The Greatest Modern Battle You've Never Heard Of

Russian Infantry -- WWI

If you had to name which battle since the time of Napoleon resulted in the largest number of casualties and had significant international repercussions, what would you name? Napoleon's Waterloo (50k casualties) in 1816 or Leipzig (124k) in 1813? Perhaps the U.S. Civil War battles of Antietam (26k) in 1862 or Gettysburg (51k) in 1863? Small potatoes. Moving into the 20th century, how about the horrific conflicts during World War I, such as the First Battle of the Marne (513k) in 1914, Verdun (976k) in 1916, the Battle of the Somme (1.2 million) in 1916, or the Third Battle of Ypres (585,000) in 1917? You still would not have named the battle with the greatest casualty amounts. 

World War II brought even more massive devastation, and I'm sure you would mention the Battle of Stalingrad (1.8 million) in 1943, Battle of the Bulge (186k) in 1944-45, or the Battle of Okinawa (150k) in 1945. If you had named any of the above conflagrations, you still would not have named the massive 2-month battle that resulted in over 2.4 million casualties and brought down three empires! Here is the story:  

The Brusilov Offensive

General Alexsey Brusilov

During World War I, the German Empire was moving steadily toward Paris on the Western Front near Verdun, and Italy was about to collapse under pressure from the Austro-Hungarian Empire at Trentino. France, Italy, and Britain therefore pleaded for their ally, the Russian Empire, to launch an offensive in the east to draw away German and Austrian forces.

On 4 June 1916, the Russians launched the Brusilov Offensive, named after its commanding general, Aleksey Brusilov. Brusilov used 55 divisions (633,000 soldiers) to attack Austrian forces over a 300-mile front in the area that is now around the Ukrainian towns of Lemberg, Kovel, and Lutsk. The Austrians defended initially with 49 divisions (467,000 soldiers), later reinforced with another 15 German divisions.  

By the time the offensive and counterattacks ground to a halt in early August, the Austrians had lost over 1.5 million men killed, wounded, and missing, including 400,000 prisoners. Their German allies lost 350,000 men. The Russians lost another million men of their own.  

The assault obtained its intended strategic goals: The Germans halted their offensive in Verdun, saving France and turning the tide on the Western Front; and the Austrians pulled troops out of its conflict with Italy, providing Italy with the capability to counterattack. In fact, the losses sustained by Austria in the battle effectively knocked it out of the war as a viable entity, and led to the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918. Having lost the momentum in the West, the Germans could not recover, and the German Empire also collapsed. Perceiving the weakening of its traditional rival Austria, Romania joined the war on the side of Entente alliance in August 1916.  

Unfortunately, the "victorious" Russians also suffered from the immensity of their own severe losses. Approximately 60,000 soldiers deserted during the campaign, and the Russian Army and people were exhausted by war and its crippling costs on the economy and social structures. In addition, Romania, Russia's new ally, immediately was overrun by Austrian-German forces, so Russia had to give up its recent gains to come to Romania's assistance. Within 6 months of the end of the Brusilov Offensive, revolution swept Tsar Nicolas II from power, the Russian Empire collapsed, and Russia withdrew from WWI in March 1918.  

So the Brusilov Offensive of June-August 1916 resulted in over 2.4 million casualties and directly led to the dissolution of three empires. Not bad for two months of work. The next question is why have you never heard of this battle?