and the Tsar decided that these calls must be answered. Preparations were therefore expedited, and concentrated upon the Naroch salient, an objective evidently suited for such an offensive, and one in which local gains would improve the prospects of the later, main offensive contemplated.
The technical and tactical fitness of the Russian army for a trench-warfare offensive, however, was still low as indeed it remained throughout 1916. Guns and munitions were available on a larger scale than in 1915; new methods had been adopted from the French fighting regulations of autumn 1915; and the army was stronger than at any previous period, in spite of its appalling losses.
But, instead of five months in which to study the application of these new methods to Eastern conditions of armament and communications, and to inoculate the army generally with the doctrines thereby established, there were now only a few weeks available, and this handicap was the more important as the army was now, substantially, a new army. It was the product of the wave of patriotic fervour which had followed the defeats of 1915.
Hitherto, the army in the field had been practically the peace army with its reserves, the latter trained to the same ideas and broken to the same discipline as the active troops. No new creations had been put into the field corresponding to the German "new reserve" formations of Sept.-Dec. 1914, or the British territorial and new army divisions. Surplus resources of the peace-trained categories, and batches of war recruits as well, had been absorbed in the system of the old army to replace casualties. But from Sept. 1915, when the Tsar assumed personal command and proclaimed a war of liberation, moral forces which had been excluded from, or scarcely tapped by, the old army system came into play. Recruiting and war-work were galvanized by a new spirit, and the Russian leaders, habitually more reckless in the expenditure of human life than those of the Central and Western European nations, now found themselves in control of new masses which, in reality, stood in need rather of control and economical management than of driving.
Given those moral and technical factors, the course of the Russian spring offensive of 1916 almost explains itself. Hasty preparations in the hinterland, ruthless urging-on of enthusiastic and inexperienced troops in the front line, might suffice in the open-field shock of crises such as Ypres or Lodz; but in a trench- warfare offensive of limited scope, under peculiarly difficult conditions of ground and weather, they could only lead to costly defeat, except against an unusually weak opponent. Such an inferiority on the defender's side, however, the Russian staff was justified in assuming. Between Pinsk and the Baltic they had about 75 divisions, each of 16 battalions, to the enemy's 44, most of which had 9 battalions only; and it was possible with these proportions to keep numerically equal or superior forces on all parts of the line, while assembling very greatly superior masses at the points of attack.
The German dispositions were accurately known to the Russian staff. From the river Disna to Krevo (S. of Smorgon) was the point of von Eichhorn's X. Army. At the beginning of March 1916 there were, between these limits: the i7th Landwehr Div., Bavarian Cav. Div., 3rd Cav. Div. from river Disna to Vileity inclusive, grouped under "No. 6 Cavalry Staff" (Gen. von Gamier); the 42nd, 115th, 31st and 75th Res. Divs. and 9th Cav. Div. (reconstituted as a normal infantry division) under XXI. Corps headquarters (Gen. von Hutier), round the Naroch salient to Lake Viszniev inclusive; the III. Res. Corps of two divisions, from Viszniev to Smorgon exclusive; and the XL. Res. Corps, at Smorgon and Krevo. Behind his centre, in the salient, Eichhorn placed his army reserve, the 80th Res. Div. Counting in the last named, this gave an average density of one battalion to the mile over the whole front (the equivalent of 87 battalions for 85 miles). In winter the front had to be fairly evenly held, as the lakes gave only a diminished protection till the thaw should set in. Nowhere did it reach a density of two battalions per mile, except at the most exposed point—the apex of the line on the land-bridge S. of Lake Naroch on the dangerous Vileity- Moscheiki front—where it was about one and one-half. As a comparison it may be noted that, at the Somme, von Below's I. Army had an average density of three battalions to the mile.
On the Russian side General Ragosa (commanding the II. Army in succession to Gen. Smirnov) disposed of n infantry divisions and one cav. div. in line, viz. I. Corps of three divisions N. of Postavy (exclusive); XXXIV. and IV. Siberian Corps, four divisions, from Postavy (inclusive) to Lake Naroch (exclusive); and V. and XXXVI. Corps (four divisions) and Ural Cossack Div. facing the Naroch-Viszniev front, besides other forces in the same proportion opposite the German III. Res. and XL. Res. Corps. For the battle, these were reinforced by the I. Siberian, XV. and XXVII. Corps (six divisions), and 6th and 8th Cav. Divs. in the forests facing Vileity-Moscheiki, and by the III. Siberian and XXXV. Corps (four divisions) opposite the Naroch-Viszniev front. In all, then, there were 21 infantry divisions and 3 cavalry divisions, equivalent to about 345 battalions of infantry. Elaborate measures were taken to keep this concentration secret. Some of the combats initiated with the object of misleading the German command almost ranked as battles, notably the fighting of March 19-26 at Jakobstadt on the Dvina; and, although von Hutier kept "General Headquarters, East" informed as to the forces gathering on the Naroch front, the collation of his reports with those from other sources did not enable Ludendorff definitely to discern the real point of attack till the eve of the battle. Moreover, even within the salient itself, von Hutier was unable to accumulate his meagre forces on the flanks, for the lakes along this front were still frozen hard. At the last moment Ludendorff sent the XXI. Corps one fresh division, the 107th, and detailed others (86th Div., half 85th Div., 119th Div. and one regiment) to follow in succession, if required. The Russian surprise concentration, in short, was successfully achieved, in spite of all the handicaps of trackless hinterland, hurry and enemy vigilance. At 6 A.M. on March 18 the Russian artillery opened fire on the Naroch- Viszniev front—with an intensity that the Germans had never yet experienced on the eastern front—followed at 7 A.M. by that on the Vileity-Moscheiki front, which took under fire also the defenders N. of Vileity and those S.E. of Moscheiki as far as beyond Postavy.
The main lines of the struggle which followed were governed by the conditions of terrain and of moral above discussed. As in the case of the French offensiveon the Aisne thirteen months later, the significance of the battle lies less in its incidents than in its general results. On the first day, after a bombardment which was at first very effective but fell away later as the Russian batteries were picked up successively by the German artillery, masses of infantry debouched to the attack on the Vileity-Moscheiki front and the Naroch land-bridge, the Viszniev land-bridge being at the same time attacked by smaller forces. In the night of March 17-8, and on succeeding nights, various attacks were delivered on the minor gaps in the lake barrier between Postavy and Lake Miadzol, and they had the effect of keeping von Hutier constantly anxious for the security of his front, and so—till the arrival of the fresh divisions—limiting the reinforcements available for the Vileity-Moscheiki and the Naroch-Viszniev fronts, on which the weight of the Russian offensive was concentrated.
The Russian infantry attacks, which began after 3-4 hours artillery preparation, were extremely violent but disjointed. The defending artillery was worked to a well-prepared scheme, and (according to German accounts) assisted by sound-ranging posts. On the N. flank its counter-battery shooting into the forests had the effects of what later came to be called a "counter-preparation." In the débris of trees and bushes, the Russian infantry attacks lost unity and force, and were delivered at different times on different sections of the front. The available Russian artillery could thus devote itself to each objective in turn, but, on the other hand, the more efficient artillery of the defence could concentrate on each assault as it debouched over the glades separating the Russian forests from the woods in the German line across the marsh. Thus the German infantry, though very much inferior in numbers, was able to stand assault after assault, while suffering heavy losses under the Russian
