The War Rages On 901The Eastern Front
In the wide-open spaces of the eastern front, the Russian armies had
advanced into eastern Prussia despite the incompetence of the Russian gen
eral staff, intense animosity among commanders, hopelessly archaic equip
ment, and communications so inadequate that the Germans could easily
listen to Russian officers discussing tactics on the telephone. In late August
1914, German forces trapped a Russian army almost 200,000 strong at Tan
nenberg in East Prussia, killing, wounding, or capturing 125,000 soldiers.
Two subsequent military victories ensured that Russian forces would remain
outside of German territory for the duration of the war. On the more con
fident German side, sixty-seven-year-old General Paul von Hindenburg
(1847-1934), a stolid Prussian who had been called out of retirement, and
the determined General Erich Ludendorff (1865-1937) embellished their
reputations in these battles.
The Austro-Hungarian army, which had no joint plan of military coordi
nation with its German ally, found the huge Russian army an imposing foe.
Too many divisions had been diverted to the punitive invasion of strategi
cally unimportant Serbia. In September 1914, the Russians captured the
fortress of Lemberg in Galicia from the Austro-Hungarian armies and took
100,000 prisoners (see Map 22.5). Many of these were conscripted Slavs
who felt more allegiance to Russians, their fellow Slavs, than to their
German-speaking officers.
In January 1915, the Habsburg forces launched an offensive against the
Russian army in the Carpathian Mountains. Although the offensive looked
good on a map, the reality was otherwise. Snow-covered mountains posed
a daunting obstacle: supplies had to be moved over ice or freezing marsh;
low clouds obscured artillery targets; and soldiers had to warm their rifles
over fires before they could use them. When the Russians counterattacked,
the Germans had to send troops to support their ally in the Carpathians,
and as a result they lost over 350,000 men. With the stalemate in the west,
the Germans wanted to defeat the Russians before the latter could van
quish the Habsburg army. In May 1915, a massive German attack drove
the Russian army back almost 100 miles. The Russian retreat, which had
been orderly in the beginning, turned into chaos. A million civilians moved
eastward with the Russian armies. An observer remembered that “while
thousands of people trudge along the railway lines they are passed by speed
ing trains loaded with couches from officers’ clubs, and carrying quarter
masters’ bird cages.” The Russian retreat from the Carpathian Mountains
gave the Austro-Hungarian forces some badly needed breathing room. Ger
man forces reached Brest-Litovsk in August 1915, ending 100 years of
Russian control of Poland.