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Great Retreat (Russian)
The Great Retreat was a strategic withdrawal and evacuation on the Eastern Front of World War I in 1915. The Imperial Russian Army gave up the salient in Galicia and the Polish Congress Kingdom. The Russian Empire's critically under-equipped military suffered great losses in the Central Powers' July–September summer offensive operations, which led to the Stavka ordering a withdrawal to shorten the front lines and avoid the potential encirclement of large Russian forces in the salient. While the withdrawal itself was relatively well-conducted, it was a severe blow to Russian morale. Background Following the German success with their Gorlice–Tarnów offensive, Hans von Seeckt proposed that August von Mackensen's Eleventh Army should advance north towards Brest-Litovsk, with their flanks shielded by the rivers Vistula and Bug. Mackensen and Chief of the German Great General Staff Erich von Falkenhayn supported this strategy of attacking the Russian salient ...
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Eastern Front (World War I)
The Eastern Front or Eastern Theater, of World War I, was a theater (warfare), theater of operations that encompassed at its greatest extent the entire frontier between Russian Empire, Russia and Kingdom of Romania, Romania on one side and Austria-Hungary, Kingdom of Bulgaria, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, and German Empire, Germany on the other. It ranged from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south, involved most of Eastern Europe, and stretched deep into Central Europe. The term contrasts with the Western Front (World War I), Western Front, which was being fought in Belgium and French Third Republic, France. Unlike the static warfare on the Western Front, the fighting on the geographically larger Eastern Front was maneuver warfare, more dynamic, often involving the flanking and encirclement of entire formations, and resulted in over 100,000 square miles of territory becoming occupied by a foreign power. At the start of the war Russia launched offensives agai ...
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Erich Ludendorff
Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff (; 9 April 1865 – 20 December 1937) was a German general and politician. He achieved fame during World War I (1914–1918) for his central role in the German victories at Battle of Liège, Liège and Battle of Tannenberg, Tannenberg in 1914. After his appointment as Generalquartiermeister, First Quartermaster General of the German General Staff in 1916, Ludendorff became Germany's chief policymaker in a Oberste Heeresleitung, ''de facto'' military dictatorship until the country's defeat in 1918. Later during the years of the Weimar Republic, he took part in the failed 1920 Kapp Putsch and Adolf Hitler's 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, thereby contributing significantly to the Adolf Hitler's rise to power, Nazis' rise to power. Erich Ludendorff came from a non-noble family in Kruszewnia (hence the lack of a "Nobiliary_particle, von" or "Nobiliary_particle, zu" in his name), in the Prussian Province of Posen. After completing his education as a cadet, h ...
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Withdrawal (military)
A tactical withdrawal or retreating defensive action is a type of military operation, generally meaning that retreating forces draw back while maintaining contact with the enemy. A withdrawal may be undertaken as part of a general retreat, to consolidate forces, to occupy ground that is more easily defended, force the enemy to overextend to secure a decisive victory, or to lead the enemy into an ambush. It is considered a relatively risky operation, requiring discipline to keep from turning into a disorganized rout or at the very least doing severe damage to the military's morale. Tactical withdrawal A withdrawal may be anticipated, as when a defending force is outmatched or on disadvantageous ground, but it must cause as much damage to an enemy as possible. In such a case, the retreating force may use a number of tactics and strategies to further impede the enemy's progress. That could include setting mines or booby traps during or before the withdrawal, leading the enemy in ...
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Aleksei Brusilov
Aleksei Alekseyevich Brusilov (, ; rus, Алексей Алексеевич Брусилов, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsʲej ɐlʲɪkˈsʲejɪvʲɪdʑ brʊˈsʲiɫəf; – 17 March 1926) was a Russian and later Soviet general most noted for the development of new offensive tactics used in the 1916 Brusilov offensive, which was his greatest achievement. Born into an aristocratic military family, Brusilov trained as a cavalry officer, but by 1914 had realized that cavalry was obsolete in an offensive capacity against modern weapons of warfare such as mass adoption of rifled guns, machine guns, and artillery. He is considered a very outstanding general who won many battles against the Austro-Hungarian army. His offensive in 1916 was the final major success of the Tsarist army. In the government, this offensive meant the transfer of the strategic initiative to the Russians and the beginning of preparations for the general offensive of 1917, which, however, was disrupted by the revolution. ...
