Eastern+Front+Sean

Sean magee =**The eastern front of world war 1**=

Introduction to the war
The eastern front of WWI covered from the baltic sea, to St.petersburg, all the way to the black sea in the southern region of the war. As opposed to the western front, which was mostly limitted to the trenches of france, the eastern front covered a much wider area which included multiple nations, and consiquently multiple armies. This meant that the fighting was much less concentrated, and troops were more spread out.



1914

The outbrake of war

Following Franz Ferdinand's assasination on the 28th of June in 1914, the begining of germany's invasion of Verdun on the 21st of february in 1914, and growing hostilities in the balkans, Russia opened the eastern front when it decided to invade prussia on the 17th of august 1914.

-Russia invades east prussia and the province of Galicia in Austro Hungary -Russians are defeated in the battle of Tannenberg -Russians win battle of galicia in september -Russians begin the siege of Przemysl -After austrias losses, germany sends more german troops to help Austria -The biggest fighting shifted to Russian Poland -Przemysl fortress holds against russian attack -Russians bypass it and move on -Turkey joins the war on the side of the central powers and attacks russia across the red sea

1915 -Russians move through the Carpathians in february -Austrian troops lose the battle due to malfunctioning weapons, a shortage of equipment, and low moral among serbian austro hungarian troops, after watching serbian counter-forces being executed. -Germans send more troops to support austrains failure -In March the fortress of Przemysl is defeated -The germans take troops from the western front and focus them on an offesnive against the russians in Galicia. -The Glorice-Tarnow offensive of May by the germans is successfull -The second battle of the masurian lakes take place and the central powers are successfull -The russians retreat due to inadiquate equipment like ammunition and artillary -The central powers advance further and take all of russian Poland -The central powers advance is stopped and the front lines are established through riga, jakobstadt, dvinsk, baranovichi, pinsk, dubno, ternopil -In April Italy joins the side of the allies and commence their attacks on Austria. Although they had sided on the central powers side before, a promise of land by allied nations drew them in. - Italian attacks are mostly unsuccessfull and italian forces only adcance very short distances into Austria -In September Bulgaria joins the war, on the side of the central powers and attacks serbia.



1916 -Russian industry sees an economic increase, and the russian army is re-equipped. -In june the russians begin their offensive and advance between 50 and 70 km into the Austrian front. -Romania enters the war on russias side. -They are defeated by bulgarian, ottoman, german and austrian roops, due to inadiquate equipment and little support form their russian allies. - The russians capture hundreds of prisoners, and guns and take key points through their advances -Reinforcements from the western front for the central powers, halt the russian advancements by the end of September.

1917 -Russia's economy loses money -Food shortages to Russian people follow because of money going to the front -Civil unrest follows, leading to the februaury revolution -The tsar is abdicated, and liberal policies follow, like the abolishment of the death penalty. -Soldiers at the front begin to resist as well, -July 1917 marks the last offensive by the russian army in Kerensky which was also a failure. -On the 29th of October 1917 Lenin comes to power, and attempts to end the war.



1918 -Italy has made little progress with Austria and is pushed back after their defeat in the battle of Caporetto. -The germans demand difficult compramises, but by March of 1918 the treaty of brest-litovsk was signed. -After the russian retreat, the Germans send more troops to the western front but are countered by newly deployed american troops. -Germany and Austria-Hungary lose all lands gained throughout the war in the eastern front through the treaty of Verseilles. -An estimated 1,300,000 Russian military fatalities, are the effect of the war. -By the end of the war there were still 3,900,000 russians in german POW camps, the most number of prisoners taken in the war by any nation. Appro. 180,000 russian POWs died in german camps.



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