Chapter 130: Indirect Influence

Page 1 of 3

The Battle of the Norwegian Sea also had a considerable impact militarily.

Its most important indirect consequence was that it led the British authorities to abandon the idea of opening a new front in the Mediterranean. By the end of May, nearly four hundred thousand British and French troops had arrived in Egypt instead of opening a new theater of war in Salonika, Greece, or at the Dardanelles, as the British government had planned.

Although an army of four hundred thousand was sufficient to stabilize the situation in the Middle East and ensure that the Suez Canal remained in British hands, it failed to fulfill any greater purpose. It could not, for example, bring pressure to bear on the Ottoman Empire and force it to withdraw troops from other fronts, thereby easing the burden on its allies.

At this time, the Ottoman Empire was concentrating its efforts in the Caucasus.

With Romania entering the war and Bulgaria leaning toward the Central Powers, the Ottoman Empire not only advanced toward the Suez Canal in the Middle East, but also stationed the bulk of its forces along the eastern coast of the Black Sea, competing with Russia for control of the Caucasus and attempting to recover the territories occupied by the Russians.

Although the Ottoman army was hardly formidable—indeed, it was even weaker than the Russian army—this small amount of pressure was enough to throw already battered Russia into disarray. It became the spark that ignited internal unrest. Dozens of uprisings broke out across Russia in early June.

The most serious occurred on June 7. Tens of thousands of workers in Saint Petersburg, whose wages were too low to sustain them, launched a general strike. Rather than attempting to pacify them, the Russian authorities deployed Cossack cavalry to suppress the workers taking part in marches and demonstrations. Before long, the suppression degenerated into bloody clashes. Hundreds, even thousands, of workers fell beneath the guns of the Cossacks, and countless other civilians suffered as well.

Sadly, the repression failed to produce the desired effect. Over the next three days, mobilization spread throughout Russia’s major cities. Increasing numbers of workers and ordinary citizens took to the streets to express their discontent with the Russian authorities and demand an immediate end to the war.

The internal unrest affected the Russian army at the front.

Although no precise statistics were available, at least a million of the nearly ten million Russian soldiers had deserted or were preparing to do so. Throughout June, the principal task of Russian officers at the front was not to devise ways of fighting the enemy, but to prevent their own men from fleeing. Desertions occurred not only among ordinary infantrymen, but even among the elite Cossack cavalry. Some deserters went so far as to surrender voluntarily to the German forces on the opposite side of the line.

Could an army like that still fight?

More importantly, Ludendorff had already planned the next offensive and assembled an army of nearly one hundred divisions on the Eastern Front. Conrad, for Austria-Hungary, had gathered more than a hundred divisions in Silesia, preparing to cooperate with the German army in an invasion of Russia.

Even Romania, which had only just entered the war, had mobilized nearly sixty divisions, ready to serve at Ludendorff’s command.

The reason Ludendorff did not launch an offensive in June had much to do with Bulgaria.

According to the Kaiser’s instructions, if Bulgaria had still not entered the war by the final day of June, the German forces on the Eastern Front would first join the Romanian army in attacking Bulgaria, eliminating this potential threat. They would then turn north and advance into the Ukrainian regions of Russia alongside Austria-Hungary.

In other words, Ludendorff had two operational plans in hand.

Fortunately, on June 30, Bulgaria accepted the conditions offered by the Empire and formally declared war on Britain, France, and Russia that same afternoon.

Two days later, on July 2, Ludendorff launched an offensive on the Eastern Front under the code name Operation Barbarossa.

That day, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria committed a total of two hundred and forty divisions along a front stretching eighteen hundred kilometers and launched an assault on the Russian army. In addition, along the Baltic coast, Ludendorff deployed thirty German divisions, which advanced northward under the support and protection of naval warships.

The largest strategic offensive ever seen on the Eastern Front had begun.

Faced with the surging armies of the Central Powers, the Russian army offered almost no resistance. On July 2 alone, it retreated nearly thirty kilometers across the entire front.

Page 1 of 3

Page 2 of 3

Although the Russian Chief of Staff, Brusilov, was highly capable and could be counted among the more talented commanders of the great war, he issued orders to retreat in a timely manner, hoping to avoid the Central Powers’ initial assault, establish a firm position on the second defensive line, and then launch a counterattack. Yet the Russian army performed disastrously. After falling back to the second line, it failed to hold its ground as Brusilov had imagined.

On July 7, the Russian army’s second defensive line was breached.

Within five days, one hundred and eighty Russian divisions had been destroyed. More than a million Russian officers and soldiers had either been killed or taken prisoner.

The defeat at the front made the situation in the rear even more unstable.

On July 10, massive unrest erupted in Saint Petersburg once again. Nearly a million workers and civilians poured into the streets, demanding that the Tsar end the war immediately.

By then, one could say that all of Russia had been enveloped in despair. No one could see any hope.

Ultimately, the reason was that no one could see any prospect of Russia winning the war with the aid of its allies. And the root of that hopelessness was the loss of the Royal Navy’s strategic advantage—even the loss of command of the North Sea—making it impossible to open the most convenient maritime route in the short term.

