If the Germans don't focus offensively on Verdun or the West in 1916, where should they focus?

[raharris1973]

Some argue that the German offensive at Verdun was either a good idea poor executed, or a bad idea entirely. Churchill in his writing on WWI argued the Germans should have defended in the west in 1916 and attacked in the east.

If the Germans did choose to stand on defense-in-depth and counterattack in the west and devote any offensive surplus to the eastern theater or other theaters (Italy, Salonika) what would have been the best use of their effort/resources?

In Russia, they could probably grab another 50 to 100 km of Ukraine and Belarus with ease while inflicting lopsided casualties on Russian forces, although this will only gain them more occupied territory similar to what they've gained already that will be scorched. Still, might this accelerate the decay of Russian military and societal morale appreciably?

Would it be excessive for the Germans and Austro-Hungarians to expect to be able to march east up to Kyiv and the Dnepr river (and Odessa and Black Sea) in the length of a single season's campaign in 1916 with the technology of WWI? What would that do *to* the Russians and *for* the CPs?

The Russians I imagine would be able to fall back on their hinterland, they have plenty more land and population, they would just lose more experienced troops during the fighting and lose productive food-surplus land. The Germans and Austrians would stretch their supply lines which would be a cost, but moving the fighting east could be a relief to Austrian Galicia and occupied Poland, and discourage any thought of Romanian entry into the war against the CPs.

Possibly the area the Germans could target that the Russians might fight hardest to defend and thus lose the most defending would be Riga and Livonia, because those are an important port and the gateway to the capital at Petrograd respectively.

This could force the beefing up of the Petrograd garrison and make conditions tougher in the city and force reshuffling of troops which might exert some destabilizing, revolutionary pressures there.

What else could the Germans do (along with their allies) offensively. Could they wipe out the Salonika foothold completely, and if they did, would this be at reasonable cost to themselves and to their ultimate benefit? Could major gains be made against Italy, or could the western allies always counterbalance any action there?

 

[Buba]

For once I agree with Churchill - "go East or go home"
IMO ignore Italy - let them waste men against the mountains, ignore Saloniki - mountains less bad than Eastern Alps, but with fewer roads than the Eastern Alps, and held by Bulgarians (who did a Good Job and thus saved on German/A-H troops) - and strike east.
Here I'd either leave the northern portion (i.e. north of Pripet marshes, which splits the theatre of operations to the west of the Dnepr) alone, or use it as a secondary axis, to mask the True Thrust and draw reserves away from the south. Of course, launching the cunningly camouflaged amphibious operation - with a code name ALBION who'd suspect that? - one year early also would play on Russian worries of an attack on Sankt Peterburg and at relatively low cost aid the Main Push.
I'd push towards the Dnepr, thus inflicting losses in men and material on the Russians and gaining iron ore (Kriviy Rih). Not sure if Magnitogorsk on its own can supply Russian foundries with ore - anybody have data on that?
The scorched earth policy is overrated - Kingdom of Poland did not become a desert ...
Like you said - this eliminates possibility of Romania joining the war. When attacking CP losses would be in the same ballpark as in OTL, but the gains - territorial and in material losses to the Russians - greater. As a result the Russian army would be in worse shape than in OTL and the political situation better - from CP POV, that is.

If possible I'd keep on pushing towards Kursk and/or Kharkiv. Capture of either (Kursk slightly better in this regard) would cut at least 1/3rd of RR capacity to bring coal from the Donbas north. Industry in Moscow and Sankt Peterburg has energy problems, the population in the cities has an even colder, hungrier winter than in OTL (RR system was mismanaged and/or breaking down; Russia was not alone in this - A-H also bad). However, I suspect that making meaningful gains east of the Dnepr requires a Russian collapse and is almost certainly "no can do" in a single season. So, look at OTL Faustschlag ...

I believe that a 1916 eastern offensive - to the Dnepr - by the CP would make Russia crash - maybe slightly faster - but assuredly harder than in OTL.
Also - this probably saves Germany from rule by Hindenburg-Ludendorf Warlord Clique.

A different style of defence in the West - trading space for men, not counterattacking always and everywhere - would also help. I mean - Entente starts artillery bombardment (which will last weeks!) leave front trench to sentries, man the 2nd/3rd line outside range of allied artillery and fight the battle there. When Allies clean up the ground of the old frontline and bring up arty forward - rinse and repeat.

 

[ATP]

What @Buba said.When Russia fall,do not made any deal with Lenin,just crush him just after the puth.If German take entire Ukraine and Baku,they could not fear blockade and made peace with Allies.
Even let french take Alsace.German new Empire in Central Europe would be more important.
But,germans being lead by prussians,were too stupid for that.

