Here are the major battles and events of World War I on the Eastern Front including their dates, places and nations involved. The Russian military was the largest in the world consisting of 1.4 million men prior to the war. Contrary to their enemy’s expectations, the Russians were able to mobilize enough men within 2 weeks.
The battles on the Eastern Front constituted the largest military confrontation in history. They were characterized by unprecedented ferocity, wholesale destruction, mass deportations, and immense loss of life due to combat, starvation, exposure, disease, and massacres.
The last major action on the Eastern Front began with Operation Faustschlag (“Operation Fist Punch”). This offensive by the Central Powers saw little Russian resistance due to the turmoil of the Russian Revolution and the subsequent Russian Civil War.
The bloody battles of The Eastern Front, 1942-1943 Sometime in the Autumn of 1942, Soviet soldiers advance through the rubble of Stalingrad. The battles on the Eastern Front constituted the largest military confrontation in history.
the Battle at StalingradIt put Hitler and the Axis powers on the defensive, and boosted Russian confidence as it continued to do battle on the Eastern Front in World War II. In the end, many historians believe the Battle at Stalingrad marked a major turning point in the conflict.
Battle of Stalingrad—The Turning Point of WW2 The Battle of Stalingrad is often considered the turning point of WW2.
However, following the decisive Soviet victory at the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943 and the resulting dire German military situation, Nazi propaganda began to portray the war as a German defence of Western civilisation against destruction by the vast "Bolshevik hordes" that were pouring into Europe.
19411941-06-22 Operation Barbarossa launched – Axis invasion of the Soviet Union.1941-06-22 – Battle of the Baltic (1941)1941-06-22 – 1941-07-09 Battle of Bialystok-Minsk – Soviet 3rd and 10th armies encircled.1941-06-23 – 1941-06-30 Battle of Brody – Soviets lose hundreds of tanks.More items...
Japan invaded Hong Kong in the Battle of Hong Kong on 8 December, culminating in surrender on 25 December. January saw the invasions of Burma and the Dutch East Indies and the capture of Manila and Kuala Lumpur.
Major Battles Of World War II (WW2)Battle of the Bulge (December of 1944 to January of 1945)Battle of Berlin (April to May of 1945) ... Battle of Midway (June of 1942) ... Battle of Okinawa (April to June of 1945) ... Battle of Stalingrad (August of 1942 to February of 1943) ... Operation Barbarossa (June to December of 1941) ... More items...•
The Battle of Stalingrad (August 1942 – February 1943) was the decisive military encounter of World War II that stopped the German southern advance and turned the tide of the war.
The Second Battle of El Alamein was a turning point in the North African campaign. It ended the long fight for the Western Desert, and was the only great land battle won by the British and Commonwealth forces without direct American participation.
Battle of Stalingrad, August 23, 1942 to February 2, 1943 One of the longest, biggest and deadliest battles of the war, it ends with close to 2 million casualties, including civilians, with brutal winter weather and a Russian blockade causing many Germans to starve to death.
The Battle of Kursk was the largest tank battle in history, involving some 6,000 tanks, 2,000,000 troops, and 4,000 aircraft. It marked the decisive end of the German offensive capability on the Eastern Front and cleared the way for the great Soviet offensives of 1944–45.
The Eastern Front of World War II was a brutal place. Fighting officially began there June 22, 1941, 75 years ago Wednesday. Central to the Holocaust, more than 30 million of the war's 70 million deaths occurred in the Eastern Front, where most extermination camps were located, and many death marches took place.
July 17, 1942 – February 2, 1943Battle of Stalingrad / Period
Military strength was counted in terms of divisions (12,000–20,000 officers and men), the smallest military units capable of independent action. In August 1914 the Russian army consisted of 102 regular divisions divided into six field armies, boasting a total manpower of some 1.4 million.
Certain second-line troops were tasked with the defense of the Eastern Front fortresses such as Posen (now Poznań, Poland), Thorn (now Toruń, Poland), Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland), and Konigsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia) and to watch the Polish frontier.
