100 years ago today, the beginning of the end on WWI's eastern front
March 18, 2016 3:40 PM Subscribe
"It was an affair that summed up all that was most wrong with the [Russian] army." Largely forgotten by the west, the Battle of Lake Naroch (March-April 1916; Wikipedia) broke the Russian army's will to fight Germans. Eager to help their western allies being slaughtered at Verdun, the tsar's forces attacked a weak spot in the German lines in Belarus. Although the Russian army began with massively greater troop superiority, the offense was a spectacular failure, due to gross strategic and tactical incompetence. The results: awful casualties and no terrain gained.
The stage was set for Russia's exit from WWI, revolution, and civil war.
Three years later Siegfried Wagner, son of Richard, penned a gory love song, "Nacht am Narocz", set on the battlefield of Lake Naroch.
The Russian battle plan.
Norman Stone, author of the first great (and unsurpassed) English-language book on WWI's eastern front, is especially scathing:
"It was altogether an episode that suggests [Russian] commanders had lost such wits as they still possessed." (228)
"Of all the bombardments in the First World War, this was - with strong competition - the most futile." (229)
"Sirelius, to the north, would not help [Baluyev's attack] at all, relapsing into cabbalistic utterance, and losing only one percent of his force - through frostbite." (230)
The stage was set for Russia's exit from WWI, revolution, and civil war.
Three years later Siegfried Wagner, son of Richard, penned a gory love song, "Nacht am Narocz", set on the battlefield of Lake Naroch.
The Russian battle plan.
Norman Stone, author of the first great (and unsurpassed) English-language book on WWI's eastern front, is especially scathing:
"It was altogether an episode that suggests [Russian] commanders had lost such wits as they still possessed." (228)
"Of all the bombardments in the First World War, this was - with strong competition - the most futile." (229)
"Sirelius, to the north, would not help [Baluyev's attack] at all, relapsing into cabbalistic utterance, and losing only one percent of his force - through frostbite." (230)
Oops, left out the direct link: The Great War YouTube playlist.
posted by XMLicious at 4:35 PM on March 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by XMLicious at 4:35 PM on March 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
My wife grew up in Minsk (Capitol of Belarus) and she was never taught about this battle in school, apparently.
posted by newdaddy at 5:14 PM on March 18, 2016
posted by newdaddy at 5:14 PM on March 18, 2016
An interesting battle, but oversold; this, for instance: "The stage was set for Russia's exit from WWI, revolution, and civil war." The stage was set by WWI as a whole (not to mention the entire sorry history of tsarist repression, mismanagement, and fecklessness); this battle did not play any particular role.
> Norman Stone, author of the first great (and unsurpassed) English-language book on WWI's eastern front
Really, unsurpassed in the last forty years? Nobody from W. Bruce Lincoln (1986) to David Stone (2015) has come up to his standard? I find that hard to believe, especially with the flood of material that's come from Russian archives in recent years. Norman Stone's a good historian, not knocking him at all, but again, this is oversold.
posted by languagehat at 5:31 PM on March 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
> Norman Stone, author of the first great (and unsurpassed) English-language book on WWI's eastern front
Really, unsurpassed in the last forty years? Nobody from W. Bruce Lincoln (1986) to David Stone (2015) has come up to his standard? I find that hard to believe, especially with the flood of material that's come from Russian archives in recent years. Norman Stone's a good historian, not knocking him at all, but again, this is oversold.
posted by languagehat at 5:31 PM on March 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
Is this overstating the impact? I know one of the links says it condemned the Russians to passivity but they launched the Brusilov offensive after the defeat at Naroch and it was hardly the effort of a broken army. Indeed, even the description from one of the OP links describes Brusilov this way:
The famed Brusilov Offensive, launched June 4, 1916, would secure more territory than any other Allied offensive of the war and would succeed not only in diverting German attention and resources from Verdun but would also nearly knock Austria-Hungary out of the war.
posted by mark k at 5:33 PM on March 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
The famed Brusilov Offensive, launched June 4, 1916, would secure more territory than any other Allied offensive of the war and would succeed not only in diverting German attention and resources from Verdun but would also nearly knock Austria-Hungary out of the war.
posted by mark k at 5:33 PM on March 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
mark k, the usual assessment of Lake Naroch is that is broke the Russian army's willingness to engage the Germans in particular.
Brusilov's offensive focused on the Austro-Hungarians instead. And while that did clobber the Austrian army and bring Romania into the war (which the Entente/Allies thought a good idea at the time), it fizzled out after several months. The Germans were able to continue pressing Russia right through 1917.
posted by doctornemo at 6:21 PM on March 18, 2016
Brusilov's offensive focused on the Austro-Hungarians instead. And while that did clobber the Austrian army and bring Romania into the war (which the Entente/Allies thought a good idea at the time), it fizzled out after several months. The Germans were able to continue pressing Russia right through 1917.
posted by doctornemo at 6:21 PM on March 18, 2016
You know what help's people remember things? A song.
It was hundred years ago today,
Czar Nick, he told his men to play
They'd been going at it for a while.
But they were sure they were gonna take some miles.
So may I introduce to you
The battle you've never known for years,
(And that's all I have. You can tell I'm no songwriter.)
