3 most SERIOUS defeats of the Russian army in World War I

1. The death of Samsonov’s army

On August 17 and 20, 1914, the Russian armies of Generals Pavel Rennenkampf and Alexander Samsonov crossed the border of German East Prussia. The offensive began ahead of schedule, since the French allies were desperately asking Tsar Nicholas II to divert the German forces that were rushing towards Paris.

Subsequently, Rennenkampf managed to achieve a brilliant victory over the 8th German Army. Fearing the loss of East Prussia, the German command began to withdraw its units from the Western Front and transfer them to the East.

The Germans were preparing for a counterattack, but the Russian General Staff was sure that the enemy was retreating chaotically. Samsonov was moving further and further west and, with this, moving away from Rennenkampf. The army, meanwhile, was moving almost blind: the reconnaissance was weak, reports were arriving late and some units had lost contact with headquarters.

Moreover, all operational information was transmitted by radio in plain text, without the use of codes, so the Germans could easily read the intercepted telegrams. “We had an ally – our enemy. We knew all of the enemy’s plans,” claimed German General Max Hoffmann.

On August 26, the Germans threw all their forces at Samsonov’s disoriented army and took it in “pincers”. Rennenkampf never managed to come to the rescue.

And the defeat was complete: More than half of the personnel had been killed, were missing in action or allowed themselves to be captured. The commander, meanwhile, shot himself on August 30.

It turned out that the Russian offensive in East Prussia actually saved France from defeat. Due to the transfer of reserves to the east, the German breakthrough to Paris never took place.

2. ‘Gorlice Offensive’

During the military campaigns of 1914 and early 1915, the Russian army took eastern Galicia from Austria-Hungary and aimed for the very heart of the Habsburg Empire. In order to prevent the collapse of its ally, Germany launched a large-scale offensive in the area of the city of Gorlice (southern Poland) on the morning of May 2, 1915.

The German and Austro-Hungarian troops outnumbered the Russian 3rd Army three times in personnel and six times in artillery. In addition, the latter was experiencing an acute shortage of shells.

“Like a huge beast, the German army crawled with its forward units to our trenches, then this giant beast pulled up its tail – it was heavy artillery. The latter was positioned in areas difficult for our light artillery to reach… and, with German methodicalness, began to pound our trenches. It pounded them until they were leveled with the ground and their defenders were killed,” recalled General Nikolai Golovin.

In the first week, the Germans and Austrians penetrated 40 km deep into the Russian positions. In June, Lvov and the strategically important fortress of Przemysl were lost. The Russian troops avoided defeat, but steadily retreated under enemy pressure.

The Gorlice breakthrough marked the beginning of a series of failures for the Russian army, which ultimately led to the so-called ‘Great retreat’. During it, it abandoned not only Galicia, but also Poland and Lithuania.

3. ‘June offensive’

On July 1, 1917 (June 18, old style calendar), the last strategic offensive operation of the Russian army in World War I began. It would go down in history as the ‘June offensive’.

The main blow was delivered by the Southwestern and Romanian Fronts, with the Western and Northern Fronts only providing support. By the time the operation began, the country had already experienced the February Revolution and the collapse of the autocracy.

The new Provisional Government initiated the process of "democratization" in the armed forces: soldiers' committees were introduced, sole command was abolished and soldiers began to join in political life. All this was supposed to increase the morale of the military, but, instead, led to the disintegration of the army, a decline in discipline and desertion.

Nevertheless, even under these conditions, the country's leadership decided to go ahead with the operation. The breakthrough was carried out by elite shock troops and, in the first stages, they were successful. However, the remaining troops, as soon as they encountered more or less serious resistance, did not support them and withdrew from the battle, refusing to fight.

A few weeks later, the shock troops were knocked out, the advance of the troops stopped and the enemy launched a counteroffensive, pushing the Russian army back from the territory of Austria-Hungary.

The failure of the ‘June offensive’ worsened the situation at the front, increased the disintegration of the Russian army and dealt a colossal blow to the authority of the Provisional Government. In just a few months, the Bolsheviks would successfully overthrow it in a coup.