So I want you to imagine for a second a historical
battle where the losing army essentially achieves
its main goal by running away. Right. But at
the same time, the winning army fundamentally
changes how modern wars are fought, like forever.
It sounds like a total paradox. It really does.
Yeah. But what if I told you that this very same
battle, which lasted only five days, accidentally
acted as a major catalyst for one of the most
significant political upheavals of the 20th century?
It's pretty wild. Welcome to this deep dive.
We are going straight to the source material
today. We're unpacking a comprehensive Wikipedia
article detailing the 1917 Riga Yeah, and you
know, when most people picture the Eastern Front
in World War I, the mind immediately goes to
those completely static lines. Right, the muddy
trenches. Exactly. Muddy trenches or just massive
lumbering offensives where millions of men clash
over a few miles of dirt. Yeah. But the events
around Riga in September 1917, they completely
shatter that mold. It is a terrifyingly dynamic
moment in military history. And our mission for
this deep dive is to explore exactly how this
brief five day battle served as a testing ground
for revolutionary military tactics and how the
fallout from this specific clash actually accelerated
the Russian Revolution. It's a huge domino effect.
OK, let's unpack this. Looking at that map of
1917 Eastern Europe, you've got pulled up behind
you. We really need to understand the geography.
Yeah, the geography and the geopolitical context
are key here. Right. before the first shot is
even fired. For sure. Because to understand the
bizarre reality of the Russian front by late
summer of 1917, we actually have to rewind the
clock two years. Back to the summer of 1915.
Exactly. The Russian army had suffered through
this massive German and Austro -Hungarian push
known as the Gorlice -Tarnow Offensive. Which
was devastating. It really was. This forced the
Russians into what became known as the Great
Retreat. Right. They had to abandon huge swaths
of territory. We're talking much of Western Belarus
and Lithuania. The front lines shifted drastically
eastward. And a massive gap even opened up around
Vilnius. Right. So the Germans are pushing hard.
They're trying to exploit this chaos. The source
notes the 10th Army under Paul von Hindenburg
tried to drive through that gap to take Minsk.
Because Minsk was a vital communication hub.
Exactly. But the Russians managed to launch counterattacks,
and they eventually forced a new, relatively
static front line. And that new, frozen line
is where our story really begins. Yeah. Because
it left the German troops sitting right on the
doorstep of Riga. Why is Riga so important? I
mean, it wasn't just another city on a map, was
it? Oh, far from it. Riga was one of the absolute
largest industrial centers of the entire Russian
Empire. Wow. Yeah. And it sat right along the
Baltic Sea. It acted as a crucial port and a...
symbolic gateway pointing dangerously close to
the Russian capital, Petrograd. So the stakes
were incredibly high. Unbelievably high. The
Russian high command, the Stavka, cast their
12th army with defending it. OK. But from that
point, in late 1915 until early 1917, that northern
frontier basically froze in place. Just a stalemate.
Exactly. Two massive armies just staring at each
other across heavily fortified defensive lines
for two solid years. But while the physical front
line wasn't moving an inch, the internal situation
back home in Russia was completely exploding.
It was in total freefall. So while these troops
are freezing in trenches staring at the Germans,
what is actually happening back in Petrograd?
The political foundation of the entire empire
is essentially disintegrating beneath their feet.
In March 1917, the February Revolution tears
through the country. Emperor Nicholas II abdicates
the throne. Right. And almost overnight, the
country is thrust into this deeply unstable dual
power struggle. The Provisional Government and
the Soviet. Exactly. On one side, you have the
Russian Provisional Government, which was established
by liberal parties in the state Duma. And on
the other side, you have the Petrograd Soviet,
a council heavily supported by revolutionary
soldiers and the working class in the capital.
It's fascinating looking at the raw historical
documents from both sides here just to see what
they were arguing for. Yeah, it's a stark contrast.
The provisional government, which was eventually
led by Alexander Kerensky, was operating on the
belief that they needed to honor their international
alliances. Keep fighting the war against Germany.
