Events of 1915, World War I. Important dates and events of the First World War

Germany shifts the focus of military operations to the Eastern Front in order to take Russia out of the war.

The 1915 campaign was difficult for the Russian army. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and officers were killed, wounded and captured. The Russian army left. Galicia, Bukovina, Poland, part of the Baltic states, Belarus.

The Russian command entered 1915 with the firm intention of completing the victorious offensive of its troops in Galicia. There were stubborn battles for the capture of the Carpathian passes and the Carpathian ridge. On March 22, Przemysl capitulated after a six-month siege. with its 127,000-strong garrison of Austro-Hungarian troops (400 guns). But Russian troops failed to reach the Hungarian plain.

In 1915, Germany and its allies directed the main blow against Russia, hoping to defeat her and take her out of the war. There was a widespread belief in German military circles that with a series of strong blows it was possible to force Russia to a separate peace, and then concentrate troops for victory on the Western Front. By mid-April, the German command managed to transfer the best combat-ready corps from the Western Front, which, together with the Austro-Hungarian troops formed a new shock 11th Army under the command of the German General Mackensen. Concentrating the troops on the main direction of the counteroffensive, twice the strength of the Russian troops, bringing up artillery that outnumbered the Russians by 6 times, and by 40 times in heavy guns, On May 2, 1915, the Austro-German army broke through the front in the Gorlitsa area.

Gorlitsky operation, launched on May 2, 1915 at 10 a.m., became the first carefully prepared offensive of the German army on the Eastern Front, which for a time became the main theater of military operations for the German Headquarters. She was "artillery attack" - against 22 Russian batteries (105 guns), Mackensen had 143 batteries (624 guns, including 49 heavy batteries, of which 38 were heavy howitzers of 210 and 305 mm caliber). The Russians in the 3rd Army sector had only 4 heavy howitzers. In total, the superiority in artillery is 6 times, and in heavy artillery 40 times.

The Gorlitsky offensive operation lasted 52 days and became one of the largest defensive operations of the Russian army during the war years.

The breakthrough of the Russian front in the Carpathian region led to the “Great Retreat,” during which the Russian army retreated from the Carpathians and Galicia with heavy fighting, abandoned Przemysl at the end of May, and surrendered Lviv on June 22.

The command of the Central Powers also tried to oust the Russians from Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic states. In June, Austro-German troops reached the Lublin-Holm line, and after breaking out from Prussia and crossing the Narew River, they threatened the Russian armies in Poland from the rear. In the summer of 1915, Russian troops fought defensive battles, trying to escape attack in time and prevent encirclement. On July 5, the Headquarters decided to withdraw the armies to the east to straighten the front. However, the retreat continued throughout August. In the fall, the front was established along the line Western Dvina - Dvinsk - Baranovichi - Pinsk - Dubno - Tarnopol - r. Rod. By mid-September 1915, the offensive initiative of the German army was exhausted. The Russian army gained a foothold on the front line: Riga - Dvinsk - Lake Naroch - Pinsk - Ternopil - Chernivtsi, and by the end of 1915 the Eastern Front extended from the Baltic Sea to the Romanian border. Russia lost vast territory, but retained its strength.

The great retreat became a severe moral shock both for the soldiers and officers of the Russian army, and for public opinion in Petrograd. The atmosphere of despair and loss of mental strength that gripped the Russian army in 1915 was well conveyed by the general A. Denikin in his book of memoirs “Essays on Russian Troubles”:

“The spring of 1915 will remain in my memory forever. The great tragedy of the Russian army is the retreat from Galicia. No cartridges, no shells. Day after day there are bloody battles, day after day difficult marches, endless fatigue - physical and moral: now timid hopes, now hopeless horror...”

1915 brought the largest The loss of the Russian army during the war was about 2.5 million killed, wounded and prisoners. Enemy losses amounted to more than 1 million people . And still The enemy failed to solve its strategic objectives: to encircle the Russian army in the “Polish bag”, to put an end to the Eastern Front and to force Russia to withdraw from the war by concluding a separate peace. It is important to note that the success of German troops on the Eastern Front was facilitated by minimal Allied activity on the Western Front.