 

[stevep]

In terms of deep penetration into Russia in 1916 the two question I think of would be:
a) Logistics. With no railways available and poor roads, plus possibly raids by cavalry units in a long and possibly mobile front how rapidly can Germany move and supply its armies, especially the artillery that are their prime advantage over the Russian forces?

b) Russian morale. Repeated attacks on CP defenses were important for allied morale and at times definitely helped take pressure off France especially. However they were murderous in terms of the casualties taken and the result on both the soldiers and their families. Fighting in defence of Russia against an attacking German invasion is going to be less costly and is likely to stiffen Russian resistance.

I'm not saying its impossible for the Germans to get a limited [but still substantial] victory in the east but I think its going to take longer and be harder than some people think. The German army was overall a lot better than the Russian in quality on just about all levels but like everything it has its limits. To win such a victory quickly is going to be a big ask and there is the possibility of disaster if forces try advancing too far or simply that the Germans - and probably Austrians - take too many losses, given their also fighting the French and British in the west.

 

[Buba]

a) 25km a day
That's the long term (i.e. longer than a week) speed of formations with oats powered transport.

For range - if one is to consider Faustschlag as a non-representative outlier - then in 1920 it took Tukhaczevski 6 weeks to march (after breakthrough it was low intensity combat) from Upper Dvina to Middle Vistula ...

ADDED LATER:
So, the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army took 6 weeks to move roughly 600km from the Smolensk Gate to Warsaw.
Works out at one hundred kilometres a week, about 15km a day.
Fits
By the standards of the day - BLITZKRIEG!!111

And if anybody is wondering about transport - when the Polish counteroffensive pushed the Soviets back, the re-gauging of the RR had reached Belostok - that's c.500km regauged in 8 weeks.

The Germans also would be laying feldbahn like crazy, of course
Hence, from the OTL frontline at around Dubno it's some 400km to Kiev. From Kiev to Kursk - a further 500km. With a breather of a few weeks on the Dnepr IMO a push of some 900km is possible. Maybe not very likely - requires a thorough thrashing of the Russian Army - but no intervention of Pikelhaub wearing ASBs needed

 

[raharris1973]

Here I'd either leave the northern portion (i.e. north of Pripet marshes, which splits the theatre of operations to the west of the Dnepr) alone, or use it as a secondary axis, to mask the True Thrust and draw reserves away from the south. Of course, launching the cunningly camouflaged amphibious operation - with a code name ALBION who'd suspect that? - one year early also would play on Russian worries of an attack on Sankt Peterburg and at relatively low cost aid the Main Push.
I'd push towards the Dnepr, thus inflicting losses in men and material on the Russians and gaining iron ore (Kriviy Rih). Not sure if Magnitogorsk on its own can supply Russian foundries with ore - anybody have data on that?
The scorched earth policy is overrated - Kingdom of Poland did not become a desert ...
Like you said - this eliminates possibility of Romania joining the war. When attacking CP losses would be in the same ballpark as in OTL, but the gains - territorial and in material losses to the Russians - greater. As a result the Russian army would be in worse shape than in OTL and the political situation better - from CP POV, that is.

If possible I'd keep on pushing towards Kursk and/or Kharkiv. Capture of either (Kursk slightly better in this regard) would cut at least 1/3rd of RR capacity to bring coal from the Donbas north. Industry in Moscow and Sankt Peterburg has energy problems, the population in the cities has an even colder, hungrier winter than in OTL (RR system was mismanaged and/or breaking down; Russia was not alone in this - A-H also bad). However, I suspect that making meaningful gains east of the Dnepr requires a Russian collapse and is almost certainly "no can do" in a single season. So, look at OTL Faustschlag ...

Very interesting - so you advocate for a main effort against Ukraine in 1916, with the idea to occupy up to Dnepr bend that year. (maybe Kursk or Kharkhiv early the next year, or if a sudden opportunity emerges early).

The rationale for the prime focus on Ukraine is the battle for resources, more to deny them to Russia than to gain them for oneself, but that could be a bonus. It also seems to take a lot of pressure off Austria-Hungary (A-H can feel more secure in Slavic territories, and concentrate more on fighting Italy, which was a fairly unifying issue). I think it would secondarily take a bit of pressure off the Turks in the Caucasus. I can't imagine with Ukraine and the Donbas threatened, the Russians pouring so much in to Ottoman Armenia, Kurdistan and northwest Persia.

How good will the local German and Austrian commanders be in a local battle of maneuver against Brusilov on the Ukrainian front, with the Russians defending.