Right. Meanwhile, the Petrograd Soviet, which
was heavily influenced by revolutionaries and
Bolshevik agitators, was aggressively demanding
an end to the imperialist war. wanted a complete
social revolution. It's a paralyzing contradiction
for a country trying to fight a global conflict.
I mean, we're just stating the historical facts
from the source here, but you can see how impossible
that situation is. Oh, absolutely. And that contradiction
bled directly into the trenches. How so? Well,
the Petrograd Soviet issued a document that would
become infamous. Order number one. Order number
one. Yeah. The single order effectively shattered
traditional military discipline across the entire
Russian armed forces. Wait, how does something
like that actually play out on the ground? Imagine
being a commanding officer on the front line.
Under order number one, your soldiers suddenly
stop following your orders implicitly. Instead,
the enlisted men begin forming their own democratic
committees. You've got to be kidding me. No,
seriously. If you order a unit to march or to
prepare for an attack, The soldiers might literally
hold a committee vote to decide if they feel
like following that order. They're voting on
military tactics. Yes, they stripped officers
of disciplinary power. It was the complete evaporation
of the military hierarchy. That sounds like a
total operational nightmare. You cannot run an
army by committee while heavy artillery is raining
down on you. You absolutely cannot. And the devastating
results of this became undeniable in July 1917
with the Kerensky Offensive. What happened there?
The Provisional Government attempted to launch
a massive push with the Southwestern Front. Despite
some initial fleeting success, it ended in a
catastrophic failure. The soldiers just gave
up. They simply lost the will to fight. And the
troops of the Northern Front, the ones defending
Riga, they were uniquely vulnerable. Because
they were geographically the closest to Petrograd.
Exactly. They were heavily exposed to all this
revolutionary agitation, political fliers, and
speeches coming out of the Capitol. Someone had
to look at this absolute freefall. and try to
pull the nose up. Who steps in to try and stop
the bleeding? General Lav Kornilov. Okay, tell
me about him. He had previously been the head
of the Petrograd Military District, and in July
1917, he was appointed the Army Supreme Commander.
And he was a bit of a hardliner, right? Oh, very
much so. Kornilov was watching the Russian army
disintegrate into armed mobs, and he was determined
to restore strict traditional discipline by any
means necessary. The source mentions he started
imposing incredibly harsh measures following
a series of violent protests in Petrograd, known
as the July Days. Right. What did his crackdown
actually look like? It was brutal. Kornilov reinstated
the death penalty for desertion and insubordination
at the front. Wow. Yeah. He actively tried to
limit the power of those soldier committees,
and he started throwing troops who disobeyed
direct orders straight into prison. He wasn't
messing around. Not at all. He believed that
without an iron fist, the entire nation would
fall to the Germans. Which leads to this incredible
highly tense moment in late August 1917 at the
Moscow State Conference. Right. The warning.
Yeah. Kornilov stands up before the political
leadership and issues a very stark, almost prophetic
warning. He lays it all out. He tells them flat
out if order isn't immediately restored in this
army, the Germans are going to take Riga. And
after they take Riga, the road is wide open for
them to march right into Petrograd. He saw the
writing on the wall. The Russian high command
fully anticipated a major German offensive in
the Riga area before the autumn weather turned
the roads to mud. So they knew it was coming.
They did. Anticipating this, Kornilov, along
with his northern front commander Vladislav Klambovsky
and the 12th Army commander Dmitry Parsky, they
make a massive strategic pivot. What did they
do? They decided to abandon a highly vulnerable
bridgehead they held on the opposite side of
the Dvina River near Riga. To tighten their lines.
Exactly. Klambovsky prepared to evacuate that
bridgehead on August 20th. And the next day,
he even started pulling secondary forces out
of the city itself, preparing for a deep defense.
