1914: Russia holds in Poland/Lithuania and throws the kitchen sink at Austria-Hungary

[wormyguy]

Here's a question for all you WWI buffs. What if in 1914, Russian war plans did not revolve around an offensive to cut off the German armies in East Prussia, but instead positioning only holding forces along the German border sufficient to contain a German offensive while mounting a large-scale offensive against Austrian-held Galicia? (Essentially the Brusilov Offensive 2 years early). Does this make logistical sense? Would the Austrians be able to hold, would it be a major defeat for the Austrians like Brusilov in OTL, or could the Russians even manage to break through and knock Austria out of the war?

 

[Catspoke]

Hmm, So this would be something like stripping a corps or two each from the first and second army and sending them to Galacia.

Not invading East Prussia means the German don't withdraw Coprs from the western front, probably turning the Marne into a draw with a different race to the sea.

The Germans would propably rail down at least two corps from 8th down to Silesia in support the Austrians.

 

[Marja]

The Russian plan was to conduct a holding action in Poland and Lithuania and an all-out offensive through Galicia.

The French, during the crisis, demanded an offensive into Germany. But the offensive into Prussia was far smaller than the offensive into Galicia.

 

[Intosh]

Conquering Galicia will not kick the AH out of the war but only too establish a front on the Carpathian mountains where the defensive side had a real advantage.

Conquering Galicia is a prequisite before an offensive against the real ennemy : Germany...

Striking against Germany in Prussia or Silesia had real reasons as conquering Prussia can be a real propaganda victory and conquering Silesia can have real economics results for both Germany and Russia...

 

[lukedalton]

Major pressure on A-H can butterfly Italy enter the war, as Vienna will be more interested in don't open a second front so it will be more probable that some concession will be given and even earlier in the talks with Rome.

 

[Marja]

Most of the Russian armies invaded Galicia, and only two armies invaded Prussia, at French insistence. And the invasion of Galicia seems to have been better-prepared than the fiasco in Prussia. Basically, the what-if is what happened, until, because of the course of the war in the west, the French asked the Russians to open another front.

 

[Cook]

Major pressure on A-H can butterfly Italy enter the war, as Vienna will be more interested in don't open a second front so it will be more probable that some concession will be given and even earlier in the talks with Rome.

Whatever limited offers the Habsburgs make are not going to match what the French and British can offer; the Austrians are not going to be willing to give up the South Tyrol and parts of Croatia. They went into the war to hold the Empire together, they aren’t going to carve off penny packets of territory in exchange for temporary neutrality from the Italians. The British and French in the meantime are going to be willing to offer the Italians all the Austro-Hungarian territory the Italians want.

 

[BlondieBC]

Russia did not have an Austria only mobilization plan, they only had a full mobilization plan. In this way, they are like the Germans. However, the Russians had two war plans, both which started with troops near the same location. If the Germans attacked hard, they would retreat, rapidly pulling forces out of Poland. As the supplies lines shortened, they would counter attack and stabilize the front at some point. Basically trading land and men for time, in classic Russian tradition. The Russian line would stabilize at or west of a Riga/Minsk line.

The second plan assumed the Germans would attack France first. The Russians would attack East Prussia and Galacia. After these areas were secured, there would be a followup drive into the heart of Germany. This was the plan executed. If Tsar Nicholas changed the plan at the last moment, it would likely cause logistical chaos. The overstretched Russian rail system would need to move one armies south to attack A-H. It is possible the logistical chaos would make the Russians move even slower than OTL. Is the Tsar order to attack as the forces arrived or does he want the reinforcing say 2nd Army to arrive before the attack is launched?

Even if the Tsar order forces to attack as they arrived, i don't expect them to be a major help in 1914. The Russians are facing a limited weather window, that will close after a few months. A best case for the Russians is they get most of A-H north of the Carpathians. A medium case is the 2nd Army has little effect, and arrives too late. A bad case is Tsar Nicholas delays the initial attack until the 2nd Army arrives or the change in orders delays the attack into A-H by weeks, giving the A-H more time to organize a defense. In any case, the additional Army will not be decisive in the first year of the war against A-H.

Unless the offensive against A-H is a bust, Italy still joins the Entente. The German general staff does not need to move the 3 corps to help the 8th German Army. With 3 or more extra corp and less panic pressure to move troops east, the Germans do better in the west, but do not take Paris. The Germans likely either hold the Marne or take a lot more of the Channel coast, depending on where the extra corps are used. I am not familiar enough with the details of the western front to know where they would have been used.

Now everything is different if say 4 years before the war, the Russian High commands draws up an A-H first mobilization and war plan. This POD would have a good chance of decisively breaking the A-H lines and winning the war quickly. Basically, i doubt the Russians ability to move 200,000 troops from one area to another without causing chaos. I also think it likely that if the Tsar had chosen this path, a few weeks later, he would have changed his mind because France was screaming at him about not helping them. I can see the 2nd Army almost being ready to attack from Lublin, only to be order to rush back to their original positions to attack Prussia.






http://www.ww1-world-war-one.info/ww1-information-History-Eastern-Front-War-Plans.htm This is a basic summary, i can't find maps to the plans quickly.

 

[lukedalton]

Whatever limited offers the Habsburgs make are not going to match what the French and British can offer; the Austrians are not going to be willing to give up the South Tyrol and parts of Croatia. They went into the war to hold the Empire together, they aren’t going to carve off penny packets of territory in exchange for temporary neutrality from the Italians. The British and French in the meantime are going to be willing to offer the Italians all the Austro-Hungarian territory the Italians want.

