june offensive Flashcards
Why was the decision to launch a major offensive in summer 1917 ‘bizarre’?
It was seen as bizarre and weird , russia was weary and moral was somewhat at a all time low, furthermore the soldier had been weakened by desperation of 100,00, furthermore many generals lied to the soldiers that the offence was needed to stop a german attack on russia themselves
What were the reasons for the Russians launching the offensive?
Britain france and russia all wanted to launch a joint attack on german to try and end the war and russia didn’t not want to break this agreement when they had already had held poor relationships with the allies.
They saw the plan of offence as a way to get more out of the war if they were to win such as land
The government felt a big offence victory would massively lift moral and stop any chance of being overthrown
Kerenksy who was the war minister wanted to cover himself in glory and be a hero
how it went for russia
Initially russian were able to make a small gain on germany but this then followed in a german counter attack, poorly trained russian army broke and ran, looting as they want, this meant russia were able to get 150 miles deep into russian territory this was another perfect example of many things such as weakness of the army and army leaders plus the very poor moral of them. And the eagerness to please from the russian hierarchy