Video - "The Great Retreat"

Russian-Turkish Front 1915.

Since January, N.N. Yudenich took command of the Caucasian Front. In February-April 1915, the Russian and Turkish armies were reorganizing. The battles were local in nature. By the end of March, the Russian army cleared southern Adjara and the entire Batumi region of the Turks.

N. N. Yudenich

In July, Russian troops repelled the offensive of Turkish troops in the area of Lake Van.

During the Alashkert operation (July-August 1915), Russian troops defeated the enemy, thwarted the offensive planned by the Turkish command in the Kara direction and facilitated the actions of British troops in Mesopotamia.

In the second half of the year, fighting spread to Persian territory.

In October-December 1915, the commander of the Caucasian Army, General Yudenich, carried out the successful Hamadan operation, which prevented Persia from entering the war on the side of Germany. On October 30, Russian troops landed in the port of Anzali (Persia), by the end of December they defeated pro-Turkish armed forces and took control of the territory of Northern Persia, securing the left flank of the Caucasian army.

Western Front

In 1915, both sides on the Western Front switched to strategic defense; no large-scale battles were fought. By the beginning of 1915 Anglo-Belgian troops were in the Artois region, partly on Belgian territory, main French forces were concentrated in the Champagne region. The Germans occupied part of the territory of France, advancing inland to the city of Noyon (Noyon salient).

IN February-March French organized an attack in Champagne, but advanced only 460 meters, losing 50 thousand people

On March 10, the offensive of British forces (four divisions) began in Artois to the village of Neuve Chapelle However, due to problems with supplies and communications, the development of the attack slowed down, and the Germans managed to organize a counterattack. On March 13, the offensive was stopped; the British managed to advance only two kilometers.

The Battle of Ypres took place on April 22-25. On the first day of the operation, after a two-day bombardment, On April 22, the Germans used chemical weapons on a large scale for the first time (chlorine). As a result of the gas attack, 15 thousand people were poisoned within a few minutes.

In January 1915, chemical weapons based on chlorine compounds were put into production in Germany. The point chosen for the attack was in the northeastern part of the Ypres salient, at the place where the French and English fronts converged. The command did not set the task of a wide offensive; the goal was only to test weapons. The liquid chlorine cylinders were buried on April 11. When the valve in the cylinder was opened, chlorine came out as a gas. Gas jets released simultaneously from balloon batteries formed a thick cloud. German soldiers were given bandages and bottles of hyposulfite solution, the use of which reduced the risk of injury from chlorine vapors.

Italy signed the secret Treaty of London with the Entente countries. For £50 million, Italy pledged to open a new front against the Central Powers

25 May – Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary. Austrian divisions blocked the Italian army in the river area. Asonzo and defeated them.

October 11 – Bulgaria entered the war on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary. Defeat of the Serbian army in the Balkans.

In solving Russia's geopolitical problems, it was of great importance Dardanelles landing operation Entente (February 1915 - January 1916), carried out to divert Turkish troops from the Caucasian front. The overly active preparation of the British for the operation frightened Petrograd. This led to the formalization in March-April 1915 of a number of agreements, according to which England and France agreed to the transfer of Constantinople and its adjacent territory to Russia. However, both the naval part of the operation and the landing on the Galliopolis Peninsula were unsuccessful. As a result, Allied troops were transferred to the Thessaloniki front.

Results of 1915:

Germany and its allies failed to eliminate the Eastern Front.
Positional (“trench”) warfare on the Western Front.
France and England strengthened their military potential.
There was a military-economic superiority of the Entente countries.
Failure of Germany's strategic plan to take Russia out of the war
The war acquired a positional character on the Eastern Front as well.

Attack of the Dead

During small defense Osovets fortress, located on the territory of the presentBelarus , the small Russian garrison needed to hold out for only 48 hours. He defended himself for more than six months - 190 days!

The Germans used all the latest weapons technology, including aviation, against the defenders of the fortress. For each defender, there were several thousand bombs and shells dropped from airplanes and fired from dozens of guns from 17 batteries, which included two famous “Big Berthas” (which the Russians managed to knock out in the process).