The most significant from a strategic standpoint was the Pripet Marshes, a vast waterlogged wetland covering approximately 104,000 square miles (270,000 square km), where infrastructure was undeveloped and military movements on a large scale were extremely difficult in consequence.
The German plan of 1914 was a modification of one drawn up by Alfred von Schlieffen many years previously . It provided for an offensive against France designed to obtain a rapid and decisive victory and a defensive in the east against Russia until the decision had been obtained in the west. The choice of France for the initial offensive was actuated chiefly by the relative slowness of Russian mobilization and by the impossibility of gaining a rapid decision against Russia owing to the great distances. Germany’s problem in the east was then to determine the minimum strength to be left for defensive purposes. This was eventually fixed at nine divisions, active and reserve, with one cavalry division, for the protection of East Prussia. Certain second-line troops were tasked with the defense of the Eastern Front fortresses such as Posen (now Poznań, Poland), Thorn (now Toruń, Poland), Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland), and Konigsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia) and to watch the Polish frontier. The troops in East Prussia, organized into four corps, formed the Eighth Army under Max von Prittwitz.
The shape of the frontier, the great distances, and the physical features and nature of the communications combined to divide the Eastern Front into three “sub-theatres” until the Russian retreat out of Poland in 1915.
Rivers slow the movement of an advancing army but are seldom a permanent bar to its progress. Although many of the principal river crossings had been fortified in peace, these fortifications had little influence on the course of operations—except, notably, at Przemyśl.
After Romania joined in the war on the side of the Allies in 1916, the front extended from the Baltic to the Black Sea, a span of some 800 miles (roughly 1,300 km) in a direct line, or more than twice that distance if measured along the borders between the opposing countries.
Battle of Stalingrad ends. The last German troops in the Soviet city of Stalingrad surrender to the Red Army, ending one of the pivotal battles of World War II. On June 22, 1941, despite the terms of the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939, Nazi Germany launched a massive invasion against the USSR. Aided by its ...read more.
On January 12, 1943, Soviet troops create a breach in the German siege of Leningrad, which had lasted for a year and a half. The Soviet forces punched a hole in the siege , which ruptured the German encirclement and allowed for more supplies to come in along Lake Ladoga.
Nineteen panzer divisions, 3,000 tanks, 2,500 aircraft, and 7,000 artillery pieces pour across a thousand-mile front as Hitler goes ...read more
On June 22, 1941, Germany launched its invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II, codenamed Operation Barbarossa. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler predicted a quick victory, but after initial success, the brutal campaign dragged on and eventually failed due to strategic blunders ...read more
On September 27, 1939, 140,000 Polish troops are taken prisoner by the German invaders as Warsaw surrenders to Hitler’s army. The Poles fought bravely, but were able to hold on for only 26 days. On the heels of its victory, the Germans began a systematic program of terror, ...read more
On July 12, 1943, one of the greatest clashes of armor in military history takes place as the German offensive against the Russian fortification at Kursk, a Russian railway and industrial center, is stopped in a devastating battle, marking the turning point in the Eastern front ...read more
Finland, under increasing pressure from both the United States and the Soviet Union, finally declares war on its former partner, Germany. After the German invasion of Poland, the USSR, wanting to protect Leningrad more than ever from encroachment by the West—even its dubious ...read more
On May 2, 1945, the Soviets captured Berlin, helping to end World War II in Europe.
Attacking through Poland, Army Group Center initiated the first of several large battles of encirclement when the 2nd and 3rd Panzer Armies drove around 540,000 Soviets. As infantry armies held the Soviets in place, the two Panzer Armies raced around their rear, linking up at Minsk and completing the encirclement.
Again, the 2nd and 3rd Panzer Armies swung wide, this time encircling three Soviet armies. After the pincers closed, over 300,000 Soviets surrendered while 200,000 were able to escape.
