Kerensky offensive

Southwestern Front

• 11th Army
• 7th Army
• 8th Army

// Army Group Böhm-Ermolli

• 2nd Army
• South Army
• 3rd Army

The Kerensky offensive (

The advance in the first days was in large part due to the volunteer shock battalions that were recruited and organized by the Provisional Government in the spring of 1917. But they were too few in number to repulse a counterattack by German reinforcements, and the regular infantry were less reliable. The Russian forces were then pushed back after 19 July, losing all of the territory they had gained. The Germans and Austrians continued advancing into Russian territory by as much as 120 kilometres (75 miles). By the time the German counter-offensive was over on 27 August, nearly all of Eastern Galicia had been retaken by the Central Powers. The retreat of the Russian army eventually stopped, and Kornilov managed to stabilize the front by mid-August, but the failure of the operation eliminated the offensive potential of the Russian Army and increased support for the Bolsheviks among the troops.

The offensive was a disaster for Kerensky and the Provisional Government, contributing to the

The Provisional Government asked Nicholas to abdicate, but the most important factor in him making that decision was his chief of staff at the Stavka, General Alekseyev, who had the support of all of the senior army generals. Alekseyev, once he realized the liberal parties in the Duma would form a pro-war government, initially asked him to form a constitutional monarchy with the revolutionaries that could focus on restoring national unity and leading Russia to victory in the war. The main concern of the generals at the Stavka was the end the domestic unrest so that Russia could return to the war effort. After meeting with representatives of the Provisional Government, the generals persuaded Nicholas abdicate on 15 March [O.S. 2 March] 1917, which was demanded by the revolutionaries in Petrograd.^[12][13] Before he abdicated the emperor approved Prince Georgy Lvov to lead the Provisional Government, which consisted mostly of liberals and a few socialists, though it had no control over the revolutionary mobs in Petrograd without cooperation from the Soviet.^[14]

The leaders of the Provisional Government wanted to continue the war against the Central Powers alongside the Entente, and in April 1917 this led to a political crisis.

In the weeks after the tsar's abdication the Russian Army began experiencing a rapid decline in discipline and willingness to continue the war. The immediate effect of the loss of the monarchy and the weakness of the Provisional Government was to undermine the authority of the officer corps over the enlisted troops.^[19] The day before the abdication, the Petrograd Soviet issued its Order No. 1 to the troops, with the goal of preventing officers in Petrograd from using the garrison against the revolution and to make officers treat soldiers with more respect. But it eventually reached the soldiers at the front, and was interpreted by many soldiers to mean that they no longer had to obey their officers and could elect their own commanders. On 17 March 1917 the Soviet, together with the State Duma, tried to fix this situation by issuing Order No. 2, which stated that soldiers must still obey orders on military matters, but it was ineffective at restoring discipline.^[20] Although incidents of violence between soldiers and officers were not common, the officers now depended on the cooperation of the elected soldiers' committees.^[16] The committees were formed to manage the relationship between the officer corps and the enlisted troops, functioning as a soviet at the battalion level and higher, and tended to be dominated by praporshchiks (warrant officers) and NCOs. Members of the prewar officer corps, who often were members of the nobility, looked at the soldiers' committees with contempt, while those who had been promoted into officer ranks or volunteered during the war were able to mediate between these two groups. The Stavka, the high command, initially refused to cooperate with the committees, but front line officers did so because it was necessary.^[21]

The Russian officer corps itself was divided between prewar career officers, student volunteers and reservists, and a large number of mobilized civilians who went through accelerated training. The prewar officers included both aristocrats and peasants; the graduates of cadet schools and