The Germans bombed the fortress day and night. Month after month. The Russians defended themselves amid a hurricane of fire and iron until the last. There were very few of them, but offers of surrender always received the same answer. Then the Germans deployed 30 gas batteries against the fortress. Thousands of cylinders hit Russian positions 12-meter wave of chemical attack. There were no gas masks.

Every living thing on the territory of the fortress was poisoned. Even the grass turned black and withered. A thick, poisonous green layer of chlorine oxide coated the metal parts of the guns and shells. At the same time, the Germans began a massive shelling. Following him, over 7,000 infantrymen moved to storm Russian positions.

August 6 (July 24, old style) 1915. It seemed that the fortress was doomed and had already been taken. Thick, numerous German chains were getting closer and closer... And at that moment, from the poisonous green chlorine fog, a counterattack fell on them! There were a little more than sixty Russians. Remains of the 13th company of the 226th Zemlyansky regiment. For every counterattacker there were more than a hundred enemies!

The Russians walked at full speed. At bayonet point. Shaking with coughing, spitting out pieces of lungs through rags wrapped around their faces onto bloody tunics...

These warriors plunged the enemy into such horror that the Germans, not accepting the battle, rushed back. In a panic, trampling each other, getting tangled and hanging on their own barbed wire fences. And then, from the clouds of poisoned fog, seemingly dead Russian artillery struck them.

This battle will go down in history as "attack of the dead" . During it, several dozen half-dead Russian soldiers put 14 enemy battalions to flight!

The 13th company, under the command of Second Lieutenant Kotlinsky, counterattacked units of the 18th regiment along the railway and put them to flight. Continuing the attack, the company again captured the 1st and 2nd lines of defense. At this moment, Second Lieutenant Kotlinsky was mortally wounded and transferred command of the formation to Second Lieutenant of the 2nd Osovets Engineer Company Strezheminsky. From him, command passed to Ensign Radke, with whom the company fought to occupy Leonov's yard and thus completely eliminated the consequences of the German breakthrough in this sector of defense. At the same time, the 8th and 14th companies unblocked the central redoubt and, together with the soldiers of the 12th company, drove the enemy to their original positions. By 8 o'clock in the morning all the consequences of the German breakthrough had been eliminated. By 11 o'clock in the morning the shelling of the fortress stopped, which was the formal end of the failed assault.

The Russian defenders of Osovets never surrendered the fortress. She was left later. And by order of the command. When defense has lost its meaning. They left neither a cartridge nor a nail for the enemy. Everything that survived in the fortress from German fire and bombing was blown up by Russian sappers. The Germans decided to occupy the ruins only a few days later.

The 1915 campaign revealed the true extent of the world war and outlined further stages for its completion. The determination of Great Britain to break the military and naval power of Germany as the most dangerous rival for dominion on the seas was clearly revealed. The struggle with Germany, which began in the political sphere several years before the armed conflict, was conducted in terms of the plan and scope of its economic strangulation, as the most reliable way to bring it to its knees. Due to the economic situation, Germany had to fight a short, decisive war according to the Schlieffen plan of operations. But it failed, England skillfully took advantage of this and built an Entente action plan on slowly exhausting German energy. The 1915 campaign develops the struggle of both coalitions at the collision of these opposing aspirations. Germany continues to try to strike a decisive blow and, at the same time, move apart the iron ring that is squeezing it ever closer. In appearance, Germany's military achievements in 1915 were enormous: Eastern Front - the Russian army was finally pushed back from its borders into the swamps of Polesie (beyond the Stokhod River) and paralyzed at least until the late spring of next year; Galicia is liberated; Poland and part of Lithuania are cleared of Russians; Austria-Hungary is saved from ultimate defeat; Serbia is destroyed; Bulgaria joined the Central Union; Romania refused to join the Entente; the complete failure of the Dardanelles expedition and the precarious position of the Anglo-French troops at Thessaloniki. All these laurels of German weapons in 1915 could reassure the Central Powers of the final victory. Even Italy’s military performance provides an opportunity for its ally, Austria, to restore its military prestige with cheap successes. The merciless submarine war that was undertaken, although it soon died down, revealed in German hands a formidable means of infringing on the vital interests of England.

