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After the Chantilly agreement of December 1915 and the March 1916 disaster at Lake Naroch, launched to help the French at Verdun, General Alexei Brusilov pitched an offensive on the southwestern front at an April war council. Tsar Nicholas II approved it over the objections of General Alexei Evert, but Evert and Kuropatkin gave no real support. Lacking numbers, Brusilov sent fake radio traffic, let couriers with false orders be captured and built dummy artillery from logs, while his men dug trenches as close as 100 meters to Austro-Hungarian lines and carved huge shelters underground.

On June 4, 1916, a brief barrage from presighted guns, calculated for wind, temperature, pressure and barrel wear, opened 24 breaches, and infantry followed a creeping barrage. Attacking along a wide front froze Austro-Hungarian reserves. Then Alexander von Linsingen’s German divisions arrived, Evert attacked a month late, and the drive bogged down at Kovel and in autumn mud. Casualties reached about 1.5 million. The victory relieved Verdun and Italy, drew Romania into the war, made Austria-Hungary subordinate to Germany and fed the 1917 revolution.

• Underground caverns measured 300 meters long and 90 meters wide.
• Troops tunneled beneath their own barbed wire to attack silently.
• The Austro-Hungarian Fourth Army fell from about 118,000 effectives to 35,000 in four days.
• Evert lost 80,000 men to advance five kilometers.
• German stormtroopers of 1918 and later Soviet deep battle doctrine drew on Brusilov’s methods.