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 6:35 PM on March 18, 2016 [2 favorites]
It was hundred years ago today,
Czar Nick, he told his men to play
They'd been going at it for a while.
But they were sure they were gonna take some miles.
So may I introduce to you
The battle you've never known for years,
(And that's all I have. You can tell I'm no songwriter.)
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 6:35 PM on March 18, 2016 [2 favorites]
The stage was set by WWI as a whole (not to mention the entire sorry history of tsarist repression, mismanagement, and fecklessness); this battle did not play any particular role.
That's true in a general sense. I was aiming for the more specific event, with Lake Naroch playing a key role in ending the Russian army's ability to stave off defeat at the hands of their most significant enemy. Perhaps instead of setting the stage something like "completing the set" would be more accurate.
Norman Stone... unsurpassed in the last forty years?
True, that's overstated. Pritt Buttar is busily creating the most ambitious account, I think, with two volumes already out (Collision of Empires, Germany Ascendant, covering 1914 and 1915 respectively).
posted by doctornemo at 7:02 PM on March 18, 2016
That's true in a general sense. I was aiming for the more specific event, with Lake Naroch playing a key role in ending the Russian army's ability to stave off defeat at the hands of their most significant enemy. Perhaps instead of setting the stage something like "completing the set" would be more accurate.
Norman Stone... unsurpassed in the last forty years?
True, that's overstated. Pritt Buttar is busily creating the most ambitious account, I think, with two volumes already out (Collision of Empires, Germany Ascendant, covering 1914 and 1915 respectively).
posted by doctornemo at 7:02 PM on March 18, 2016
while cranky, Tolstoy's preface to War and Peace is (IMHO) a really good critique of this mode of "history": the analysis of battles into an orchestra of decisive movements and significant acts. he urges you to think of war as one aspect of the historical movement of people, without dragging in Hegel at all. It's good, and really far thinking.
posted by ennui.bz at 4:17 AM on March 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by ennui.bz at 4:17 AM on March 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
Definitely, ennui.bz. That theme echoes throughout the book, especially the brooding conclusion.
To be clear, I'm not a military historian, not am I arguing for a military-centric view of history. With posts like this one and this other one I'm focusing on a side of WWI that's largely forgotten and under discussed.
WWI discussions still focus on the western front, especially from British, American, and French sources, for all kinds of reasons.
posted by doctornemo at 5:40 AM on March 19, 2016
To be clear, I'm not a military historian, not am I arguing for a military-centric view of history. With posts like this one and this other one I'm focusing on a side of WWI that's largely forgotten and under discussed.
WWI discussions still focus on the western front, especially from British, American, and French sources, for all kinds of reasons.
posted by doctornemo at 5:40 AM on March 19, 2016
I meant critique in the larger sense. Tolstoy really gets into the historiography of what a battle *is* in his preface and the issue isn't really making a distinction between "military" history and other modes of history, but that "military history" since Napoleon, as a mode, has diverged from a more objective consideration of war. The thing about WWI is how much the men who directed it failed to understand the war they were fighting, with catastrophic consequences. This only become more the case in the second half of the 20th century ie. Vietnam, where the generals on each side had incommensurable ideas of what the war they were fighting was.
posted by ennui.bz at 9:16 AM on March 19, 2016
posted by ennui.bz at 9:16 AM on March 19, 2016
I don't know if I can bear to read it. WWI set amazing standards for wanton death. But we can learn from it, sure, we can.
posted by theora55 at 11:17 AM on March 19, 2016
posted by theora55 at 11:17 AM on March 19, 2016
Let me thank MF again for pointing me to Hardcore History on WWI. I've been listening since the Verdun post, and it is truly excellent.
posted by persona au gratin at 4:15 PM on March 19, 2016
posted by persona au gratin at 4:15 PM on March 19, 2016
And great post! I knew nothing of this battle.
posted by persona au gratin at 4:27 PM on March 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by persona au gratin at 4:27 PM on March 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
The thing about WWI is how much the men who directed it failed to understand the war they were fighting, with catastrophic consequences.
Definitely.
And that was certainly a factor in the Russian incompetence at Lake Naroch. Two months later general Brusilov will make a very different attack, showing that he actually learned from the war.
posted by doctornemo at 6:17 AM on March 21, 2016
Definitely.
And that was certainly a factor in the Russian incompetence at Lake Naroch. Two months later general Brusilov will make a very different attack, showing that he actually learned from the war.
posted by doctornemo at 6:17 AM on March 21, 2016
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Since none of the English sources I came across were any use and I had to spend a while stumbling around Russian Wikipedia to confirm it which was a pain in the butt, let me mention that when Tsar Nicholas II says “I will preserve the principle of Autocracy as firmly and unflinchingly as my late father”/«Пусть все знают, что я, посвящая все свои силы благу народному, буду охранять начало самодержавия так же твёрдо и неуклонно, как охранял его мой незабвенный, покойный родитель» in the lead-up to the war he's not using the equivalent word from Greek "автократия"(avtokratiya) that corresponds more closely to our English word but rather «самодержавия» from the Russian concept царское самодержавие / tsarskoye samoderzhaviye / "Tsarist autocracy"
posted by XMLicious at 4:18 PM on March 18, 2016 [5 favorites]