But the results of the victory in the east could seem especially abundant for Germany, going far beyond just the defeat of the Russian army. Inside Russia, general dissatisfaction with the existing regime broke out, which showed a complete inability to cope with the supply of the front and with the elimination of food difficulties in the country itself. The autocracy seriously wavered, and in the frequent changes of some ministers one could only see the blindness and impotent stubbornness of the supreme power to ignore the formidable harbingers of the impending revolution. Under the pressure of internal discontent in the country, an outlet was opened for the manifestation of “public initiative” to help the government supply the front. On June 7, 1915, a Special Meeting was formed to provide the army with supplies with the participation of State Duma deputies and representatives of industrialists. At the same time, military-industrial committees arose with the goal of uniting and regulating the activities of industry for the needs of war. The total number of such committees reached 200. By 1917, the results of this activity of the bourgeoisie, of course, greatly facilitated the work of the military department, but at the same time, this activity prepared the transfer of power from the decaying tsarism into the hands of the bourgeois parties. Germany was already quite confident in the Russian revolution, and such confidence served as one of the reasons to plan a strike on France at Verdun by 1916.

But along with the listed great achievements of the central coalition in 1915, some fractures within this so far victorious alliance could not hide from the inquisitive eye. The most serious danger, not yet clearly felt in the depths of the people of Germany and Austria-Hungary, was the prospect of a long war, on which the Entente relied. The submarine war stirred up public opinion in America and in England itself it was cleverly used by Lloyd George to implement the law on universal conscription, as a result of which Great Britain could eventually field up to 5,000 thousand soldiers. Meanwhile, if official Germany still breathed the slogan “win or die,” then all its allies were numb pendants that had to be constantly revived with material support in all forms, since otherwise they would turn into dead ballast. Germany, which by the end of 1915 itself already felt an extreme lack of many vital resources for the struggle, had to share them with Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria.

The awareness of this true, not ostentatious position among the commanding tops of Germany is confirmed by the fact that twice in 1915 its government probed the ground for concluding a separate peace with Russia. Falkenhayn twice raised the issue of this peace with the Imperial Chancellor. At the second attempt in July 1915, Bethmann-Hollweg willingly agreed and took some diplomatic steps, which met with resistance from Russia, and Germany, as Falkenhayn writes, considered it more appropriate to “temporarily completely destroy the bridges to the East.”

The German population was finally transferred to starvation rations and felt a complete lack of the most necessary food products, which could not be eliminated by any food substitutes. These deprivations had a depressing effect on the people's psyche, especially when the long-term nature of the war began to become clear.

The German fleet - this is the expression of the "German future on the seas" - was firmly locked in the "sea triangle" (Helgoland Bight) and, after a timid attempt to be active in January 1915 at the Dogger Bank, doomed itself to complete inactivity. In return, the German high command began to launch zeppelin raids on Paris and London. But these raids were considered random means of intimidating the civilian population of the capitals and, after taking air defense measures, could not produce major results. In the supply of technical means of combat, especially heavy artillery shells, by the end of 1915, with the rapid development of the military industry, the Entente had already caught up with Germany, and later began to even surpass it.

At the turn of 1915 and 1916. England and France acquired much more confidence in their final victory than a year earlier, and the upcoming loss of Russia from the alliance was replaced by preparations for the entry of the United States into the alliance, to which the efforts of Great Britain were already directed. Finally, the results of the 1915 campaign on the Russian Front raised the question of Russia's position. There was no longer any doubt that the existing regime was leading the country to final defeat, and the Entente sought to quickly squeeze out all the benefits for itself while the Russian army had not yet surrendered. The balance of forces of the Central Union on the Russian and French fronts at the beginning of the war and by the end of 1915 was as follows:

Troops of the Central Union:

1) At the beginning of the war:
a) against Russia - 42 infantry. and 13 cavalry. divisions;
b) against France - 80 infantry. and 10 cavalry. divisions.

a) against Russia - 116 infantry. and 24 cavalry. divisions;
b) against France - the same number of troops - 90 infantry. and 1 cavalry division.