So Russians are bracing for impact. Let's look
at the other side of the trenches. What is the
German high command plotting while the Russian
army is internally collapsing? The German quartermaster
general Eric Ludendorff and Colonel Max Hoffman
see a golden opportunity. Right. They want the
industrial prize of Riga. Absolutely. But more
importantly, they want to apply such immense,
terrifying pressure on Russia that the provisional
government will be forced to finally accept a
peace deal. They want to knock Russia out of
the war completely. That's the ultimate goal.
So they heavily reinforce the German Eighth Army.
commanded by Oscar von Hutier. What kind of force
are they marshaling for this push? They bring
the Eighth Army up to a massive strength of eight
infantry divisions and two cavalry divisions.
That's huge. Organized into four corps. You are
looking at roughly 60 ,000 highly trained men
preparing to face down three corps of the deeply
demoralized Russian 12th Army. But von Hutier
is a brilliant tactician, isn't he? He is. He
knows better than to just hurl 60 ,000 men directly
at the fortified walls of Rika. Right, because
a direct frontal assault on a fortified city
is exactly what armies had been doing for the
last three years. And it never worked. It usually
just resulted in mountains of casualties for
a few yards of gain. So what is von Hutu's alternative?
He plans a sweeping, flanking maneuver. Instead
of attacking the city head on, he decides to
cross the massive Davina River, about 30 kilometers
south of Riga. Near a place called Iqil. Correct.
If you can punch through there, he can swing
up behind the city and cut off the Russian retreat.
And to punch that hole, the Germans unleash something
truly horrific. The bombardment. On September
1st, 1917, the attack begins not with men charging
over the top, but with an absolute masterclass
in artillery bombardment. Directed by Colonel...
Jorg Bruchmiller. Right. Bruchmiller was a pioneer
of modern artillery tactics. He didn't just want
to bombard the Russians, he wanted to paralyze
them. How did he do that? He coordinated the
fire of 1 ,100 German guns against the relatively
few outdated Russian artillery pieces defending
that river crossing. To put 1 ,100 guns into
perspective, imagine a solid wall of heavy artillery
pieces lined up wheel to wheel for miles in the
forest. It's deafening just to think about. And
it's not just the volume of fire that's terrifying,
is it? No, it is the specific calculated chemistry
of the munitions. Bruckmiller utilized a terrifying
mix. Exploding shells. Right. He would fire high
-explosive shells to physically shatter the Russian
trenches, deafen the defenders, and destroy their
communications. And seamlessly mixed in with
those explosives were chemical gas shells. That's
just awful. It's a nightmare. As the Russian
soldiers dove into the craters to survive the
shrapnel, the heavier -than -air poison gas would
settle into those exact same craters, choking
them out. Nowhere to hide. Exactly. The defenders
at Iqil were completely overwhelmed before they
even saw a single German soldier. Here's where
it gets really interesting. Once that apocalyptic
artillery barrage lifts, the German infantry
begins their advance. The stormtroopers. Yes.
But it looks absolutely nothing like the chaotic,
massive waves of men that define the early years
of World War I. This is the birth of what would
become known as who -tier tactics. The use of
specialized infiltration stormtroopers. Right.
To really grasp how revolutionary this was, imagine
you've been forced to play a rigid, brutal board
game for three years. I'm tracking. The rules
of movement were fixed. You line up tens of thousands
of men in a wide straight line. And at the blow
of a whistle, they mark shoulder to shoulder
directly into enemy machine gunfire, which is
just senseless slaughter. It was slow, predictable
and deadly. Suddenly on the banks of the Divina
River, the Germans completely rewrite the rules
of movement. So how does a stormtrooper unit
actually move across this battered landscape?
It's highly decentralized squad level movement.
Instead of a massive wave, small, heavily armed
teams dash forward independently. Like leapfrogging.
Exactly. One small unit sprints cover to cover,
while another unit hangs back with light machine
guns to provide suppressing fire. Then they swap
roles. And what happens when these small teams
hit a surviving Russian bunker or a heavy machine
gun nest? In 1915, an entire battalion would
have been ordered to stubbornly grind themselves
to dust trying to take that one bunker. Not the
stormtroopers. If they hit a strong point, they
simply bypass it. Just ignore it. They flow around
the resistance like water flowing around a boulder
in a stream. They push deep into the Russian
rear, severing communication lines and causing
absolute panic. leaving the bunkers behind. Right.