After the February Revolution, the demoralization that affected the Petrograd garrison began spreading among units outside of the capital.[24] Political agitators from outside the army traveled to the front to give speeches to the troops, which in some instances included trying to pit the soldiers against the officers.^[21] The Bolsheviks were among those who sent agitators, and used reserve units to spread their newspapers among the army.^[25] There were also reports of Russian soldiers talking and sharing food and alcohol with the Germans and Austrians, who took the opportunity to spread propaganda among them after they became aware of the revolutionary developments in Russia. Almost every corps at the front line experienced refusal by some soldiers that were in reserve to move up to the front, though the vast majority of these situations were resolved by negotiation with the soldiers' committees and officers. There were some occasions in which officers were murdered by their troops, and these incidents happened most often in the reserve units further away from the front. Desertion from the front line slightly decreased after the Revolution, but became more common among the rear-echelon and reserve units. Part of the reason for this was that officers and soldiers with common experience at the front got along better, while the members of training or reserve units had less bonds between them.^[26]

Preparation

Kerensky, as well as the Stavka and the Ministry of War, were determined to continue with the planned offensive in Galicia. In addition to their obligations to the Entente, they also thought it could restore national unity and military discipline.^[25][26] Despite its previous casualties, the Russian Army was still an effective force at the start of 1917. The Stavka estimated in April that the army had 7,060,700 soldiers, the largest army Russia ever fielded up to that point. Replacements for the losses of earlier years were being trained and many of its supply shortages had been resolved, in part because of more Allied assistance being shipped to the port of Arkhangelsk.^[24][27] However, the political developments of the Revolution and the creation of soldiers' committees undermined their plans for the offensive.^[26] General Alekseyev, who became the army supreme commander after the Revolution, told his French counterpart Robert Nivelle in March that the offensive would have to be delayed until June, because of low morale, logistical issues, and problems caused by bad weather.^[24] Alekseyev was also told by Alexander Guchkov, who was briefly the Minister of War before Kerensky replaced him, that the Petrograd Soviet had the real power and the Provisional Government existed as long as the Soviet allowed it. Therefore, Alekseyev had the French and Belgian representatives at the Stavka arranged for visits by socialists in their governments to get the Soviet to support continuing the war.^[28] The Soviet was divided on the issue, and avoided making a clear policy about the war until after the offensive happened.^[29]

Towards the end of March 1917, the commanders of Russia's three main army groups were ordered to give a report on the situation in their units. Generals Nikolai Ruzsky of the Northern Front and Vladimir Smirnov of the Western Front both answered that their troops were not in a condition to go on the attack, while General Aleksei Brusilov at the Southwestern Front was the only one who was optimistic and said that his armies were ready for an offensive.^[30] In May 1917, Kerensky went on a tour of the front lines to give patriotic speeches to the troops, and during the tour he spent a lot of time together with Brusilov. The two of them got along well and agreed on many of the issues facing Russia at that time. They were also well received by the soldiers, and Kerensky's speeches helped raise enthusiasm for the offensive. At the same time, General Alekseyev had been critical of Kerensky and the policies of the Provisional Government. On 4 June 1917 he was relieved of command and replaced by Brusilov as the head of the army.^[31] Kerensky's speaking tour, along with the work of the officers that cooperated with the soldiers' committees, was able to win over enough of the infantry units that were needed for the offensive. The lack of discipline was more common among the infantry, while the cavalry and artillery were often willing to put down mutinies by the former. In general, while the infantry soldiers were more divided, the Provisional Government still had significant support among the cavalry and artillery, the Cossacks, officer cadets, and volunteers of new infantry units called the "battalions of death," or shock battalions.^[26][32]

One of the measures taken by Brusilov and the Provisional Government in the spring of 1917 to deal with the discipline problems was to create "volunteer, revolutionary battalions for the training of shock groups." Based on shock detachments formed by Brusilov in 1916 for infiltration and reconnaissance, they were expanded by him and by General Lavr Kornilov in early 1917, which was eventually approved by Kerensky.^[33][34] Brusilov sent recruiters to places as far away as Petrograd and Moscow to find volunteers.^[34] These units were recruited from the best soldiers and officers of regular infantry regiments, as well as from civilian volunteers.^[26][34] But this also made the regular infantry less reliable.^[35] Between March and November 1917 there were 600,000 volunteers for the shock battalions.^[26] These included a Women's Battalion, which the Provisional Government also hoped to use to shame the infantry that did not want to fight.^[35]