If at the beginning of the war Russia attracted only 31% of all hostile forces, then a year later Russia attracted more than 50% of the enemy forces.

In 1915, the Russian Theater was the main theater of the world war and provided France and England with a respite, which they widely used to achieve the final victory over Germany. The 1915 campaign clearly revealed the service role of tsarism for Anglo-French capital. The 1915 campaign in the Russian Theater also revealed that Russia, economically and politically, could not adapt to the scope and nature of the war. Since the beginning of the war, the Russian army has lost almost all of its personnel (3,400 thousand people, of which 312,600 were killed and 1,548 thousand were captured and missing; 45 thousand officers and doctors, of which 6,147 were killed and 12,782 were captured and wounded). Subsequently, the Russian army could not recover enough to successfully wage a war with Germany.

On August 10, 1915, on the initiative of the State Duma and military-industrial committees, a Special Conference on Defense was formed, replenished with representatives of legislative institutions and public organizations. The regulations on them were approved only on August 27, 1915. Associations of small and medium industry were not within the purview of the military-industrial committees and did not enjoy their support.

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Military operations in 1915

The Russian command entered 1915 with the firm intention of completing the victorious offensive of its troops in Galicia.

In 1915, Germany and its allies directed the main blow against Russia, hoping to defeat it and take it out of the war. By mid-April, the German command managed to transfer the best combat-ready corps from the Western Front, which, together with the Austro-Hungarian troops, formed a new shock 11th Army under the command of the German General Mackensen.

Having concentrated on the main direction of the counteroffensive troops that were twice as large as the Russian troops, bringing up artillery that outnumbered the Russians by 6 times, and by 40 times in heavy guns, the Austro-German army broke through the front in the Gorlitsa area on May 2, 1915.

By mid-September 1915, the offensive initiative of the German army was exhausted. The Russian army was entrenched on the front line: Riga - Dvinsk - Lake Naroch - Pinsk - Ternopil - Chernivtsi, and by the end of 1915 the Eastern Front extended from the Baltic Sea to the Romanian border. Russia lost vast territory, but retained its strength, although since the beginning of the war the Russian army had by this time lost about 3 million people in manpower, of which about 300 thousand were killed.

While the Russian armies were waging a tense, unequal war with the main forces of the Austro-German coalition, Russia's allies - England and France - on the Western Front throughout 1915 organized only a few private military operations that were of no significant importance. In the midst of bloody battles on the Eastern Front, when the Russian army was fighting heavy defensive battles, there was no offensive on the Western Front by the Anglo-French allies. It was adopted only at the end of September 1915, when the offensive operations of the German army on the Eastern Front had already ceased.

Lloyd George felt the remorse of ingratitude towards Russia with great delay. In his memoirs, he later wrote: “History will present its account to the military command of France and England, which, in its selfish stubbornness, doomed its Russian comrades in arms to death, while England and France could so easily have saved the Russians and thus would have helped themselves best.” ".

Having received a territorial gain on the Eastern Front, the German command, however, did not achieve the main thing - it did not force the tsarist government to conclude a separate peace with Germany, although half of all the armed forces of Germany and Austria-Hungary were concentrated against Russia.

Also in 1915, Germany attempted to deal a crushing blow to England. For the first time, she widely used a relatively new weapon - submarines - to stop the supply of necessary raw materials and food to England. Hundreds of ships were destroyed, their crews and passengers were killed. The indignation of neutral countries forced Germany not to sink passenger ships without warning. England, by increasing and accelerating the construction of ships, as well as developing effective measures to combat submarines, overcame the danger hanging over it.

In the spring of 1915, Germany, for the first time in the history of wars, used one of the most inhumane weapons - toxic substances, but this ensured only tactical success.

Germany also experienced failure in the diplomatic struggle. The Entente promised Italy more than Germany and Austria-Hungary, which faced Italy in the Balkans, could promise. In May 1915, Italy declared war on them and diverted some of the troops of Austria-Hungary and Germany.

