Offensive
Starting on July 1, 1917 the Russian troops attacked the Austro-Hungarian and German forces in Galicia, pushing toward Lviv. The operations involved the Russian 11th, 7th and 8th Armies against the Austro-Hungarian/German South Army (General Felix Graf von Bothmer) and the Austro-Hungarian 7th and 3rd Armies.
Initial Russian success was the result of powerful bombardment, such as the enemy never witnessed before on the Russian front. Most of the artillery used was from Britain and Japan. The Austrians did not prove capable of resisting this bombardment, and the broad gap in the enemy lines allowed the Russians to advance without encountering any resistance. But the German forces proved to be much harder to root out, and their stubborn resistance resulted in heavy casualties amongst the attacking Russians. As Russian losses mounted, demoralization of infantry soon begin to tell, and the further successes were only due to the work of cavalry, artillery and special "shock" battalions, which general Kornilov had formed. The other troops, for the most part, refused to obey orders. Soldiers' committees discussed whether the officers should be followed or not. Even when a division did not flatly refuse to fight, no orders were obeyed without preliminary discussion by the divisional committee, and even when the latter decided to obey orders it was usually too late to be of any use.
The Russian advance collapsed altogether by July 16. On July 19 the Germans and Austro-Hungarians counterattacked, meeting little resistance and advancing through Galicia and Ukraine as far as the Zbruch River. The Russian lines were broken on July 20, and by July 23, the Russians had retreated about 240 kilometers (Vinny). "The only limit to the German advance was the lack of the logistical means to occupy more territory".
Read more about this topic: Kerensky Offensive
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