I guess it works, even though it stretches supply lines further, and even though my initial idea was in another direction, focused north along the Baltic, to not spread out CP forces too much, pin Russian armies between the southern Dvina and Petrograd, and batter them as much as possible in sight of their major cities, and on the front where the Russians have the dumber commanders like Evert.

 

[Buba]

Yes, I'm a fan of the Southern Strategy - to grind down the Russian Army there, with bonus of depriving Russia of resources/gaining resources for CP. And keeping Romania out of the war.

But a Northern Strategy also has merits - having the Germans in Pskov or Reval will get the elites in Sankt Peterburg "excited".

 

[raharris1973]

Yes, I'm a fan of the Southern Strategy - to grind down the Russian Army there, with bonus of depriving Russia of resources/gaining resources for CP. And keeping Romania out of the war.

But a Northern Strategy also has merits - having the Germans in Pskov or Reval will get the elites in Sankt Peterburg "excited".

A political benefit of the southern strategy is that the Romanovs, Mr. and Mrs., can work overtime separately fucking up both at the front and Petrograd. The Ukraine offensive will keep the Tsar pinned at Army HQ in Mogilev and the losses there will make him look ineffectual. Meanwhile, Alix and Rasputin will be embarrassing the dynasty in Petrograd, and the Germans won't be interrupting it.

 

[sillygoose]

How good will the local German and Austrian commanders be in a local battle of maneuver against Brusilov on the Ukrainian front, with the Russians defending.

I guess it works, even though it stretches supply lines further, and even though my initial idea was in another direction, focused north along the Baltic, to not spread out CP forces too much, pin Russian armies between the southern Dvina and Petrograd, and batter them as much as possible in sight of their major cities, and on the front where the Russians have the dumber commanders like Evert.

Brusilov is overrated. He succeeded because he kicked the stuffing out of the Habsburgs who were not known for military acumen in WW1 and who had stripped the entire Eastern Front of anything they could to launch their offensive in Italy. Poorly prepared Austrian defenses coupled with manpower and material shortages thanks to the offensive in Italy combined to make the Austrian lines uniquely vulnerable to a major offensive.

When the Germans showed up his advance was largely checked and suffered enormous casualties. Certainly compared to his contemporaries in Russia and Austria he was competent, but hardly unbeatable even on the defensive. Especially given that his great successes of OTL depended on facing a weaker outnumbered foe with less firepower and greater internal ethnic divisions that could be exploited.

The problem the CPs/Germans face is that if they focus their reserves on breaking the Russians what happens when the French and British are able to combine and use their forces at the peak of their material and manpower strength to pick and choose where to strike with all their might? They very nearly broke the German lines in France in 1915 during the Eastern offensive and now the British are much stronger than they were in 1915; as it was the Verdun+Somme+Brusilov offensive very nearly collapsed the CPs in 1916 and that was with the Germans choosing the time and place of their Verdun offensive to cripple French offensive power before they were ready to attack.

Even without the Brusilov offensive in the proposed scenario the Italians would be able to launch another offensive, which ties down a lot of Austrian resources and limits their contributions to the proposed Ukrainian offensive, while the massive crushing offensive in the west by the combined Franco-British forces will be extremely tough to defend against, especially if launched at the time and place of their choosing. I'm not sure the Germans could have resisted it; Verdun might have been their best option in the end, though that could have been conducted better. That was actually a major motivating factor for Falkenhayn, since it was known that a bigger Entente offensive was coming in 1916 and the last one nearly broke German lines. Since they were running out of manpower themselves and didn't have much of a reserve such an offensive was likely to actually work.

Their only potential hope is that the offensive in the east would force the Entente to attack before they were ready in the west to help out the Russians.

 

[Buba]

I already suggested how to deal with the inevitable Entente offensives in France - flexible defence. Verdun and Somme were more or less one-for-one exchanges.
Dumb.
Do not fight "to the death" over every metre of ground - lose one man for 2-3 Frenchmen/Britishers and "the pressure is mounting"? = retreat move to next ditch/hamlet/hill.
This is not WWII - after an advance of 3-5km the morass of the previous frontline needs to be made passable, artillery brought up, targets acquired etc. That means - let us say - a week for every new frontline.
So - trade space for time. In 5km increments as to get out of artillery range

Another possibility is to do what H&L did in OTL over the next winter - build a line of concrete fortifications some distance to the rear and then - slowly - move to it. The slow retreat takes a month or two, then the Entente brings up the heavy guns, brings up ammo dumps, builds fieldrailways etc. Again - time. A fallback would deny most of the 1916 campaign season to the Entente.

