Topic: Military History
(For clarity, Austrian units are rendered in italics.)
The Russian forces facing the Austrians along the Galician frontier consisted of four armies under an army group headquarters, Southwestern Front, commanded by General of Artillery Nikolay Iudovich Ivanov. Fourth and Fifth Armies stood opposite the Austrian First and Fourth Armies; Third and Eighth Armies faced Third Army. There was no Austrian army group headquarters; the high command (Armeeoberkommando or AOK) controlled operations directly. The nominal Austrian Commander-in-Chief was the Archduke Friedrich, but actual command was exercised by the Chief of Staff, Conrad von Hötzendorf.
After some preliminary cavalry skirmishing, the main Austrian offensive commenced on 22 August 1914. Because Stavka (the Russian high command) had expected the enemy’s main effort to be made farther south, the Austrians at first enjoyed numerical superiority in the northern sector. First Army had ten infantry divisions, an infantry brigade and two cavalry divisions against Fourth Army’s 6 infantry divisions, one infantry brigade and 3 cavalry divisions; Fourth Army and Fifth Army were about equal in strength, though the former with its high proportion of regular officers and NCOs was of superior quality.
Farther south, Third Army and the Kövess Group were detailed to screen the right flank of Fourth Army. The latter was an ad hoc formation under the commander of Third Army’s XII Corps, consisting of that corps plus the few units of Second Army that had so far reached Galicia from the Serbian front. They were heavily outnumbered by the Russian forces in this sector: Third and Eighth Armies between them had 16 infantry division and 8 cavalry divisions to the Austrians’ 11 infantry divisions and 5 cavalry divisions. Nor would the belated arrival of the bulk of Second Army improve matters substantially for the Austrians. With its mobilization complete, the Russian Army’s margin of superiority would continue to widen in the weeks ahead.
Conrad was well aware, therefore, that unless his forces gained a quick victory in the northern sector success was unlikely. And indeed, there was, as Conrad later said, “a happy beginning.” First Army scored a considerable victory over Fourth Army in the Battle of Krasnik (23-25 August), inflicting over 25,000 casualties and driving the Russians back in disorder. Fourth Army enjoyed similar success against Fifth Army in the Battle of Komarów (26 August-2 September). This was a hard-fought affair, as the Austrians enjoyed no superiority of numbers. But Fifth Army had been shaken by the defeat of Fourth Army on its right flank and its resistance collapsed. Casualties, including 20,000 men made prisoner, were extremely heavy. Had it not been for quick action by the army commander, General Pavel Adamovich Plehve, who ordered an immediate retreat, Fifth Army might well have been encircled and totally destroyed.
But these successes of the Austrian armies in the north were sowing the seeds of an eventual catastrophe. To be sure, not everyone was easy in his mind. The commander of Fourth Army, General of Infantry Moritz von Auffenberg, was nervous about the security of his right flank. “We’re not in a good position,” he remarked to his chief of staff. His was a minority view, however. The commander of Third Army, General of Infantry Rudolf von Brudermann, was full of fight. He implored Conrad for permission to go over to the offensive against the Russians in his sector. Hitherto, Third Army and the Kövess Group had remained echeloned to the rear of Fourth Army, in line with their task of flank protection. Scenting victory after First Army’s success in the north, Conrad yielded to his pugnacious subordinate’s entreaties. Third Army was given permission to attack.
Seldom has a military action been worse timed. Beginning on 26 August, Third Army advanced with three corps—some 9 divisions—against Third and Eighth Armies, which between them had some 20 divisions in 8 corps. Third Army collided with this greatly superior force on the line of the Zlota Lipa River, received a thorough drubbing and was driven from the field. Near Brzezany, the Kövess Group was also thrown back, narrowly escaping encirclement in the process. Conrad ordered a new line to be formed on the Gnila Lipa River, which was possible only because the Russians needed two days to regroup before resuming their advance. Desperate to maintain the initiative, Conrad ordered III Corps of Third Army to counterattack on 29 August. It was a fiasco. Overall, the Russians had 292 infantry battalions and 1,304 guns against the Austrians’ 115 battalions and 376 guns. The Austrian attack broke down amid scenes of panic and rout. III Corps lost 20,000 men and 70 guns, effectively knocking it out as a fighting force.
Having been soundly defeated, Third Army and the Kövess Group fled to the west. The fortress of Lemberg fell to the Russians on 3 September. Only the arrival from Serbia of Second Army’s VII Corps prevented a complete collapse. Brudermann, once touted as the “boy wonder” of the Habsburg Army, was dismissed from his command.
This stinging defeat fatally undermined the position of the hitherto successful First and Fourth Armies. Imagining that the Russians in the northern sector no longer constituted a major threat, Conrad ordered Auffenberg’s Fourth Army to sidestep to its right so as to succor the shattered Third Army. But this created a gap between First and Fourth Armies, with nothing to fill it but some cavalry. Nor were the Russians in the north down for the count. Reinforcements had been flowing to Southwest Front and Plehve’s Fifth Army was practically back up to strength. He was ordered to attack and did so on 3 September. By 11 September the left flank of Fourth Army had been crushed, compelling both it and First Army to commence a retreat that only ended on the line of the Carpathian Alps.
By 26 September almost all of Austrian Galicia had come under Russian occupation. The fortress city of Przemysl with its garrison of 100,000 Austrian troops was surrounded and besieged. In all, the armies of Austria-Hungary had suffered some 500,000 casualties, including many irreplaceable professional officers and long-service NCOs. The debacle in Galicia inflicted a wound from which the Habsburg Monarchy was never to recover.