The Forgotten Front: The Eastern Theater of World War I, 1914–1915 ed. by Gerhard P. Gross (review)

Keith D. Dickson

Marine Corps History, Volume 6, Number 2, Winter 2020, pp. 105-108 (Review)

Published by Marine Corps University Press

For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/796388/summary

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. WINTER 2020 105

Keith D. Dickson, PhD

The Forgotten Front: The Eastern Theater of World War I, 1914–1915. Edited by Gerhard P. Gross. Translated by Janice W. Ancker. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2018. Pp. 404. $80.00 cloth.)

This collection of essays was originally published in vast open spaces, numerous rivers, nearly nonexistent German in 2006 by the Bundeswehr’s Military Histo- roads, and a primitive railway network, a German ma- ry Research Office, which is responsible for German jor offensive in the east would accomplish very little. military history and research and supports interna- Instead, the decisive blow would fall on France. When tional scholarly projects on a number of topics. As the western front moved to stalemate in 1915, opera- part of the centennial observance of World War I, one tional opportunities for maneuver and envelopment of these projects has been an examination of the war, presented themselves on the eastern front. In 1915, drawing on the efforts of a new generation of schol- Germany and Austria-Hungary won their most sig- ars to gain new insights and perspectives. This book nificant victories, yet, as Strachan indicates, the victo- is the result of the 46th International Conference of ries were indecisive because of the distances involved Military History examining the eastern front between and the lack of logistics sustainment. The Germans, 1914 and 1915. The Association of the United States anticipating “the incipient clash between Teuton and Army, as part of its foreign military studies series, has Slav” (p. 18), misunderstood their experience on the made the findings of 19 scholars available to American eastern front in the Great War and would repeat their readers. mistakes again on a far greater scale between 1941 and In his introduction, editor Gerhard Gross out- 1945. lines the major themes of the conference that the es- Gross’s essay examines the conduct of the war on says address. In examining only the first two years of the eastern front, and notes that the German general the war, the authors sought to define how the war was staff “confronted the Russian Army with a mixture of both a direct experience as well as a learning expe- respect and disdain” (p. 37). This attitude within the rience for those on the front lines and on the home German military was only reinforced in the aftermath front. In addition, the authors examined this experi- of the Battle of Tannenberg and had a long-lasting ef- ence and the depiction of the war’s reality “in muse- fect on the public mind as well, which Gross indicates ums, memory sites, and modern media” (p. 3). continued throughout the Second World War. Gross The collection begins with the noted World provides another interesting insight into German vic- War I scholar, Hew Strachan, who provides a sum- tories in the east in 1915. The experience on the western mary of the strategic and operational considerations front had provided the German Army with valuable that shaped German planning. Even though Germany experience in the use of artillery supporting infantry feared Russian power and perceived it as the greater attacks to create breakthroughs. Nevertheless, Ger- threat, geography shaped the eventual operational de- man tactical and operational successes did not bring cisions that made the eastern front secondary. With its about the defeat of Russia, forcing Germany to seek other nonmilitary means to bring Russia down. Boris Khavkin takes the Russian perspective, ob- Dr. Keith D. Dickson is a professor of military studies at the Joint and serving that during 1914, the Russian Army exhibited Advanced Warfighting School, Joint Forces Staff College, National De- fense University. His most recent book is No Surrender: Asymmetric War- a capability for conducting an operational-level coun- fare in the Reconstruction South (2017). teroffensive employing two fronts simultaneously. 106 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 6, NO. 2