But in early May 1917, Brusilov told Alekseyev that the situation on the Southwestern Front had changed from his earlier report, and that logistical problems would make an offensive difficult. Later that month, at a conference of the Stavka, all front commanders reached the conclusion that an offensive was necessary to assist the Western Allies, despite all of the army's problems. France, Britain, and Italy pressured the Provisional Government to take offensive action, and according to foreign minister Mikhail Tereshchenko, they threatened to withhold loans that Russia needed to avoid bankruptcy if there was no Russian offensive. Kerensky also thought that a Russian military success would persuade the other Allies to seek peace on the terms in his government's earlier declaration calling for self-determination for all nations. So he saw Russian military action as an extension of his diplomacy to end the war on renegotiated terms. There was also the belief in the Provisional Government that if the army remained idle, it was more likely to disintegrate, and that it gave them an excuse to send the rebellious Petrograd garrison to the front line.^[36] The United States sent a delegation to Russia led by Elihu Root, who told Tereshchenko that the offensive should be postponed to give Russia time to recover from political unrest, and that Russia nominally being at war with Germany was enough assistance to the Allies, keeping German divisions on the Eastern Front. But the other countries had more influence in Russia than the U.S., and the delegation arrived when the decision had already been made.^[37]

In June, Kerensky made an effort to increase political backing for the offensive. To democratize the army as the Soviet wanted, he issued the declaration of soldiers' rights, which stated that soldiers could be members of political organizations and could express their opinions openly. But this meant that officers were prevented from stopping political agitation that spread anti-war sentiment among the troops. Kerensky obtained the support of the Petrograd Soviet, and the

The Germans were fully aware of the Russian offensive plan, from a combination of reports from deserters and aerial reconnaissance, and after defeating the French offensive in the West, the Army Supreme Command (OHL) sent six divisions from there to the Eastern Front. German quartermaster-general Erich Ludendorff intended to not only stop the Russian offensive but to launch a counteroffensive into Russian territory.^[1][38]

Order of battle

Russian

Armies from north to south:^[3][38][39]

The

Armies from north to south:[38]^[40]

The preliminary artillery barrage began on 29 June [

On 1 July [O.S. 18 June], the Seventh and Eleventh Armies commenced their attack. Their shock battalions breached the defenses for several miles along the Zborov–Berezhany sector, and by 2 July had taken several lines of trenches. The Eleventh Army had pushed back the Austrian Second, and advanced an average of two miles into their territory along the front, but the Seventh Army further to the south had a much slower advance, primarily facing the German troops of the South Army. The Russian attack on the first day captured over 18,000 men.^[40][38] But, after the first couple of days, the shock troops that had been chosen to lead the attack had been weakened, and the regular infantry were not as reliable. After this there was a break in major fighting for three days, but it resumed on 6 July near Koniukhy, though by this time German reinforcements had reached the Eleventh Army's sector. There were heavy losses for the Eleventh Army, and its advance was halted. After the initial advance, many soldiers believed they had done their job and did not want to continue. The Eleventh Army's reserve, the 1st Guards Corps, refused to fight, having received revolutionary soldiers from Petrograd as reinforcements. The Seventh Army's advance stopped after 2 July, and it was ordered to simply cover the flank of the Eleventh. Besides having to face German troops, the sector covered by the Seventh Army also included difficult terrain, while the Eleventh Army was operating on open plains. The fighting on 6 July marked the end of the offensive for the Eleventh and Seventh Armies, at which point their troops stayed in the positions they had gained.^[42]

The

Around the time the attack in the north slowed down, on 6 July 1917, Kornilov's Russian Eighth Army began shelling the Austrian positions in their sector near

