Great Retreat (Russia)
| Great Retreat | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Eastern Front of World War I | |||||||||
Russian withdrawal in 1915. | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
| Austria-Hungary | |||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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Wilhelm II Erich von Falkenhayn Paul von Hindenburg Erich Ludendorff August von Mackensen Prince Leopold of Bavaria Franz Joseph I Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf Arthur Arz von Straußenburg Józef Piłsudski |
Nicholas II Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhail Alekseyev Pavel Yengalychev Nikolai Ivanov Aleksei Brusilov | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
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Initially: Central Powers 2,411,353 men Including: 1,165,352 Germans |
Initially: 2,975,695 men | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
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13 July – 28 August 1915: German Empire: 239,975 KIA, MIA, WIA Austria-Hungary: 118,659 KIA, MIA, WIA |
13 July – 28 August 1915: Total: 1,005,911 96,820 KIA 429,742 WIA 479,349 MIA lost: 1,115 machine guns 3,205 guns | ||||||||
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The Great Retreat was a strategic withdrawal and evacuation on the Eastern Front of World War I in 1915. The Imperial Russian Army gave up the salient in Galicia and the Polish Congress Kingdom. The Russian Empire's critically under-equipped military suffered great losses in the Central Powers' July–September summer offensive operations, which led to the Stavka ordering a withdrawal to shorten the front lines and avoid the potential encirclement of large Russian forces in the salient. While the withdrawal itself was relatively well-conducted, it was a severe blow to Russian morale.