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The Eastern Front: Empires, Collapse, and the War Nobody Talks About
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
The Eastern Front was where empires went to bleed out — a war of sweeping maneuvers, catastrophic collapses, and casualties that dwarf Western Front mythology. From Tannenberg to the Brusilov Offensive, this is the chapter of World War One that changed everything.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Most people think of the First World War and they picture trenches. Mud.
When Austria-Hungary mobilized against Serbia in the summer of nineteen fourteen, Russia mobilized in response. That triggered Germany's war plan, which had always anticipated a two-front conflict.
Russia entered the war as the largest army in Europe by headcount. It had something like five million men under arms at mobilization.
Austria-Hungary was fighting on multiple fronts simultaneously, and it was never equipped to do so. It was fighting Serbia in the south.
As the front lines shifted east and west across enormous distances, large civilian populations found themselves under occupying armies. Russian Poland changed hands multiple times.
Germany's dilemma in the east was real and persistent. The German high command wanted to knock Russia out of the war decisively, freeing up forces to concentrate in the west.
By the winter of nineteen sixteen and into nineteen seventeen, the Russian army was showing signs of complete institutional breakdown. Soldiers were deserting in large numbers.
The Eastern Front ended with Russia gone from the war and Germany temporarily dominant across a vast stretch of territory. But that dominance was illusory.
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