The advance of the Eighth Army resumed late on 10 July, and they captured Galich, a bridgehead on the Dniester river, and the following day Kalush, the headquarters of the Third Army. Kornilov's men had advanced 15–20 miles and captured 10,000 troops.^[42][43] However, the Russian advance was halted, including by a German reinforcements to strengthen the Austrians and by problems caused by bad weather in the area of the Lomnitsa river that destroyed the bridges they had built. This marked the end of the Eighth Army's advance, which had been the most successful, and on 20 July Kornilov, to whom the success was attributed, was named the commander of the Southwestern Front in the place of General Aleksei Gutor. His promotion was requested to Kerensky by Boris Savinkov, a Provisional Government commissar to the Southwestern Front, who believed the Kornilov could restore the power of the army and save Russia. Kerensky approved this request, and it was accepted by the supreme commander, Brusilov.^[3]

Supporting operations

On other parts of the Eastern Front, the supporting attacks by the other army groups had fared worse. The

The Germans launched their counteroffensive against the Southwestern Front on 19 July. The initial attack fell on the Eleventh Army, which began retreating despite its numerical superiority over the German force. The most reliable units had suffered the majority of the casualties, and the ones that were left were unwilling to fight. By the end of 21 July, the Eleventh Army had abandoned its positions, and on 22 July the Seventh Army was also hit by the German counterattack. The Russian Seventh and Eleventh Armies were in full retreat, which turned into a rout, while the remaining resistance there to the Germans came from officers and NCOs. By 23 July, the Eighth Army was forced to withdraw because its flank was exposed. When the German counteroffensive was over on 27 August, the Russian army had fallen back to the original Austrian-Russian border, by as much as 120 kilometres (75 miles).[3]^[1]

Aftermath

As many Russian units disintegrated during the retreat, some soldiers committed crimes against the local population in the area near the front, causing Kornilov and Savinkov to ask the Provisional Government to restore the death penalty in the army.^[3] At a meeting of senior commanders at the Stavka on 29 July 1917, Kerensky was criticized for all of the policies that the Provisional Government implemented in the army since the February Revolution, and he agreed on the necessity of restoring order among the troops. On 31 July, he appointed Kornilov to replace Brusilov as the Supreme Commander, because Kornilov had always opposed the revolutionary changes.^[44] Kornilov was also recommended to Kerensky by Boris Savinkov. Furthermore, Kerensky approved their request to restore the death penalty, to impose limitations on soldiers' committees, and effectively cancel his Declaration of Soldiers' Rights from earlier. In this he was supported by the Petrograd Soviet Executive Committee, which declared that those who disobeyed orders from the Provisional Government were "traitors and cowards." Ordinary soldiers saw this as the leadership siding with the counter-revolutionary officers against them, and they started becoming disillusioned with both the Provisional Government and the moderate members of the Soviet.^[3]

The month of July also saw a series of protests in Petrograd known as the

The offensive also began Kornilov's rise to power, as he had been its most effective commander and managed to stabilize the front after the rout of the other two armies. He attended the Moscow State Conference in mid-August 1917, where he received the support of right-wing industrialists and politicians that were secretly wanted to remove the Provisional Government from power. Kornilov and some other generals at the Stavka used loyal units to try to remove the Soviet from Petrograd, but this backfired when the troops mostly refused to comply. On 14 September 1917, Kornilov and the other rebel generals were placed under arrest. The crisis led the Soviet to ask the Bolsheviks for help, releasing their leaders that had been imprisoned after the July Days, and arming 25,000 Bolshevik Red Guards. They also invited radical Baltic Fleet sailors into Petrograd for security. The soldiers distrusted Kerensky because of his lenient treatment of Kornilov and his conspirators, and many of the troops refused to take orders from the high command, which could now only rely on a few reliable units. The Bolsheviks took this opportunity to spread within army units all across the front line, whereas before their influence had been mostly limited to the Northern Front near the capital, and to obtain the majority of seats in the Petrograd Soviet, shortly before the October Revolution. The Kerensky offensive led to the Kornilov crisis, which itself greatly contributed to the Bolsheviks overthrowing the Provisional Government on 7 November [O.S. 25 October] 1917.^[4][48][49]

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