They leave those isolated, heavily defended strong
points behind to be mopped up later by the heavier,
slower main infantry forces following in their
wake. Think about why this matters to the broader
history of warfare. This exact tactical shift,
these infiltration strategies pioneered right
here in the mud outside Riga, would soon be exported
across Europe. It changed everything. It fundamentally
changed the geometry of the battlefield. The
Germans would use it against the Italians shortly
after and then unleash it on a terrifying scale
on the Western Front in the spring of 1918. It
was a lethal proving ground and it worked flawlessly.
Following the stormtroopers, the German 19th
Reserve Division, alongside the 22nd and 23rd
Divisions, crossed the river in wooden boats.
Just pouring across. Yeah. They established a
solid bridgehead and immediately begin constructing
massive pontoon bridges. The source provides
this incredible surreal historical detail here.
Oh, right. About Prince Leopold. Yes. Prince
Leopold of Bavaria, who was essentially the supreme
commander of all German forces on the Eastern
Front, a massive administrative region they called
Ober Oost. Right. He personally rides down to
lead the crossing of the Dvina River over these
pontoons facing almost zero opposition. With
the river crossed and the pontoon bridges securing
their supply lines, von Hutier splits his forces.
On September 2nd, he sends his VIA Corps north,
along the riverbank, directly toward the city
of Riga. While his LI Corps pushes northeast
into the countryside. So what is the ultimate
goal of casting this wide net? Encirclement.
Wanhutia doesn't just want the buildings of Riga.
He wants to destroy the Russian army. He wants
the troops. Exactly. He is attempting to cast
a massive net to trap the entire Russian 12th
Army against the coast, cutting off their only
escape routes before they can pull out of the
area. But the Russian 12th Army commander, Dmitry
Parsky, realizes the jaws of the trap are closing.
He knows defending the city itself is completely
pointless now. Right, he has to get out. He orders
Riga to be immediately abandoned, but he has
a massive logistical nightmare on his hands.
He needs time to march the bulk of his 192 ,000
men north out of the encirclement. And time is
running out. And to buy that time, someone has
to stay behind and take the full concentrated
brunt of the German advance. It is a desperate
calculated sacrifice. Parsky turns to the 43rd
Army Corps, commanded by Lieutenant General Vesely
Boldarev. And within that corps, the heaviest
burden falls directly onto the shoulders of the
2nd Latvian Rifle Brigade. The Latvian Riflemen.
Their orders are incredibly simple, but utterly
brutal. Dig in at the Mazagougla River and delay
the advancing German war machine for as long
as humanly possible. While the main body of the
12th Army is desperately streaming out of Riga,
clogging the roads north, these Latvian riflemen
are hastily fortifying the swampy, unforgiving
terrain along the Mazajugla. And the clash that
follows is horrific. It really was. It was an
absolute meat grinder. The Germans threw everything
they had at this thin defensive line. The source
notes the Latvian riflemen faced a relentless
onslaught. They were just getting pounded. Yeah,
they endured intense artillery barrages, firing
chemical gas shells into the wetlands. They faced
German shock troops armed with flamethrowers
clearing the trenches with liquid fire. Unbelievable.
They even endured coordinated aerial attacks
from German planes strafing their positions.
Yet, despite the technological superiority and
the sheer numbers of the Germans, for most of
the day the Latvian riflemen absolutely refused
to break. They held the line. They fought off
multiple determined attempts by the Germans to
cross the river. What does it physically look
like for half a brigade to be wiped out just
to buy hours on a clock? It looks like total
devastation. As the fighting dragged into the
afternoon, the 43rd Army Corps rapidly ran out
of ammunition and medical supplies. The casualties
were massive. The Latvian riflemen in particular
took staggering, almost incomprehensible losses.
Over 50 percent of their troops were either killed
or severely wounded in the mud along that riverbank.