This failure was only partially compensated by the fact that in the fall of 1915 the Bulgarian government entered the war against the Entente. As a result, the Quadruple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria was formed. The immediate consequence of this was the offensive of German, Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian troops against Serbia. The small Serbian army heroically resisted, but was crushed by superior enemy forces. The troops of England, France, Russia and the remnants of the Serbian army, sent to help the Serbs, formed the Balkan Front.

As the war dragged on, suspicion and distrust of each other grew among the Entente countries. According to a secret agreement between Russia and its allies in 1915, in the event of a victorious end to the war, Constantinople and the straits were to go to Russia. Fearing the implementation of this agreement, on the initiative of Winston Churchill, under the pretext of an attack on the straits and Constantinople, allegedly to undermine the communications of the German coalition with Turkey, the Dardanelles expedition was undertaken with the aim of occupying Constantinople.

On February 19, 1915, the Anglo-French fleet began shelling the Dardanelles. However, having suffered heavy losses, the Anglo-French squadron stopped bombing the Dardanelles fortifications a month later.

The task of clearing Iran of Turkish-German troops fell to the Russian expeditionary force of General Baratov, which landed in Anzeli in October 1915. Pursuing German-Turkish troops, Baratov’s detachments occupied Qazvin, Hamadan, Qom, Kashan and approached Isfahan.

In the summer of 1915, British troops captured German South-West Africa. In January 1916, the British forced German troops surrounded in Cameroon to surrender.

The Russian command entered 1915 with the firm intention of completing the victorious offensive of its troops in Galicia.

There were stubborn battles for the capture of the Carpathian passes and the Carpathian ridge. On March 22, after a six-month siege, Przemysl capitulated with its 127,000-strong garrison of Austro-Hungarian troops. But Russian troops failed to reach the Hungarian plain. In 1915, Germany and its allies directed the main blow against Russia, hoping to defeat it and take it out of the war. By mid-April, the German command managed to transfer the best combat-ready corps from the Western Front, which, together with the Austro-Hungarian troops, formed

a new shock 11th Army under the command of the German General Mackensen. Having concentrated on the main direction of the counteroffensive troops that were twice as large as the Russian troops, bringing up artillery that outnumbered the Russians by 6 times, and by 40 times in heavy guns, the Austro-German army broke through the front in the Gorlitsa area on May 2, 1915.

Under the pressure of Austro-German troops, the Russian army retreated from the Carpathians and Galicia with heavy fighting, abandoned Przemysl at the end of May, and surrendered Lviv on June 22. Then, in June, the German command, intending to pincer the Russian troops fighting in Poland, launched attacks with its right wing between the Western Bug and the Vistula, and with its left wing in the lower reaches of the Narew River. But here, as in Galicia, the Russian troops, who did not have enough weapons, ammunition and equipment, retreated after heavy fighting. By mid-September 1915, the offensive initiative of the German army was exhausted. The Russian army was entrenched on the front line: Riga - Dvinsk - Lake Naroch - Pinsk - Ternopil - Chernivtsi, and by the end of 1915 the Eastern Front extended from the Baltic Sea to the Romanian border. Russia lost vast territory, but retained its strength, although since the beginning of the war the Russian army had by this time lost about 3 million people in manpower, of which about 300 thousand were killed. While the Russian armies were waging a tense, unequal war with the main forces of the Austro-German coalition, Russia's allies - England and France - on the Western Front throughout 1915 organized only a few private military operations that were of no significant importance. In the midst of bloody battles on the Eastern Front, when the Russian army was fighting heavy defensive battles, there was no offensive on the Western Front by the Anglo-French allies. It was adopted only at the end of September 1915, when the offensive operations of the German army on the Eastern Front had already ceased.