On July 17, Operation Barbarossa came to an end.

During fifteen days of fighting, a total of two hundred and seventy Russian divisions had been destroyed, while one million seven hundred and sixty thousand Russian officers and soldiers were killed, wounded, or captured.

After this battle, the Russian army was completely paralyzed.

Just how catastrophic had Russia’s defeat been?

In less than a year of war, the Russian army had suffered more than three million six hundred and eighty thousand killed, over five million seven hundred thousand wounded or disabled, and as many as seven million prisoners.

What did that figure mean?

After the outbreak of the great war, the German army had established a total of forty prisoner-of-war camps, with a maximum capacity of only two million prisoners. At the time, many people believed there was no need to establish so many camps, because the war would certainly end within six months and there would never be that many prisoners.

Only three months later, all forty camps were overflowing. By the end of June 1915, the German army had established more than a hundred prisoner-of-war camps. Yet even that was insufficient to accommodate all the Russian prisoners, let alone those from Britain and France.

Furthermore, the total German forces fighting on the Eastern Front numbered fewer than two million men. Even with the armies of Austria-Hungary, Romania, and the other allied nations included, the combined strength of the Central Powers was still less than six million.

In other words, the total number of Russian prisoners exceeded the entire fighting force of the Central Powers on the Eastern Front.

After suffering such a defeat, could Russia still be far from collapse?

In a sense, Russia had already lost the war. It lacked only one final, indispensable condition before it would disintegrate completely. Feng Chengqian did not know when that necessary condition would arise, but he could say with certainty that so long as the pressure of war on Russia did not ease, it would inevitably come.

For this reason, on July 20, Feng Chengqian returned to Berlin specifically to present his proposal to the Kaiser.

At that moment, the Kaiser was also considering whether to continue military operations on the Eastern Front.

Ludendorff’s performance had far exceeded the Kaiser’s expectations. Of course, the credit did not belong to Ludendorff alone. Major General Hoffmann, chief of staff of the German forces on the Eastern Front, had also made an enormous contribution.

In a certain sense, Hoffmann’s importance surpassed even Ludendorff’s. It was Hoffmann’s profound understanding of the Russian army that enabled Ludendorff to seize its fatal weaknesses and achieve such a great victory in so short a time. In addition, nearly all the major operational plans on the Eastern Front, including Operation Barbarossa, had been drafted by Hoffmann. Ludendorff had merely carried out the plans Hoffmann devised.

At the command level, Hoffmann’s accurate judgment had also played a crucial role. Thus, at the end of July, the Kaiser made an exception and promoted Hoffmann to General of the Imperial Army, while awarding him the Order Pour le Mérite with Oak Leaves.

Page 2 of 3

Page 3 of 3

The problem was that the Kaiser believed the war had already been fought successfully enough on the Eastern Front and that there was no need to continue.

His meaning was clear: Russia had lost its ability to fight and could temporarily be set aside. The focus should shift to the more important Western Front.

For this reason, the Kaiser even hinted that, so long as Ludendorff supported him, he would appoint him commander in chief of the German forces on the Western Front.

That hint was precisely what moved Ludendorff.

But was it really wise to let Russia off the hook at that moment?

Before meeting the Kaiser, Feng Chengqian sought out Ludendorff.

Although Feng Chengqian was an admiral of the Imperial Navy and had little connection with the army, he and Ludendorff enjoyed a close personal friendship. One must not forget that Ludendorff’s rise to the Kaiser’s attention—or, more accurately, the fact that the Kaiser came to know of him—had been directly connected to Feng Chengqian. Moreover, during the great war, it was Feng Chengqian who had strongly recommended Ludendorff and enabled him to win the Kaiser’s trust.

Without Feng Chengqian, there would have been no Ludendorff as he was now.

“General, I have come for only one reason.”

“Is it important?” Ludendorff brought over the tea, behaving with unusual courtesy.

“I hear that His Majesty wishes to appoint you commander in chief of the German forces on the Western Front.”

“His Majesty has indeed mentioned it. It is just that…”

“Have you considered what the consequences would be if we shifted our focus to the Western Front now?”

Ludendorff said nothing. He sat down on the sofa opposite Feng Chengqian.

“Quite apart from anything else, all our efforts on the Eastern Front would go to waste.”

“Is that so?”

“If I told you that by maintaining our present offensive momentum, supplemented by certain other measures, we could defeat Russia within the year, would you believe me?”

Ludendorff’s brows twitched several times. He clearly found the claim difficult to believe.

“There is no denying that the Russian army has been defeated. But Russia itself has not yet fallen. If we loosen the noose around its neck and allow that enormous polar bear to catch its breath, it will recover and once again threaten us. Militarily, we have already done enough. To defeat Russia completely, we lack only one final, necessary condition.”

“What is it?”

“To create an upheaval in Russia on a scale sufficient to destroy the Romanov dynasty.”

“This…”

“If you trust my judgment, then hold on for a few more months.”

“Then you are quite confident?”

Feng Chengqian nodded.

“Besides that, you must find one man and send him back to Russia.”

“Who?”

“A man of vital importance!”