Half of them. Gone. Eventually, the sheer crushing
weight of the German advance pushed through.
and the shattered remnants of the defenders began
a fighting retreat. But their sacrifice actually
worked. By September 3rd, the German forces secure
the city of Riga with very little remaining resistance.
Right. Interestingly, the aristocrats living
in the city, the Baltic Germans, were actually
hoping the invading army would preserve their
old Tsarist -era social status. Which is quite
the detail. Yeah, while the rest of the exhausted
residents were largely indifferent to who was
flying the flag. But the real story of the battle
is that General Parsky's desperate gamble paid
off. It did. Because of the bloody time bought
by the Latvian riflemen at the Mazajugla River,
the vast majority of the Russian troops managed
to escape the encirclement. They got out. Now
they had to abandon huge quantities of their
heavy artillery, their vehicles and their equipment
behind simply because they didn't have the time
or the logistical means to drag it north. But
the men themselves survived. German Colonel Max
Hoffmann himself noted in his personal records
a sense of frustration. Oh, he was annoyed. He
wrote that they captured a mountain of abandoned
artillery and supplies, but they only took around
9 ,000 to 15 ,000 Russian prisoners. Out of nearly
200 ,000. Exactly. When you consider they were
trying to trap that many men, that means the
vast bulk of the Russian 12th Army slipped the
noose. They retreated north to a town called
Wenden and established new defensive positions.
If we connect this to the bigger picture and
looking at how your visual backdrop has shifted
from the trenches to imagery of naval ships and
revolutionary crowds. Yeah, there's a lot going
on. We can see that the ripple effects of this
five day battle are massive, both militarily
and politically. Let's look at the military fallout
first. On paper, the Germans take Riga. They
get their industrial prize. But how does this
reshape the wider war? The fall of Riga severely
weakened the extreme northern flank of the Russian
defensive line along the Baltic Sea. It exposed
them. It pushed the German front perilously close
to the capital of Petrograd, and the Germans
wasted no time capitalizing on this momentum.
In the immediate aftermath, they launched Operation
Albion. The source points out that Operation
Albion is a fascinating military milestone on
its own. Definitely. It was a massive amphibious
landing on several Baltic islands located just
north of the Gulf of Riga. It is actually considered
one of the earliest successful examples in modern
military history of a combined amphibious assault.
Seamlessly utilizing air cover, naval bombardment
and ground forces all working in concert. Exactly.
The tactical innovations were spreading rapidly.
We already mentioned how the Houthir infantry
tactics debuted at Riga were almost immediately
trans... sport itself. And used to devastating
effect against the Italians at the Battle of
Caporetto. Right. The military DNA of the Riga
offensive changed how the rest of the war was
fought. But the political aftermath inside Russia
is where the true earth shattering domino effect
occurs. This is where it gets crazy. Let's go
back to General Kornilov. He had explicitly warned
the government that if they didn't let him restore
harsh discipline Riga would fall. And when Riga
did fall. and the nearby coastal fortress of
Ustavinsk was lost, Kornilov decided he'd seen
enough. He felt totally vindicated in his warnings.
He used the national panic and the humiliation
of losing such a major city as the ultimate justification
to launch a full -scale military coup. He attempts
to violently seize control of Petrograd. Just
before Riga actually fell, he had ordered the
3rd Cavalry Corps to a location near the capital.
Supposedly under the guise of strengthening defenses
against a potential German push. Right, that
was the cover story. But now he orders those
cavalry units to march directly on the Petrograd
Soviet and crush the Bolshevik agitators once
and for all. But the coup. completely and spectacularly
falls apart. Why does a seasoned general fail
to take his own capital with a cavalry corps?