Lloyd George felt the remorse of ingratitude towards Russia with great delay. In his memoirs he later wrote:

“History will give its account to the military command of France and England, which in its selfish stubbornness doomed its Russian comrades in arms to death, while England and France could so easily have saved the Russians and thus would have helped themselves best.” Having received a territorial gain on the Eastern Front, the German command, however, did not achieve the main thing - it did not force the tsarist government to conclude a separate peace with Germany, although half of all the armed forces of Germany and Austria-Hungary were concentrated against Russia. Also in 1915, Germany attempted to deal a crushing blow to England. For the first time, she widely used a relatively new weapon - submarines - to stop the supply of necessary raw materials and food to England. Hundreds of ships were destroyed, their crews and passengers were killed. The indignation of neutral countries forced Germany not to sink passenger ships without warning. England, by increasing and accelerating the construction of ships, as well as developing effective measures to combat submarines, overcame the danger hanging over it.

In the spring of 1915, Germany, for the first time in the history of wars, used one of the most inhumane weapons - toxic substances, but this ensured only tactical success. Germany also experienced failure in the diplomatic struggle. The Entente promised Italy more than Germany and Austria-Hungary, which faced Italy in the Balkans, could promise. In May 1915, Italy declared war on them and diverted some of the troops of Austria-Hungary and Germany. This failure was only partially compensated by the fact that in the fall of 1915 the Bulgarian government entered the war against the Entente. As a result, the Quadruple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria was formed. The immediate consequence of this was the offensive of German, Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian troops against Serbia. The small Serbian army heroically resisted, but was crushed by superior enemy forces. The troops of England, France, Russia and the remnants of the Serbian army, sent to help the Serbs, formed the Balkan Front.

On the Transcaucasian front, Russian forces in the summer of 1915, having repelled the offensive of the Turkish army in the Alashkert direction, launched a counteroffensive in the Vienna direction. At the same time, German-Turkish troops intensified military operations in Iran. Relying on the uprising of the Bakhtiari tribes provoked by German agents in Iran, Turkish troops began to advance to the oil fields and by the fall of 1915 occupied Kermanshah and Hamadan. But soon the arriving British troops drove the Turks and Bakhtiars away from the oil fields area, and restored the oil pipeline destroyed by the Bakhtiars. The task of clearing Iran of Turkish-German troops fell to the Russian expeditionary force of General Baratov, which landed in Anzali in October 1915. Pursuing German-Turkish troops, Baratov’s detachments occupied Qazvin, Hamadan, Qom, Kashan and approached Isfahan. In the summer of 1915, British troops captured German South-West Africa. In January 1916, the British forced German troops surrounded in Cameroon to surrender.

In August 1914, the First World War began. Serbian student Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archerzog Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. And Russia was drawn into the First World War. Gavrilo Princip, a member of the Young Bosnia organization, provoked a global conflict that lasted for four long years.

On August 8, 1914, an eclipse occurred in the Russian Empire, which passed through the sites of the First World War. The countries immediately divided into several blocs (unions), despite the fact that everyone in this bloc supported their own interests.

Russia, in addition to its territorial interests - control over the regime in the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits, was frightened by the growing influence of Germany in the European community. Even then, Russian politicians viewed Germany as a threat to their territory. Great Britain (also part of the Entente) wanted to defend its territorial interests. And France dreamed of taking revenge for the lost Franco-Prussian War of 1870. But it should be noted that there were some disagreements within the Entente itself - for example, constant friction between the Russians and the British.

Germany (the Triple Alliance) already in the First World War sought sole domination over Europe. Economic and political. Since 1915, Italy participated in the war on the side of the Entente, despite the fact that it was then a member of the Triple Alliance.

On July 28, 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Russia, as expected, could not help but support its ally. Opinions in the Russian Empire were divided. On August 1, 1914, the Prussian ambassador to Russia, Count Friedrich Pourtales, announced a declaration of war to the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov. According to Sazonov’s recollections, Friedrich went to the window and began to cry. Nicholas II announced that the Russian Empire was entering the First World War. There was some kind of duality in Russia at that time. On the one hand, anti-German sentiment reigned, on the other hand, patriotic enthusiasm. French diplomat Maurice Paleologue wrote about the mood of Sergius Sazonov. In his opinion, Sergei Sazonov said something like this: “My formula is simple, we must destroy German imperialism. We will achieve this only through a series of military victories; We are facing a long and very difficult war.”

