It was necessary for Brussilov to straighten out his line by advancing the northern end near the Pripet Marshes and the centre be tween Tarnopol and Brody. This was done successfully during July. A new army under General Loesch managed to push forward on Kaledines right flank, thus advancing the Rus sian front north of Lutsk. In the centre, Brus silov learned in some way—probably by means of his excellent spy service among the local population—that the Germans were preparing a great counterattack for 18 July, and he de cided to strike strongly and speedily before the counterattack had time to mature. On the night of 15 July Sakharov struck heavily at the German line north of Brody, and captured 13,000 prisoners as well as three huge ammuni tion dumps which the Germans had just pre pared for their counterattack. With this initial success Sakharav and Scherbachev pressed fcrrward toward Lemberg and the Dniester, cap turing large numbers as they advanced. By 15 August Brussilov's line was straightened out and the second stage in his offensive came th an end. The magnitude of his success may be measured by some figures and by the desper ate efforts which Hindenburg took to save the situation. In the 10 weeks of his extraordinarily successful offensive Brussilov's armies had ad vanced from 30 to 60 miles on a 300-inile front, thus occupying 15,000 square miles of terri tory, as may be seen in the shaded area on the map. He had captured 7,754 officers, 350,000 men, 405 heavy guns, 1,326 machine guns, and vast stores of ammunition and supplies. As the Austro-German killed and wounded prob ably more than outnumbered the prisoners they lost, he may be said to have virtually annihi lated the force which stood opposed to him when he began his offensive on 4 June. To meet the crisis, Hindenburg had transferred 15 divisions from the Western Front, where they had been sorely needed to check the Sonune offensive; 16 infantry divisions and three cav alry divisions from the Eastern Front north of the Pripet; seven Austrian divisions from the Italian Front, where they could ill be spared as Cadorna was about to b•win his •counter offensive ; one division from the Ballcans, and two divisions from Turkey. These reinforce ments, which Hindenburg hurried forward with his usual vigor and resourcefulness, began to restore the balance by the middle of August.
At the same time Brussilov's offensive began to slow down in an ominous way. We know now that he was beginning to suffer from the same handicap as in 1915— lack of ammuni tion. He had shot away too quickly what had been accumulated with such difficulty during the winter of 1915-16. Worse than that, he had exhausted his reserves, for his success had been won only by a prodigal expenditure of man power. The Germans claimed 264,000 prisoners, and if we estimate that the Russians who were the attackin' g force lost twice as many in killed and wounded as in prisoners, this means that Brussilov had lost three-quarters of a million men in those 10 weeks. They could not be replaced rapidly enough to continue the offensive which he had begun so brilliantly. Moreover, many Russians had been used, un wisely as it seems, in an abortive offensive north of the Pripet; this was meant to take advantage of the fact that the Germans had withdrawn so many men from that part of the front; but it was not undertaken on a large enough scale to insure success. It merely used
up reserves which could have been employed to better advantage south of the Pripet. It began to be clear that Brussilov had undertaken a task for which Russian resources vrere again to prove inadequate.
Thus in September 1916 Brussilov's SUMMer offensive, which had begun so brilliantly, grad ually died away. As the rainy and stormy weather came on he had to settle down in the trenches along the line which he had won by the middle of August. His great offensive, together with that of the Allies on the Somme, had failed to crush the Central Powers to sub mission. Except as he had drawn valuable German troops from other fronts his victorious advance was to have no permanent value in the future; for all that he had won, and far more in addition, was surrendered almost with out a struggle in the next summer, when the Revolution and the Bolshevili brought on a total military collapse in Russia.
10. Revolution and Military Collapse in Russia, March-July 1917.— The murder of Rasputin, the overthrow of the traitors around the tsar's throne, and the triumph of the Liberals and the Patriots, which resulted in the almost bloodless Revolution of March 1917, seemed at first a great advantage for the Allies. Autocracy at last was overthrown and Russia seemed vvliole-heartedly to have joined in spirit and in fact the great democracies of the West But almost immediately the results of the Revolution were seen to have disastrous effects upon the discipline and efficiency of the army. Alexeiev, Evart and many other tried officers were disnussed °by fhe voice of the people,° and inexperienced or incompetent men were put in their places. Capital punishment was abolished as the penalty for desertion, treason and other military crimes, with the result that officers could no longer maintain discipline. Agitators and demogogues, who had never smelt powder and had lived quietly in the interior cities, began to appear among the soldiers at the front. They harangued groups of soldiers, in defiance of the officers, telling the men that they had the right to choose their own officers; that now that tsarisin and im perialism were overhrown it was no longer necessary to fight at all; that only the capital ists wanted a continuance of the w-ar; that now the time had come for the soldiers to return to their homes and enjoy their new freedom by dividing up the land of the nobles and the government Soldiers began to desert by thou sands, for no one wanted to remain in the ranks if lands were going to be divided up at home in his absence. Soviets, or Councils, of soldiers began to he formed everywhere and to assume an authority which should have be longed to the officers and the high command. General Gourko, who had become commander in-chitf, soon after the Revolution, exercised g,reat tact and did his best to preserve some semblance of discipline. He attended meetings of the Soviets, and wherever he was perscin ally present was able to dominate the meeting by his personality and to hold the soldiers to their duty by his patriotism and arguments. But it was a hopeless task to try to neutralize the influence of all the agitators.