Because the ordinary soldiers simply refuse to
march. They just stopped. The disintegration
of military discipline that began months earlier
with order number one had finally reached its
logical, fatal conclusion. The chickens came
home to roost. Exactly. The enlisted men heavily
influenced by railway workers and Soviet agitators
who met them on the tracks, would not follow
their aristocratic officers in a domestic coup
against their own countrymen. So they just refuse
the orders. Kerensky, the head of the provisional
government, realizes Kornilov is going rogue
and officially removes him from his position
as supreme commander. The coup dissolves without
a major battle, and Kornilov's key conspirators
are thrown in prison. And the political backlash
from this failed coup is the exact moment the
scales of history tip. It changes everything.
Because of the so -called Korneloff affair, the
enlisted men's distrust of their military officers
transforms into absolute hatred. The army is
fundamentally broken. They are completely unwilling
to fight the Germans anymore. And politically,
the landscape shifts overnight. Because the Bolsheviks
were highly visible in organizing the workers
and soldiers to defend Petrograd against this
right -wing military coup, they suddenly surged
in popularity. They look like the defenders of
the people. Yes. They gained the definitive majority
in both the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets. Meanwhile,
the provisional government loses almost all its
remaining legitimacy and support among the troops.
Because Kerensky was perceived as having been
too weak. Too weak or even secretly complicit
with Kornilov before the coup. This raises an
important question. What's that? Would the October
Revolution have happened at all or happened exactly
when it did without the fall of Riga? Wow. A
contemporary newspaper. Novoi Vremya noted at
the time that discipline had rotted so severely
that large numbers of Russian troops in highly
fortified positions couldn't even muster a strong
fight for the city. So the rot was deep. The
battle definitively proved the army was hollowed
out. That undeniable military failure gave Kornelow
the excuse he needed for his coup. And the failure
of that coup handed the political momentum directly
and irreversibly to the Bolsheviks. Exactly.
So what does this all mean? Let's bring all these
threads together. Sure. A relatively brief five
-day offensive in early September 1917 fought
over a city that had been sitting quietly behind
a frozen static front line for two entire years.
Right. It essentially proved to be the grand
rehearsal for modern combined armies. warfare.
The coordinated artillery barrages, blending
gas and high explosives, the infiltration squad
movements flowing around strong points at the
birth of the storm troopers, all of it debuted
in the mud of the Davina River. And simultaneously,
the loss of that very city was the precise trigger
for the Cornell Law of Affair, which completely
shattered whatever fragile grip the provisional
government still had on the country. It broke
the camel's back. It laid the direct, immediate
groundwork for the Bolsheviks to seize power
in the October Revolution just weeks later. It
is a perfect reminder that history is never just
a list of isolated dates and locations in a textbook.
No, it's not. It is a deeply intricate, highly
volatile web. A new squad tactic tested on the
banks of a river leads to a successful encirclement
maneuver. That maneuver forces a desperate, bloody
holding action by Latvian riflemen in a swamp.
That sacrifice results in the abandonment of
a major industrial city. The loss of that city
triggers a hardline general to launch a coup.
The failure of that coup collapses a government
and hands the keys of the empire to revolutionaries.
The success of the Russian 12th Army escaping
the trap at Riga meant that nearly 200 ,000 soldiers
survived the German onslaught. But they survived
only to march back into a massive political firestorm.
That would violently reshape the entire globe
for the rest of the 20th century. Which leaves
us with a fascinating and honestly kind of haunting
final thought for you to mull over. Think about
the men of the Russian 12th Army. They fought
tooth and nail in the freezing mud. The Latvian
riflemen sacrificed half of their brothers in
arms just to hold a line. Half of them. They
abandoned all their heavy artillery, their transport,
their supplies, all to successfully evacuate
Riga and save their own lives from being crushed
in Vanjutio's trap. But what exactly were those
surviving exhausted soldiers retreating towards?
That is the question. If you think about the
timeline, given that their discipline was completely
collapsing and the Bolsheviks would violently
seize power just weeks later, were those men
really just escaping a German prison camp only
to march directly into the complete and total
collapse of their own empire? It's quite a thought.
It's something to think about the next time you
look at a map of a battlefield. Thank you for
joining us on this deep dive. Keep questioning
the hidden connections in history. We'll see
you next time.