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Nikolai Ivanov (general)
Nikolai Iudovich Ivanov (, tr. ; 1851 – 27 January 1919) was a Russian artillery general in the Imperial Russian Army. In July 1914, Ivanov was given command of four armies in the Southwestern Front against the Austro-Hungarian army, winning a major battle of Galicia. During the Russian Revolution of March 1917, Tsar Nicholas II ordered Ivanov to suppress the revolutionaries but as promised reinforcements failed to come to his aid, he canceled the aborted mission. In 1917, he retired but a year later took command of the White Army. In 1919, Ivanov died of typhus in Southern Russia. Family Ivanov's family origin was debatable, some sources say that Ivanov came from a noble family originated from the Kaluga Governorate, but other sources told that he was the son of a cantonist. Despite all of these sources about his family, the true identity of where his family originated from is still a mystery. Early life Ivanov was born on 22 July 1851 (based on the old calendar at use ...
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Pavel Yengalychev
Prince Pavel Nikolayevich Yengalychev (; 25 March 1864 – 12 August 1944, Lausanne) was a Russian prince and general. He was a member of the noble Engalychev family. From 1894 until 1901 he was the Russian military attaché in Imperial Germany. He was then an observer at the German expeditionary corps during the Boxer Rebellion in Imperial China. He was the last commander of the Warsaw Military District and the last Governor-general of Warsaw before the Russians were forced to retreat from Privislinsky Krai during the First World War. During the Russian Civil War he supported the White movement, and emigrated after the Red Army victory. He died in Lausanne Lausanne ( , ; ; ) is the capital and largest List of towns in Switzerland, city of the Swiss French-speaking Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Vaud, in Switzerland. It is a hilly city situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, about halfway bet ..., Switzerland in 1944. His wife was Marguerite Alexeevna Stenbock-Fermor ...
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Mikhail Alekseyev
Mikhail Vasilyevich Alekseyev () ( – ) was an Imperial Russian Army general during World War I and the Russian Civil War. Between 1915 and 1917 he served as Tsar Nicholas II's Chief of Staff of the Stavka, and after the February Revolution, was its commander-in-chief under the Russian Provisional Government from March to May 1917. He later played a principal role in founding the Volunteer Army in the Russian Civil War and died in 1918 of heart failure while fighting the Bolsheviks in the Volga region. Biography Alekseyev was born in Vyazma, in the Smolensk Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Smolensk Oblast, Russia). His father, Vasili Alekseyev, was an army captain in the 64th Kazan Regiment from a modest background. In 1873 Alekseyev entered as a volunteer in the 2nd Grenadiers Regiment in Rostov. He graduated from the Moscow Infantry School in 1876 and was commissioned an ensign in the same 64th Kazan Regiment. He served as an orderly to General Mikhail S ...
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Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich Of Russia (1856–1929)
Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich of Russia (Russian: Николай Николаевич Романов (младший – ''the younger''); 18 November 1856 – 5 January 1929) was a Russian general in World War I (1914–1918). The son of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich of Russia (1831–1891), and a grandson of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia, he was commander in chief of the Imperial Russian Army units on the main front in the first year of the war, during the reign of his first cousin once removed, Nicholas II. Although held in high regard by Paul von Hindenburg, he struggled with the colossal task of leading Russia's war effort against Germany, including strategy, tactics, logistics and coordination with the government.Paul Robinson, "A Study of Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich as Supreme Commander of the Russian Army, 1914–1915." ''Historian'' 75.3 (2013): 475-498online/ref> After the Gorlice–Tarnów offensive in 1915, Tsar Nicholas replaced the Grand Duke as comman ...