Neutralist were the majority at the time, and Giolitti knowing the flaw and the problem of the italian armed forces was not very keen to enter the war; unfortunately the talks lasted too long and frankly the A-H treated the concession of even a little strips of land as they give up an arm and a leg, only some bad reversal on the russian front finally prompt them to concede something of plausible but then was too late. A more pressed A-H can immediately make some concession enough serious that Giolitti can appear before the king and parlamient and declare that neutrality is the gonna be better as we get land without spill blood.
Germany will be very happy, no other front and someone who will commerce with them lessening the effect of blockade

 

[abc123]

Whatever limited offers the Habsburgs make are not going to match what the French and British can offer; the Austrians are not going to be willing to give up the South Tyrol and parts of Croatia. They went into the war to hold the Empire together, they aren’t going to carve off penny packets of territory in exchange for temporary neutrality from the Italians. The British and French in the meantime are going to be willing to offer the Italians all the Austro-Hungarian territory the Italians want.

That's right.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Prewar the Russians had an agreement with France to fight the Germans at the earliest possible opportunity to take the pressure off of France when the Germans attacked West. No doing so would have violated the Franco-Russian agreement, something the Russians were very eager not to do, especially as they owed France a LOT of money.

All of those extra forces would not have helped at all in Galicia. As it was, they won a crushing victory and then found out they had TOO MANY forces in Galicia. Logistics collapsed and the Russians were forced to put off moving beyond the San-Dniester rivers because they couldn't even sustain 2 armies beyond it until November, especially with Przemysl in the way. Ultimately they had to build an entire alternate rail system in Galicia because of the gauge differences and the lack of connecting lines with Russia, thanks to a defensive military mindset.

If the Russians do as you suggest, then they have a bunch of starving men in the Carpathians who then bleed to death fighting the Austrians in a defenders dream. Before winter, i.e. November-December OTL, the Austrians managed to kick the crap out of the Russians in the Carpathians despite being outnumbered. There were only so many places to move through. They could try and go around to the north by Gorlice-Tarnow, but it just means moving through some barely passable roads while the Austrians and Germans, whose border is right in the area with its dense rail net, get to pull off another Tannenberg on barely supplied Russians.

OTL STAVKA made the right choice to go after Germany because it would be too much of a problem to invade Hungary from Galicia. Plus they needed to cover their flank by securing Poland. The main problem was incompetent army commanders and very poor coordination, not the overall strategy.

Neutralist were the majority at the time, and Giolitti knowing the flaw and the problem of the italian armed forces was not very keen to enter the war; unfortunately the talks lasted too long and frankly the A-H treated the concession of even a little strips of land as they give up an arm and a leg, only some bad reversal on the russian front finally prompt them to concede something of plausible but then was too late. A more pressed A-H can immediately make some concession enough serious that Giolitti can appear before the king and parlamient and declare that neutrality is the gonna be better as we get land without spill blood.
Germany will be very happy, no other front and someone who will commerce with them lessening the effect of blockade

The problem was the land the Italians wanted contained all the Austrian border forts. It requires vast trust, more than Italy deserved at the time, to give up their defenses and hope Italy then doesn't declare war and have an easier go at it. Frankly I cannot see ANY scenario where Austria gives anything to Italy without Vienna occupied by Russia or Italy already holding their desired bits. Or the Empire collapsing like in 1918.

 

[Julian]

Alternatively the Russians could simply have executed their invasion of East Prussia better. I believe the commanders of the two Russian armies hated each other and simply did not cooperate and even went out of their ways to stiffle each other. This obviously gave the Germans a decisive advantage. Different commanders and better coordination could see a major Russian victory in East Prussia, especially if they transfer forces from Galicia which as wiking said more hindered than helped them in the long term.

 

[lukedalton]

The problem was the land the Italians wanted contained all the Austrian border forts. It requires vast trust, more than Italy deserved at the time, to give up their defenses and hope Italy then doesn't declare war and have an easier go at it. Frankly I cannot see ANY scenario where Austria gives anything to Italy without Vienna occupied by Russia or Italy already holding their desired bits. Or the Empire collapsing like in 1918.

The problem was that Vienna want the cake and eat it, they (and Germany) want an Italy who is neutral and benevolent regarding the CP but the Hasburg don't want give anything back...so this splendid and rational move permitted that a very vocal minorance hijacked the foreign politics of Italy, all that with Giolitti (a neutralist and CP leaning) at the helm and voilat istantaneous and totally evitable second front, result for not want to give some scraps they had lose all (they will probably losed anyway but at least they have had some better change). Regarding trust, well it's not that the Austrian credential were pristine after all, and honestly if you come to a talk you are expected to concede something.

 

[BlondieBC]

The problem was the land the Italians wanted contained all the Austrian border forts. It requires vast trust, more than Italy deserved at the time, to give up their defenses and hope Italy then doesn't declare war and have an easier go at it. Frankly I cannot see ANY scenario where Austria gives anything to Italy without Vienna occupied by Russia or Italy already holding their desired bits. Or the Empire collapsing like in 1918.

Largely agreed. Italy had broken the treaty on pretty thin legal grounds. Not notify Italy of the coming war, and being the aggressor against Serbia did give Italy a reason not to honor a defensive treaty, but in no way did it give a reason to attack an Ally. Some of Italy public declaration for the reason for the war was the attack on Serbia somehow harmed the Italian interest in Albania, and that A-H had made the conquering of Libya harder before WW1. So I cannot see A-H trusting Italy for demanding land during the war.

The only scenario i can see for Italy to gain land from A-H would involve Italy going to war with the Central Powers and the land being transfer AFTER victory as part of the peace deal. This would require Italy to trust A-H or perhaps the Kaiser. This type of deal is still a long, long shot, but perhaps the CP would have agreed to it for the extra help, especially at a time of Great need. Now Italy would have to give up something to save face for A-H, and i don't know what it would be, but maybe something like agreeing that the Balkans is an exclusively A-H sphere of influence.