Prior to the arrival of German troops, the Luftwaffe began a massive bombing campaign against Stalingrad which reduced the city to rubble and killed over 40,000 civilians. Advancing, Army Group B reached the Volga River both north and south of the city by the end of August, forcing the Soviets to bring supplies and reinforcements across the river to defend the city. Shortly thereafter, Stalin dispatched Zhukov south to take command of the situation. On September 13, elements of the German Sixth Army entered Stalingrad's suburbs and, within ten days, arrived near the industrial heart of the city. Over the next several weeks, German and Soviet forces engaged in savage street fighting in attempts to take control of the city. At one point, the average life expectancy of a Soviet soldier in Stalingrad was less than one day.
Stymied in his attempt to invade Britain in 1940, Hitler refocused his attention on opening an eastern front and conquering the Soviet Union. Since the 1920s, he had advocated seeking additional Lebensraum (living space) for the German people in the east.
Beginning on October 2, Operation Typhoon was designed to break through the Soviet defensive lines and enable German forces to take the capital.
On September 13, elements of the German Sixth Army entered Stalingrad's suburbs and, within ten days, arrived near the industrial heart of the city. Over the next several weeks, German and Soviet forces engaged in savage street fighting in attempts to take control of the city.
After seeing millions of Soviet troops captured in the early days of the German blitzkrieg, Joseph Stalin issued August 1941’s “Order No. 270,” which proclaimed that any troops who surrendered or allowed themselves to be captured were traitors in the eyes of the law and would be executed if they ever returned to the Soviet Union. The dictator later upped the ante with July 1942’s famous “Order No. 227,” better known as the “Not One Step Backward!” rule, which decreed that cowards were to be “liquidated on the spot.” Under this order, any troops who retreated were to be shelled or gunned down by so-called “blocking detachments”—special units who were positioned behind their own lines and charged with shooting any soldier who tried to flee. Stalin’s draconian orders were designed to increase the Red Army’s fighting spirit, but they weren’t empty threats. According to some estimates, Soviet barrier troops may have killed as many as 150,000 of their own men over the course of the war, including some 15,000 during the Battle of Stalingrad.
1. Joseph Stalin disregarded early warnings of the German attack. Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union was the largest surprise attack in military history, but according to most sources, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise at all.
Operation Barbarossa was intended to deal a total defeat to the Soviets in only three to six months, but in the early days of the invasion, many thought the fall might come even sooner.
Stalin’s draconian orders were designed to increase the Red Army’s fighting spirit, but they weren’t empty threats. According to some estimates, Soviet barrier troops may have killed as many as 150,000 of their own men over the course of the war, including some 15,000 during the Battle of Stalingrad. 6.
He also accepted Hitler’s cover story that the sudden presence of German troops on the Soviet border was merely a move to keep them out of range of British bomb strikes, and even ordered his troops to not fire on German spy planes despite numerous “accidental” invasions of Soviet airspace.
They soon faced frostbite in epidemic proportions. Some 100,000 cases were reported by end of 1941, resulting in the amputation of nearly 15,000 limbs. The cold also wreaked havoc on Nazi heavy machinery. Tanks and jeeps refused to start, and guns and artillery often froze and failed to fire.
6. It included the largest tank battle in military history. The Eastern Front is best known for the multi-year Siege of Leningrad and the bloody Battle of Stalingrad, but it was also the site of the largest armored confrontation of all time. During July 1943’s Battle of Kursk, some 6,000 tanks, 2 million men and 5,000 aircraft clashed in one ...
Battle of Galicia. Date: August 23 to September 11, 1914, aka Battle of Lemberg. By August 23, 1914, Austro-Hungarian 1st, 3rd and 4th Armies were concentrated in Galicia with the aim of invading Russian Poland. They now faced the Russian 3rd, 4th, 5th and 8th Armies in the major Battle of Galicia. The Austro-Hungarian armies were severely defeated ...
The Austro Hungarians had by now lost close to 1,000,000 men as casualties and 25,000 sq. km of territory. Due to this, Germany had to aid its ally and send divisions from the Western Front. This, in turn, would ruin German plans on the Western Front.
Contrary to their enemy’s expectations, the Russians were able to mobilize enough men within 2 weeks. Two Russian armies were sent to East Prussia in Germany, and four armies were sent to invade the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia.
