at Lake Naroch – 3.3 million Russians would end up as prisoners of war between 1914 and 1917<\/p><\/div>\n

For all the failures at Lake Naroch, the Russians had actually learned a few key lessons.<\/p>\n

The first, and perhaps most important, was that future offensives would be better served to target the Austro-Hungarians than the Germans – the diversionary assaults for Lake Naroch gained more ground than the main offensive. \u00a0Second, the Russian High Command could organize a decent attack. \u00a0Alekseyev and the General Staff had managed a solid battle plan, and overcame Tsarist Russia’s inferior transportation system (not to mention material shortage) to properly arm their men. \u00a0The Russian soldiers may have risked freezing to death at Lake Naroch, but they had enough guns and ammunition for the task at hand. \u00a0For an army nearly 2 million rifles short, and accustom to sometimes sending men into battle only with ax handles (not axes, ax handles<\/em>), having enough supplies was a major accomplishment.<\/p>\n

Lake Naroch also revealed that Germany was becoming dangerous arrogant about the disposition of their own forces in the East. \u00a0German aerial units had spotted the Russian build-up weeks in advance, but did nothing to shift their forces in response. \u00a0A year-and-a-half of lop-sided German victories against the Tsar’s malnourished army had seemingly convinced not only the General Staff in Berlin, but the generals on the ground on the Eastern Front, that Russia was incapable of launching successful offensive operations.<\/p>\n

The offensive at Lake Naroch had fallen short due to rushed planning and poor tactical execution. \u00a0Given enough time, and the right commanding officer, the Russians might have a chance to win a victory on the Eastern Front. \u00a0Unfortunately, one key person didn’t believe that was possible – Alekseyev. \u00a0The Chief of Staff had become racked with self-doubt in the wake of his defeat, communicating his newfound belief that Russia no longer held the ability to go on the attack.<\/p>\n

That summer, with a more\u00a0successful and confident general in the lead, Russia’s fortunes in the Great War would change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What had been a roar of artillery weeks earlier had quieted to a trickle of distant, infrequent thuds. \u00a0Where the men of the Russian Second Army had charged forward over snow-capped passes days earlier, on March 31st, 1916, survivors now limped back through a morass of mud and blood at Lake Naroch, in what is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":425,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105,281],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-ringer","category-ww1-fact-and-myth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56579"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58189,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56579\/revisions\/58189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}