Qualla: Battle of Vilnius (1915) https://qualla.com/battle-of-vilnius-1915 en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:35 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/u/9/f/9/battle-of-vilnius-1915-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Battle of Vilnius (1915) https://qualla.com/battle-of-vilnius-1915 Battle of Vilnius (1915): Introduction https://qualla.com/battle-of-vilnius-1915/ Photo credit Probably N.N. Golovine, Possibly A. M. Nikolaieff, Public domain. By the autumn of 1915 the German High Command had a problem and a temptation. The summer offensive on the Eastern Front - the Great Retreat, as Russian historiography would later call it - had pushed the Tsar's armies hundreds of kilometers back from Poland and Lithuania. Hindenburg's army group had taken Kaunas, taken the great fortress at Novogeorgievsk, and was now standing at the gates of Vilnius. The temptation was to keep pressing east and finally knock Russia out of the war. The problem was that Falkenhayn, the chief of the German General Staff, had already decided to send twelve divisions to fight in Serbia and to reinforce the line in France. With his remaining strength, Hindenburg launched what is now called the Vilnius operation - a cavalry-led breakthrough north of the city designed to encircle the entire Russian Tenth Army. It almost worked.

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Image: Probably N.N. Golovine, Possibly A. M. Nikolaieff | Public domain

]]> Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/9/f/9/battle-of-vilnius-1915-wp/u9f9-battle-of-vilnius-1915-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Battle of Vilnius (1915): The line that had to hold https://qualla.com/battle-of-vilnius-1915/ Photo credit Probably N.N. Golovine, Possibly A. M. Nikolaieff, Public domain. In late August 1915 the Russian army on the Eastern Front was reorganized in the middle of a retreat. The old Northwestern Front was split into two: a Northern Front to cover the routes to Petrograd, and a Western Front to defend the Vilnius-Grodno-Brest line. General Mikhail Ale...

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Image: Probably N.N. Golovine, Possibly A. M. Nikolaieff | Public domain

]]> Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/9/f/9/battle-of-vilnius-1915-wp/u9f9-battle-of-vilnius-1915-the-line-that-had-to-hold.mp3 0:06 2 full Battle of Vilnius (1915): The Sventiany breakthrough https://qualla.com/battle-of-vilnius-1915/ Photo credit Probably N.N. Golovine, Possibly A. M. Nikolaieff, Public domain. On 1 September the German Eighth and Twelfth Armies attacked Grodno; on 3 September German troops broke into the fortress and the Russian garrison retreated, abandoning six heavy guns and 3,600 prisoners. On 9 September the German Tenth Army punched through Russian positions at S...

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Image: Probably N.N. Golovine, Possibly A. M. Nikolaieff | Public domain

]]> Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/9/f/9/battle-of-vilnius-1915-wp/u9f9-battle-of-vilnius-1915-the-sventiany-breakthrough.mp3 0:06 3 full Battle of Vilnius (1915): The breakthrough that ran out of horses https://qualla.com/battle-of-vilnius-1915/ Photo credit Probably N.N. Golovine, Possibly A. M. Nikolaieff, Public domain. Then it stopped. Two things happened at once. First, the German High Command, which had been treating the eastern operation as a finishing move, began pulling divisions out to send to Serbia and to the Champagne and Artois fronts in France - twenty-three divisions in total left R...

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Image: Probably N.N. Golovine, Possibly A. M. Nikolaieff | Public domain

]]> Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/9/f/9/battle-of-vilnius-1915-wp/u9f9-battle-of-vilnius-1915-the-breakthrough-that-ran-out-of-horses.mp3 0:06 4 full Battle of Vilnius (1915): What was lost, what was held https://qualla.com/battle-of-vilnius-1915/ Photo credit Probably N.N. Golovine, Possibly A. M. Nikolaieff, Public domain. By the time the line stabilized in November, the Germans had captured 95,885 prisoners, 37 guns, 298 machine guns, and one aircraft. They had taken Vilnius and Baranavichy. They had failed to take Dvinsk. They had failed, more importantly, to do what Falkenhayn and Hindenburg had...

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Image: Probably N.N. Golovine, Possibly A. M. Nikolaieff | Public domain

]]> Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/9/f/9/battle-of-vilnius-1915-wp/u9f9-battle-of-vilnius-1915-what-was-lost-what-was-held.mp3 0:06 5 full