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Nicholas II
Nicholas II (Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov; 186817 July 1918) or Nikolai II was the last reigning Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Poland, and Grand Duke of Finland from 1 November 1894 until his abdication on 15 March 1917. He married Alix of Hesse (later Alexandra Feodorovna) and had five children: the OTMA sisters – Olga, born in 1895, Tatiana, born in 1897, Maria, born in 1899, and Anastasia, born in 1901 — and the tsesarevich Alexei Nikolaevich, who was born in 1904, three years after the birth of their last daughter, Anastasia. During his reign, Nicholas gave support to the economic and political reforms promoted by his prime ministers, Sergei Witte and Pyotr Stolypin. He advocated modernisation based on foreign loans and had close ties with France, but resisted giving the new parliament (the Duma) major roles. Ultimately, progress was undermined by Nicholas's commitment to autocratic rule, strong aristocratic opposition and defeats sustained by the Russ ...
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Józef Piłsudski
Józef Klemens Piłsudski (; 5 December 1867 – 12 May 1935) was a Polish statesman who served as the Chief of State (Poland), Chief of State (1918–1922) and first Marshal of Poland (from 1920). In the aftermath of World War I, he became an increasingly dominant figure in Polish politics and exerted significant influence on shaping the country's foreign policy. Piłsudski is viewed as a father of the Second Polish Republic, which was re-established in 1918, 123 years after the final partition of Poland in 1795, and was considered ''de facto'' leader (1926–1935) of the Second Republic as the Minister of Military Affairs (Poland), Minister of Military Affairs. Seeing himself as a descendant of the culture and traditions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Piłsudski believed in a multi-ethnic Poland—"a home of nations" including indigenous ethnic and religious minorities. Early in his political career, Piłsudski became a leader of the Polish Socialist Party. Bel ...
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Arthur Arz Von Straußenburg
Generaloberst Arthur Freiherr Arz von Straußenburg (; 16 June 1857 – 1 July 1935) was an Austro-Hungarian colonel general and last Austro-Hungarian General Staff, Chief of the General Staff of the Austro-Hungarian Army. At the outbreak of the First World War, he commanded the 15th Infantry Division. Soon, he was promoted to the head of the 6th Corps and the First Army (Austria-Hungary), First Army. He participated on the Gorlice–Tarnów Offensive in 1915 and the countryside of Romania in 1916. In March 1917, he became Chief of the General Staff until his resignation on 3 November 1918. Early life Born into a Protestant family that was among the medieval Transylvanian Saxons, Saxon settlers of east Transylvania, Arz was the product of a noble "Siebenbürger" family. His father, Albert Arz von Straußenburg, served as an Evangelicalism, evangelical preacher and curate as well as a member of the House of Magnates. Schooled in Dresden and Hermannstadt, Arz graduated "with great ac ...
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Franz Conrad Von Hötzendorf
Franz Xaver Josef Conrad von Hötzendorf (after 1919 Franz Conrad; 11 November 1852 – 25 August 1925), sometimes anglicised as Hoetzendorf, was an Austrian general who played a central role in World War I. He served as '' K.u.k. Feldmarschall'' (field marshal) and Chief of the General Staff of the military of the Austro-Hungarian Army and Navy from 1906 to 1917. He was in charge during the July Crisis of 1914 that caused World War I. For years he had repeatedly called for preemptive war against Serbia to rescue the multiethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was, he believed, nearing disintegration. Later on, he came to believe that the Dual Monarchy had taken action at the eleventh hour. The army was also unprepared and he had resorted to politics to further his goals. He was unaware that Germany would relocate the majority of its forces to the Eastern Front, rather than in the Balkans. Conrad was anxious about invading Russia and when the Tsar's armies had captured t ...
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