End of the counter-offensive in eastern Galicia

On 28 July 1917 (15 July in the Julian calendar) the German Beskidenkorps, which for several days had been pursuing the retreating Russian forces, reached the Zbruch at Husiatyn. This small river, flowing in a deep ravine, was the border between Austrian Galicia and Russian Podolia. That same day the main forces of General Arnold von Winckler’s German strike group, which on 19 July had broken through the front at Złoczów, halted on the line Hleszczawa–Borki Wielkie–Czystyłów, in a semicircle east of Tarnopol. The British chronology of the war regards this day as the end of the battle in eastern Galicia, and most studies adopt the same date. On the evening of 27 July the army group commander, Colonel-General Eduard von Böhm-Ermolli, had already ordered permanent positions to be occupied on the Zbruch.

The last days of the pursuit

After the fall of Tarnopol and Stanislau the Russian armies were retreating along the whole width of the front, from the Sereth to the Carpathians. The new commander of the South-Western Front, General Lavr Kornilov, decided to base the defence on the state frontier. The Eleventh Army was to stand on the line Skałat–Grzymałów, the Seventh Army behind the Gniła river and the Zbruch, and the Eighth Army on the Dniester, from Skała to Zaleszczyki, and further south towards Śniatyn. Strong rearguards of infantry, cavalry and armoured cars were to delay the pursuit at Czortków, Kopyczyńce, Kolomea and Horodenka, so that the rest of the troops could get across the river.

The Germans and Austrians advanced, but more and more slowly. On 26 July the German Guards occupied the heights north of Tarnopol, and other divisions took Trembowla. South of the Dniester the Austrians and Bavarians recovered Kolomea on 26 July and on 27 July reached Horodenka. The divisions of General Felix von Bothmer’s German-Austrian South Army forded the Sereth at Czortków, because the bridges had been burnt. On 28 July a German Life Hussar brigade, after skirmishes with Russian cavalry, rode into Borszczów. The Beskidenkorps still wanted to push forces across the Zbruch that evening, but reconnaissance showed that the Russians were waiting for them in old, well-fortified trenches on the eastern bank. North of Tarnopol the Russians had not withdrawn at all. They still held positions behind the Sereth near Załoźce, and their new line ran on south-east of Zbaraż.

The balance

Within ten days the Central Powers had recovered almost all of eastern Galicia, which the Russians had held since 1914 or had won in the Brusilov Offensive of 1916. Only a scrap of land in the north-east, with Brody and Zbaraż, remained in their hands. The Russian army had fallen back by more than 100 kilometres in places, but none of its divisions had been encircled. The Austrian official history states that in the whole counter-stroke, including the fighting of early August, the Germans and Austrians took more than 42,000 prisoners, 257 guns and 546 machine guns. The counter-offensive was above all a German victory: the main blow was delivered by seven German divisions and only one Austro-Hungarian, which was received with regret in Vienna. Emperor Charles I visited the troops advancing in Galicia, and Kaiser Wilhelm II was near Tarnopol on 26 July.

The pursuit also exhausted the victors. The German and Austrian divisions had moved away from the railways and were short of artillery ammunition and horse fodder. The Russians, who only a week earlier had been fleeing in their thousands, were now defending their own country on the Zbruch and fought much harder. Kornilov’s harsh measures also helped: the shooting of deserters and stragglers without trial and the death penalty at the front, restored on 25 July. Between the Zbruch and the Dniester Baron Pyotr Wrangel’s cavalry corps was thrown into the fight. Attempts to force the Zbruch on 29–31 July gained the Germans only a few bridgeheads, and on 2 August the commander-in-chief in the east, Field Marshal Prince Leopold of Bavaria, ordered the advance to be halted. Further south the pursuit went on for a few more days: on 29 July the Hungarians seized a bridgehead at Zaleszczyki, and on 3 August the Austrians entered Czernowitz, the capital of Bukovina, for the third time in this war.

A victor in defeat

The only Russian commander who emerged from the July disaster with his position strengthened was Kornilov. It was his Eighth Army that had won the offensive’s only real success at the beginning of July, and as front commander he had halted the panic within a few days. Kerensky, prime minister since 21 July, saw him as the man who would restore discipline to the army and a few days later entrusted him with the supreme command. The defeat in Galicia also convinced part of the Russian elite that the revolutionary army was incapable of attack and that Russia could now only defend its borders.