 

[sillygoose]

I already suggested how to deal with the inevitable Entente offensives in France - flexible defence. Verdun and Somme were more or less one-for-one exchanges.

Flexible defense evolved based on the experience of 1915-16. Verdun though was not so much about defense as offense for the Germans, so it isn't really a great comparison and the counterattack doctrine demonstrated its weaknesses on the Somme, as that is when the majority of German troops were killed by the concentrated artillery set up to deal with them; since the Entente had air superiority they could spot and breakup counterattacks as they were forming.

So if we can order an a-historical defense doctrine based on knowing how the Entente would fight, then it is theoretically possible to fight smarter, but I'm assuming that other than the strategy for the year we're stuck with the existing army/doctrine, warts and all.

Dumb.
Do not fight "to the death" over every metre of ground - lose one man for 2-3 Frenchmen/Britishers and "the pressure is mounting"? = retreat move to next ditch/hamlet/hill.
This is not WWII - after an advance of 3-5km the morass of the previous frontline needs to be made passable, artillery brought up, targets acquired etc. That means - let us say - a week for every new frontline.
So - trade space for time. In 5km increments as to get out of artillery range

Easier said than done, especially as the Germans could not allow the trench system to be broken, otherwise they don't have the manpower to fight in open fields vs. the Entente. Counterattacks were arguably necessary to that end due to their role in breaking the momentum of an attack; without hindsight the flaws in the way that was conducted wouldn't be known, as until this point the German defensive doctrine had worked well and it was only the experience of the Somme that forced a massive reevaluation of how they fought.

In the meantime trying to do what you say could well cause a rout if there is a large enough fracture of the lines. Especially given the nature of military comms at the time and Entente air superiority.

Another possibility is to do what H&L did in OTL over the next winter - build a line of concrete fortifications some distance to the rear and then - slowly - move to it. The slow retreat takes a month or two, then the Entente brings up the heavy guns, brings up ammo dumps, builds fieldrailways etc. Again - time. A fallback would deny most of the 1916 campaign season to the Entente.

Other than potentially political problems at home/H-L trying to make it a political issue so that they could replace Falkenhayn this is the way to do it. Avoid fighting where the Entente wants in 1916, go in hard at the Russians (though there were serveral reasons that this was not done historically), and hope the Entente doesn't switch their offensive preparations to a different section of the front instead.

 

[raharris1973]

They very nearly broke the German lines in France in 1915 during the Eastern offensive and now the British are much stronger than they were in 1915

Really, tell me more about this. In spring 1915 the Germans were still doing at least a small offensive in the west, at Ypres. What were the western offensives in 1915 called, how much did each ally contribute, what did all sides lose? And it really was a close call-near Entente breakthrough? Would Entente have had any ability to exploit a break in the lines in 1915?

 

[sillygoose]

Really, tell me more about this. In spring 1915 the Germans were still doing at least a small offensive in the west, at Ypres. What were the western offensives in 1915 called, how much did each ally contribute, what did all sides lose? And it really was a close call-near Entente breakthrough? Would Entente have had any ability to exploit a break in the lines in 1915?

Ypres was a minor offensive compared to the Entente offensives that Spring/Autumn:

Western Front (World War I) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Lots of action that spring.

The source for the breakthrough claim was this book:


The Champagne offensive was the closest to success:

Second Battle of Champagne - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Germans ran out of reserves, but French casualties were so heavy that they couldn't continue.

 

[WolfBear]

It seems like a CP strike at Petrograd would be the best option here, no? Trying to go for Ukraine might be too risky since Russia could simply engage in a scorched-earth policy there, no? There is, of course, also the option of attacking on the Italian Front, but the Italians won't be capable of being knocked out with a single campaign, as the events of 1917 in real life showed.

The down side of a CP strike at Petrograd, of course, is that it would massively lengthen the front lines on the Eastern Front, thus possibly making something like the Russian Brusilov Offensive easier to implement. But at the same time, Austria-Hungary probably won't be launching an offensive against Italy in this scenario in 1916, which would mean more resources for the Eastern Front. So, these two factors could at least somewhat even each other out.

I don't know if the CPs' logistics would actually allow them to take Petrograd in 1916. Probably not. But they could perhaps reach the outskirts of Petrograd, or at least the Narva River, by the end of 1916 and aim to launch a final push onto Petrograd in 1917. Of course, there's no guarantee that even the fall of Petrograd would actually make Russia capitulate. The Russian government could, of course, simply retreat to Moscow and continue the fight from there. After all, the Germans didn't yet know in 1916 just how susceptible the Russians were to revolution during World War I. They didn't actually have the benefit of hindsight like we have, after all.