These were truly titanic battles that resulted in a de- mained strong after the war, Hoeres argues that sig- cision to achieve final victory on the eastern front in nificant political and ethnic-racial discontinuities 1915. Both Germany and Russia sought to bring about arose between the First and Second World Wars that the enemy’s decisive defeat. Although Russia suffered shaped German attitudes and approaches on the east- significant battlefield losses and gave up enormous ern front in 1941. amounts of territory, Khavkin stresses the importance Eva Horn’s essay takes note of the lack of German of the Russian contribution to the eventual victory of literary works related to the eastern front. “Germany’s the Allies, noting that much of the military effort of war in the east, the occupation that followed, and the Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey was directed military administration of the territory of Ober Ost at Russia during the first two years of the war, giving have been largely forgotten,” what Horn calls a “blind France and Britain valuable breathing space. Günther spot” (p. 159). The traumatic experience of the battles Kronenbitter highlights the lack of strategic planning on the western front, especially Verdun, became the between Germany and Austria-Hungary that led to a defining experience of the Great War and hadno dysfunctional command system and a lack of coordi- counterpart on the eastern front. The war in the east nation that plagued both armies throughout the first was a completely conventional mobile war that took two years of the war. He observes that “in the ensuing place across vast landscapes among an alien multieth- months on the eastern front, discussions between the nic population. In fact, Horn concludes, the battles of allies concerning the command structure and mutual the eastern front actually presaged the Second World accusations of guilt and resentment were quite com- War battlefields more than the static, impersonal, and mon” (p. 82). Kronenbitter concisely lays out an ar- isolated battlefields of the western front. gument that much of the reason for the inability to Birgit Menzel observes in her essay on Russian achieve a decisive result against Russia on the eastern wartime literature that the First World War is not a front can be found in the lack of cooperation between prominent theme, largely because the historical mem- the general staffs of Germany and Austria-Hungary. ory of the Russian intelligentsia was dominated by the Piotr Szlanta offers the argument that Poland, October Revolution (p. 175). Her focus on Aleksandr as the battleground for much of the major battles on Solzhenitsyn’s novel August 1914 captures the military the eastern front, suffered under the occupation of all disasters of the first battles of the war as Russia’s first the major powers. However, this experience actually encounter with modernity. The army, as a reflection contributed to a postwar Polish nationalism and na- of Russian society, was incapable of responding to the tional identity that has survived to today. In his es- political, moral, economic, and strategic requirements say on Russian perceptions of the enemy, Hubertus F. of total war. Jahn notes that Russians prior to the war had a strong Igor Narskij examines the experience of the Rus- bias against Germany and its aggressive economic and sian soldier and counters Menzel’s view by asserting military policies. Even though Russian artists and that Russia’s backwardness was not unique. The shock intellectuals admired and imitated German culture, of modern war and the complexities of logistics and they promoted a picture of the enemy based largely large-scale maneuver of mass armies hindered all the on stereotypes and caricatures of the kaiser, while also combatants, not just Russia. He argues that Russian stressing Russian traditions and Slavophile heroes to soldiers in the first two years of the war were ade- build patriotic unity. quately supplied and the experience of military life Peter Hoeres examines the role of direct and in- actually “had a significant civilizing and disciplining direct experience on soldiers encountering both the effect” (p. 197). Narskij lays the blame of this collective vast spaces of Eastern Europe and the Russian peasant amnesia on the Bolsheviks, who erased these facts and soldier. Although Russians were viewed as “something dismissed entirely the experiences of soldiers in what foreign and unknown” (p. 144), a perception that re- they called the “War of Imperialism.” WINTER 2020 107

