Seite - 524 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

524 Lutsk : The End of an Illusion (II) advantages that had recently allowed them to appear both tactically and operationally hopelessly inferior. Brusilov had already repeatedly made things difficult for the Austro-Hungarian troops as the Commander of the Russian 8th Army. In autumn 1914, he had advanced to the west via Lviv (Lemberg), demolished the Imperial and Royal 3rd Army and enclosed Przemyśl for the first time. Then the 8th Army had been in the Carpathians and derailed three offensives of the Central Powers. And now the Russian general was to make a contribution to the allied conduct of the war, separate the German and the Austrian fronts and offset the defeats of 1915. Brusilov wanted to lead the main thrust of his attack to Lutsk, against the Imperial and Royal 4th Army of Archduke Joseph Ferdinand, who had already contributed in September 1915 to the painful setback in the ‘black-yellow offensive’. Three corps of the Russian 8th Army were to commence this thrust towards Lutsk from the region of Olyka. Two other Russian armies were to support this offensive by means of accompa- nying thrusts. Brusilov even baffled his superiors with the claim that he did not need any additional formations but instead wanted to see if he had enough with the troops of his front. Since the Russian divisions had been completely filled out, masses of men were suddenly available again, like at the start of the war. The weaponry and the equip- ment had also been improved. Two corps of the Russian 8th Army were completely armed with Austrian rifles ; a further 50,000 rifles from captured Imperial and Royal stockpiles were in reserve.1227 These were all after-effects of the failure near Lutsk in 1915, the ‘autumn swine’ of the Imperial and Royal Army. In May 1916, however, it appeared for the time being that the Central Powers ex- clusively held the initiative. The Germans stormed Verdun and the Austrians struck out in South Tyrol. Ten days later, the Stavka asked Brusilov when he could begin his offensive, since the Italian High Command had most urgently requested a relief offensive in view of a defeat that could perhaps decide the war. The Chief of the Russian General Staff Mikhail V. Alek- seev initially hesitated to forward this appeal. He nonetheless enquired with Brusilov whether he was ready to strike. Finally, the start of the offensive was fixed for 4th June. Alekseev, however, doubted to the last the method of attack on a broad front planned by Brusilov and implored him on the evening of 3 June to postpone the offensive, regroup and proceed against the Austrians with a narrow spearhead. Brusilov refused. Since March it had been observed on the Imperial and Royal front that the Russians were attempting to negotiate the manoeuvring area. Deployment and provisioning were reported, without this producing any greater response than occasional attempts to disturb the Russians. Even sharp-worded orders from the army group commander, the German General Linsingen, could not dispel a certain languidness on the part of the Imperial and Royal troops. Officers and enlisted men did not appear in any