Great Retreat (Russia)

Casualties and losses[edit]

During the summer offensive, the troops of the Central Powers inflicted very heavy casualties on the Imperial Russian Army – in 45 days – up to 1,006,000 men. Of course, this was somewhat less than the Russian casualties in the previous Gorlice campaign (1,243,400 men in 75 days),^[9] but on average, the casualties per day were higher – 22,300 men against 16,600. Such dynamics was affected, before of all, the fall of the Novogeorgievsk fortress and the capture by the Germans of its numerous garrison. The armies of the Central Powers suffered less casualties in July–August than in May–June (358,600 men against 535,300), but the daily average casualties also increased (from 7,000 to almost 8,000 men). At the same time, if in the Gorlice campaign the most severe casualties of the Central Powers were the casualties of the Austro-Hungarian troops (2.5 times more than the German ones), then in the general offensive the German troops already lost 2 times more men than their ally. Such dynamics allows us to conclude that the casualties of the armies of the Dual Monarchy in the Gorlice campaign affected their subsequent activity – namely, on the front south of the Bug. Also for the German Great General Staff, high casualties became one of the factors for refusing further offensive actions against the Russian Empire and switching to defense.^[10]


For the Russian side, the scale of the casualties suffered greatly affected the further planning of military operations, forcing them to abandon not only the transition to the offensive, but also the protracted battle in their positions. Particularly painful was the increase in the number of prisoners, despite the fact that the enemy constantly announced the size of the trophies. In total, the Central Powers announced the capture from mid-July to September 1 of 511,679 prisoners (of which 18 were generals and 2,923 officers), 1,076 machine guns and 3,205 guns (of which 2,941 were in fortresses).^[11] The number of prisoners declared to the International Committee of the Red Cross exceeds the number of missing, probably due to the prisoners taken in the last days of August, when the Austro-Hungarian troops began to attack Volhynia and the boom beyond Grodno and Vilna, as well as a result of errors in calculations and underestimation of the missing among the rear units and services of Kovno, Ivangorod, Łomża and Osowiec.


However, in this case, there is a tendency when almost all the missing are in captivity. The increase in the number of Russian prisoners, even in comparison with the Gorlice campaign, was primarily due to the surrender of the Novogeorgievsk garrison (almost 90,000 men). Despite the threats of repressive measures against both the so-called “voluntarily surrendered” and the families of prisoners (deprivation of government rations), the distribution of “stories” by order of the alleged mass destruction of those captured by the enemy, the proportion of missing remained large and outnumbered the number of wounded. The Chief of the staff of the Southwestern Front (whose troops in July–August suffered casualties as prisoners to a much lesser extent), General of Artillery N. Ivanov, on August 10, ordered all commanding persons to conduct thorough investigations of "such shameful phenomena for the Russian warrior" when " a very large, unprecedented in the Russian army, the number of military ranks missing during marches and battles, a significant and even most of which either disperse, making escapes, or surrender to the enemy". Ivanov emphasized: “Senior commanders must show special care and forethought in preventing these phenomena that shame our army”.^[12]


Along with objective factors - the severity of the battles, when shelters and trenches were destroyed during prolonged shelling, burying soldiers under them, night crossings in a state of extreme fatigue, continuous retreat – subjective factors also influenced the increase in the number of missing persons, namely the weakness of officers and non-commissioned officers, poor training of replenishment. A glaring fact of the fall in the level of training of young soldiers was the incident with the 12th company of the 164th reserve battalion, sent on July 17, 1915, to replenish the 61st Infantry Division. On July 20, on the 4th day of the march, the company fled; out of 250 men, only six came to their destination.^[13]


The number of wounded in the fingers Russians continued to grow, which caused repeated criticism from the commanders, threats of reprisals and even condemnation by courts-martial to death of those convicted of self-mutilation. After the beginning of the July fighting, the chief of staff of the 2nd Siberian Army Corps ordered not to evacuate the wounded in the fingers and hands, but to bring them to justice; regimental commanders were required to submit monthly reports on the number of lower ranks with such wounds.^[13]


During the repulse of the summer offensive of the Central Powers, Russian troops captured 281 officers and 20,353 soldiers, as well as 25 machine guns. Given this number, it can be assumed that on the Central Powers's side the death toll could rise to 101,064 men (71,523 on the German side and 29,541 on the Austro-Hungarian side), which exceeds the number of deaths on the Russian side. Such serious damage clearly affected the position of the Chief of the German Great General Staff, E. von Falkenhayn, who insisted on the immediate curtailment of the offensive and the transition to defense in the achieved advantageous positions. But in general, the casualties of the Imperial Russian Army turned out to be almost three times higher than that of the Central Powers, mainly due to the prisoners (a ratio of more than 20:1).^[4]