Hans-Erich Volkmann, in his essay on the Ger- These exhibitions served as propaganda to sustain the man military experience, stresses the alien world that war effort and public morale. Captured equipment, German soldiers found themselves in. Imbued with a uniforms, mock-ups of trenches, along with depic- sense of moral, intellectual, and cultural superiority, tions of soldier life were intended to acquaint civil- German soldiers encountered a multinational, multi- ians with life on the front lines, and indirectly, the ethnic, and multireligious population that resembled superiority of German culture against the barbarity nothing most Germans had ever encountered before. of Slavs, who were portrayed as inferior, destructive, Ironically, Volkmann notes that because the Jew- primitive, and lacking military skills. While these ex- ish population had strong attachments to Germany, hibits became less effective as the war wore on, Beil they were seen as conduits of German language and notes that these displays were repurposed in the inter- culture to the uncivilized Slavic east. The administra- war period to serve a new patriotism and nationalism. tion of the conquered territories of Ober Ost would Kristiane Janeke offers an interesting view of be supported by “the eastern Jew” (p. 228). Volkmann Russian memory and remembrance in her account of observes that had the collective memory of the Ger- the Moscow City Fraternal Cemetery, founded in 1915 man experience on the eastern front during the First to commemorate the war dead of the Great War. Be- World War not been buried by the National Social- cause Russia slid from war to revolution to civil war, ists, the conduct of the campaign against the Union the cemetery became the burial place for soldiers of of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1941 would have been various faiths, nationalities, and opposing sides. By conducted far differently. the 1950s, the cemetery had been obliterated. This was Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius traces the German ad- largely because the war “belonged to the old system, ministration of Ober Ost and compares it with the the First World War had to be replaced in the col- German occupation of the eastern territories called lective memory” (p. 291). Since the end of the Soviet Ostland during the Second World War. Ober Ost Union, there have been efforts to memorialize the represented an area the size of France, nearly com- grounds, but there is strong opposition to highlight pletely devastated, with more than 3 million refugees. Russia’s participation in the war. Janeke demonstrates The German Army was faced with bringing order and that Russians have yet to include the First World War control, while addressing the vast humanitarian disas- as part of its collective memory. ter left in the wake of the war. Ober Ost became in Rainer Rother examines how the aftermath of short order a civilizing mission of victors intending the First World War spurred many nations to elevate to remain permanently. The collapse of Germany and a symbol to be honored as the Unknown Soldier. The the political and social turmoil that followed had a ceremonies surrounding the formal burial of an Un- deep effect on German thinking that the National So- known Soldier allowed the nation to demonstrate cialists exploited, combining anti-Semitism with leb- its appreciation, but this unique ritual represented a ensraum, recapturing the lands to the east. Although rite of passage that transformed the body of the fallen Liulevicius does not see a direct connection, he does soldier into a model soldier and ultimate hero who see that Germans in both wars “drew on the concept became the permanent symbol of the sacrifice of the of culture as a means of bolstering the mission in the Great War. east” (p. 259). Yet, in the First World War, occupation Gundula Bavendamm approaches the subject was a civilizing mission; in the Second World War, oc- of collective memory related to the First World War cupation was racial destruction to preserve a master through an examination of various war-related sites race. on the internet: “The manner in which the First World War museums and exhibitions in Germany de- War is documented and discussed on the internet is a picting the Russian enemy and the eastern front dur- reflection of the current interest our society has in this ing the war are the subjects of Christine Beil’s essay. subject” (pp. 326–27). Bavendamm examines primarily 108 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 6, NO. 2

English, French, and German sites and finds that they translate into supporting a war of extermination. The “appear to be primarily the domain of private asso- atrocities perpetrated by both German and Russian ciations and amateur historians” (p. 339). The German troops in the early stages of the Great War were re- sites have little to offer. There is no Unknown Soldier lated to perceptions of the enemy, nationalism, and and no monuments of remembrance, and thus, Ger- ideologies (p. 351) and reveal a continuity that was man cultural memory of the First World War is quite again manifested in the Second World War. Likewise, limited. British, French, and Australian sites reflect occupation and administration of territory has some the importance the war has in the collective memory, superficial similarities, but does not indicate a clear where national monuments, memorials, and the pres- continuity between 1917 and 1941. Understanding the ence of an Unknown Soldier serve to keep the tradi- unique national qualities of the conduct of war, he tion of remembrance alive. Indeed, the internet has concludes, will go far in determining the extent of di- become divided into nationally focused memorial do- rect continuities from 1914 to 1918 and 1941 to 1945. mains, each separate and unique and dedicated to its These essays are stimulating reading, providing own memory-truths of the Great War. a wealth of insights that contribute to a far better Rüdiger Bergien concludes this collection with understanding of the historical roots of the fates of an exploration of the relationship between the east- empires and nationalities in Eastern Europe in the ern front of the Great War with the war of annihila- twentieth century. How the Great War is remem- tion and extermination that characterized the eastern bered (or not remembered) by the former combat- front in 1941–45. “To what extent,” Bergen asks, “can ants provides a perspective that historians of modern a link be found between experiences and continu- war need to appreciate and understand. These essays ities?” (p. 347). While the German military leadership heighten our appreciation that the future direction of in both wars displayed contempt for the enemy and Europe after 1919 was already in place as a result of maintained unrealistic assumptions of their inher- the events on the eastern front between 1914 and 1915. ent operational superiority, these attitudes did not •1775•