Date: February 7 – 22, 1915. The German Eighth and Tenth Armies launched a winter offensive with the intent of advancing beyond the Vistula River. The battle ended in a German victory giving them a toehold in Russian territory. However, the Russian Tenth Army was able to halt any further advance.
Operation Faustschlag. Date: February 18 – March 3, 1918. The last major action on the Eastern Front began with Operation Faustschlag (“Operation Fist Punch”). This offensive by the Central Powers saw little Russian resistance due to the turmoil of the Russian Revolution and the subsequent Russian Civil War.
Fulfilling the request of the French, the Russian Second Army launched an operation near Lake Narach to help relieve pressure on the western front from Verdun. The operation was a total failure for the Russians.
Due to this, they looked for German support on the Eastern Front. A joint offensive under General August von Mackensen was thus planned and launched in the Gorlice Tarnow area, southeast of Krakow.
From July until August of 1943, the region around Kursk would see the largest series of armored battles in history, as Germans brought some 3,000 of their tanks to engage more than 5,000 Soviet tanks. Huge numbers of German tanks concentrate for a new attack on Soviet fortifications on July 28, 1943, during the Battle of Kursk.
Unable to capture the Leningrad (today known as Saint Petersburg), the Germans cut it off from the world, disrupting utilities and shelling the city heavily for more than two years. A farewell in Leningrad , in the spring of 1942.
Paulus eventually became a vocal critic of the Nazi regime while in Soviet captivity, and later acted as a witness for the prosecution at the Nuremberg trials. Red Army soldiers in a trench as a Russian T-34 tank passes over them in 1943, during the Battle of Kursk.
A German motorized artillery column crossing the Don river by means of a pontoon bridge on July 31, 1942. Wrecked equipment and materiel of all kinds lies strewn around as the crossing is made. A Russian woman watches building burn sometime in 1942.
A tank cemetery which the Germans are stated to have established at Rzhev on December 21, 1942. Some 2,000 tanks were said to be in this cemetery in various stages of disrepair.
Three Russian war orphans stand amid the remains of what was once their home, in late 1942. After German forces destroyed the family’s house, they took the parents as prisoners, leaving the children abandoned. A German armored car amidst the debris of the Soviet fortress Sevastopol in Ukrain e on August 4, 1942.
Later, as battles became desperate, Stalin issued Order No. 227 — “Not a Step Back!” — which forbid Soviet forces from retreating without direct orders. Commanders who sought to pull back faced tribunals, and foot soldiers faced “blocking detachments” of their own fellow soldiers, ready to gun down any who fled.
Hitler reportedly still held out hope that Britain would ask for a peace agreement with Germany, effectively ending the war in Western Europe. To encourage this, he instructed that British targets for bombing remain military only. Then the incident happened. By most accounts the bombing on August 24 was an accident.
The previous Luftwaffe air superiority balanced out and became a war of attrition, with both sides taking heavy losses. Bomb damage to a street in Birmingham after an air raid. With the air war turning against him, Hitler had to postpone the invasion of Britain.
Smoke rising from fires in the London docks, following the bombing on 7 September. To increase the pressure on the population, Hitler expanded the bombing raids to other British cities such as Birmingham, Coventry, and Liverpool. Damage on the ground was severe.
On September 7, in what became known as the Blitz, it began. For 57 consecutive nights, London was bombed mercilessly. Every night, air raid sirens went off, sending residents into subway stations and other underground shelters. In return, Britain managed to send more bombing raids on to Berlin and other German cities.
After London was attacked, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered a revenge attack on Berlin. It was the first bombing raid on the German capital in the war. The raid on August 25 was small and mostly symbolic. It caused little damage to the city itself.
In the summer of 1940, the United Kingdom stood almost alone again the might of Nazi Germany. German armies had rolled through Western Europe. Britain’s closest ally, France, had been knocked out of the war by the German blitzkrieg in a matter of weeks. British troops stationed in France had managed to barely escape capture or death.
St Paul’s Cathedral, rising above the bombed London skyline, is shrouded in smoke during the Blitz. The photograph was taken from the roof of the Daily Mail offices in Fleet Street. Furious over the aggressive British action, Hitler and Goering decided on a new tactic.