| Great Retreat | |||||||||
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| Part of the Eastern Front of World War I | |||||||||
&sq=Facebook&lang=en&file=File:%D0%9A%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%B8_%D0%B2_%D0%B3%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%B9%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B9_%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%BD%D0%B5_(1916).jpg) Russian withdrawal in 1915. | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Austria-Hungary | |||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
 Wilhelm II Erich von Falkenhayn Paul von Hindenburg Erich Ludendorff August von Mackensen Franz Joseph I Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf |
 Nicholas II Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhail Alekseyev Nikolai Ivanov Aleksei Brusilov | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
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Initially: Central Powers 2,411,353 men[1] Including: 1,165,352 Germans[2] |
Initially: 2,975,695 men[1] | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
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13 July – 28 August 1915: German Empire: 239,975[3] KIA, MIA, WIA Austria-Hungary: 118,659[3] KIA, MIA, WIA |
13 July – 28 August 1915: Total: 1,005,911 [5] 96,820 KIA 429,742 WIA 479,349 MIA lost:[4] 1,115 machine guns 3,205 guns | ||||||||
The Great Retreat was a strategic withdrawal and evacuation on the Eastern Front of World War I in 1915. The Imperial Russian Army gave up the salient in Galicia and the Polish Congress Kingdom. The Russian Empire's critically under-equipped military suffered great losses in the Central Powers' July–September summer offensive operations, which led to the Stavka ordering a withdrawal to shorten the front lines and avoid the potential encirclement of large Russian forces in the salient. While the withdrawal itself was relatively well-conducted, it was a severe blow to Russian morale.