Map of the Eastern Front, mid-July, 1915 from The Capture of Novo Georgievsk, Volume 8 of the Reichsarchive history Battles of the World War.
"The Russian army lost 100,000 men in [the Battle of Lake Narotch]—as well as 12,000 men who died of frostbite. The Germans claimed to have lifted 5,000 corpses from their wire. They themselves lost 20,000 men.Lake Narotch was, despite appearances, one of the decisive battles of the First World War. It condemned most of the Russian army to passivity. Generals supposed that, if 350,000 men and a thousand guns, with 'mountains' of shell to use, had failed, then the task was impossible—unless there were extraordinary quantities of shell."
The Battle of Lake Narotch, which had begun on March 18, ended on April 14, 1916. Russia, which had suffered more than other major combatants from its shell shortage, was finally producing and importing weapons sufficient for its needs. This did not change the fact that its military leadership was not up to the command and control task it faced. Our author, Norman Stone, refers to the Lake Narotch offensive as 'the last real effort by the old Russian army' in which infantry and artillery failed to coordinate their efforts, different armies failed to work together, and those in command demonstrated no tactical ability. The new Russian army, exemplified by Alexsei Brusilov, would take the field in June.
The Eastern Front, 1914-1917 by Norman Stone, page 231, copyright © 1975 Norman Stone, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1975
1916-04-14, 1916, April, Battle of Lake Narotch, Lake Narotch, Narotch, Eastern Front, Russia