At the beginning of 1915, the importance of the Western Front increased. In France, fighting took place somewhat south of Verdun, in historical Port Artois. Whether this is true or not, there really were anti-German sentiments at that time. After the war, Constantinople was to belong to Russia. Nikolai Alexandrovich himself accepted the war with enthusiasm and helped the soldiers a lot. His family, wife and daughters were constantly at hospitals in different cities, playing the roles of nurses. The emperor became the owner of the Order of St. George after a German plane flew over him. This was in 1915.

The winter operation in the Carpathians took place in February 1915. And in it, the Russians lost most of Bukovina and Chernivtsi. In March 1915, after the death of Pyotr Nesterov, his air ram was used by A. A. Kazakov. Both Nesterov and Kazakov are known for shooting down German planes at the cost of their lives. Frenchman Roland Gallos used a machine gun to attack the enemy in April. The machine gun was located behind the propeller.

A.I. Denikin in his work “Essays on Russian Troubles” wrote the following: “The spring of 1915 will remain in my memory forever. The great tragedy of the Russian army is the retreat from Galicia. No cartridges, no shells. Bloody battles day after day, difficult marches day after day, endless fatigue - physical and moral; sometimes timid hopes, sometimes hopeless horror.”

On May 7, 1915, another tragedy occurred. After the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, this apparently became the last cup of patience for the United States. In fact, the death of the Titanic can or cannot be linked to the beginning of the First World War, but few people know that in 1915 the loss of the passenger ship Lusitania occurred, which accelerated America's entry into the First World War. On May 7, 1915, the Lusitania was torpedoed by the German submarine U-20.

The crash killed 1,197 people. Probably by this time the patience of the United States in relation to Germany had finally burst. On May 21, 1915, the White House finally announced to the German ambassadors that this was an “Unfriendly Step.” The public exploded. Anti-German sentiments were supported by pogroms and attacks on German shops and stores. Outraged civilians from different countries destroyed everything they could to show the extent of the horror they were gripped by. There are still disputes over what the Lusitania carried on board, but nevertheless, all the documents were in the hands of Woodrow Wilson and the decisions were made by the president himself. On April 6, 1917, after yet another investigation into the sinking of the Lusitania, Congress announced that the United States had entered the First World War. In principle, “Conspiracy Theories” are sometimes adhered to by researchers of the Titanic disaster, however, there is this point in relation to the Lusitania. Time will tell what actually happened there in both the first and second cases. But the fact remains that 1915 became a year of further tragedies for the world.

On May 23, 1915, Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary. In July-August 1915, the Russian essayist, prose writer and writer was in France. At this time he realizes that he needs to go to the front. He constantly corresponds with the poet Maximilian Voloshin at that time, and this is what he writes: “My relatives began to oppose this: “at home they don’t allow me to join the army (especially Lev Borisovich), but it seems to me that as soon as I arrange my money a little business, I'll go. I don’t know why, but there is a growing feeling in me that this is how it should be, regardless of decrees, circulars and sections. Stupid, isn't it?

The French at this time were preparing an offensive near Artois. The war depressed everyone. Nevertheless, Savinkov’s relatives allowed him to go to the front as a war correspondent. On August 23, 1915, Nicholas II assumed the title of Commander-in-Chief. This is what he wrote in his diary: “Slept well. The morning was rainy; in the afternoon the weather improved and it became quite warm. At 3.30 I arrived at my Headquarters, one mile from the mountains. Mogilev. Nikolasha was waiting for me. After talking with him, the gene accepted. Alekseev and his first report. Everything went well! After drinking tea, I went to explore the surrounding area.”

From September there was a powerful Allied offensive - the so-called third Battle of Artois. By the end of 1915, the entire front actually became one straight line. In the summer of 1916, the Allies began to wage an offensive campaign on Sonma.

In 1916, Savinkov sent home the book “In France during the War.” However, in Russia this work had very modest success - most Russians were sure that Russia needed to get out of the First World War.

Text: Olga Sysueva