Christmas Battles
Encyclopedia
Christmas Battles was offensive operation of Russian army
Imperial Russian Army
The Imperial Russian Army was the land armed force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian army consisted of around 938,731 regular soldiers and 245,850 irregulars . Until the time of military reform of Dmitry Milyutin in...

 during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, conducted in the area of city Jelgava
Jelgava
-Sports:The city's main football team, FK Jelgava, plays in the Latvian Higher League and won the 2009/2010 Latvian Football Cup.- Notable people :*August Johann Gottfried Bielenstein - linguist, folklorist, ethnographer...

, Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...

 by 12th. army of the northern front from December 23 (January 5) until December 29 (January 11) 1916 (1917). Army was commanded by Gen. Radko Dimitriev
Radko Dimitriev
Radko Dimitriev was a Bulgarian General, Head of the General Staff of the Bulgarian Army from 1 January 1904 to 28 March 1907.-Biography:...

 and it was opposed by 8th. German army.

Battles took place in swampy region Tīreļpurvs (Tīrelis swamp) between Lake Babīte and Jelgava and main assault force was VI Sibirian rifle corps which included two Latvian Rifleman brigades.

Background

Advance of German 8th. army was stopped near Riga
Riga
Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...

 in october 1915. Almost immediately german forces started to fortify their positions. Huge, 30km. long wall
Wall
A wall is a usually solid structure that defines and sometimes protects an area. Most commonly, a wall delineates a building and supports its superstructure, separates space in buildings into rooms, or protects or delineates a space in the open air...

 (so called:German Wall) from sand and wood was constructed across Tīreļpurvs which separated both armies for more than a year.
Russian 12th. army before attack was divided in the three groups. Main task force was Babīte group which consisted from 48 battalions
Battalion
A battalion is a military unit of around 300–1,200 soldiers usually consisting of between two and seven companies and typically commanded by either a Lieutenant Colonel or a Colonel...

 and 208 cannon
Cannon
A cannon is any piece of artillery that uses gunpowder or other usually explosive-based propellents to launch a projectile. Cannon vary in caliber, range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire, and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees,...

. On the opposite side was 19 german battalions from 6th. Landwehr-Brigade. Core of the Babīte group consisted from VI Sibiran corps. which included both Latvian Rifleman brigades.

Battle

After the failure of the 1916th. campaigns on the Romanian
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

 territory the Russian commanders of the 12th. army received an order to attack on the Riga front. It was planned to attract the German reserve troops, thus helping their allies to resist on the Verdun
Battle of Verdun
The Battle of Verdun was one of the major battles during the First World War on the Western Front. It was fought between the German and French armies, from 21 February – 18 December 1916, on hilly terrain north of the city of Verdun-sur-Meuse in north-eastern France...

 battlefield. In the 1916th mid-December frost started, making it possible to navigate through the frozen bog
Bog
A bog, quagmire or mire is a wetland that accumulates acidic peat, a deposit of dead plant material—often mosses or, in Arctic climates, lichens....

 and to force German fortifications. It was quickly decided to launch an attack at Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...

. The main objective was to take Jelgava (Mitau).

The attack started on the early morning 23.december (5.january) and surpised the Germans
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

, who thought that Russian troops would be celebrating Christmas.
Latvian Riflemen were the advance guard of the Russian army and their main task was to take the first German lines and clear the way for the main forces.
Riflemen used their white winter outfits and cover of the heavy snowstorm to cut passages through the German barbed wire
Barbed wire
Barbed wire, also known as barb wire , is a type of fencing wire constructed with sharp edges or points arranged at intervals along the strand. It is used to construct inexpensive fences and is used atop walls surrounding secured property...

 barriers. After that, the main forces of the two Latvian rifleman brigades rushed forward and in the surprise attack, without any artillery support, crossed the German wall and after brief fighting took the first German battle line.
The battle continued the next two days with varying success as all Latvian units were involved in heavy fighting and German forces received their first reinforcements from Jelgava. After a bloody fight the German second defensive line at Mangali homestead was broken. However, further attacks stopped as the Russian commander-in-chief had no reinforcements and 17th Siberian regiment refused to go to battle. This decision was supported by several other units from the II and VI Siberian Army Corps.

The Germans, however, received strong reinforcements from Jelgava and soon started to counter-attack Russian and Latvian positions. Despite low temperatures (-35 °C), Latvian riflemen managed to hold back German attacks for 48 hours.
On the 25th. December (7. January) Russian troops launched an attack on heavily fortified sand dunes on the northern side of the Tirelpurvs. Central part of those fortifications was a fortified hill, which later got the name Ložmetejkalns (Machine-gun hill).
On Christmas morning 3rd. and 7th. the Latvian rifleman regiment, together with the 53rd. Siberian regiment, suffering heavy losses, was able to partly besiege German forces.
The 2nd. Latvian Rifleman brigade attacked from the back and thus finally broke the German resistance at Machine-gun hill. Many German soldiers managed to retreat but about 1000 were taken prisoners. It was the biggest Russian victory at the Riga front and the German army lost one of its strongest fortifications.

Overall, the German lines were inflicted a more than 7 km. wide gap. However, the command of the 12th. Russian army did not organize a follow-up attack, perhaps because it was not ready for the Latvian Riflemen success.

January battles-German counterattack

After partly defeat in the Christmas battles, German 8th. army organized counterattack to conquer back lost positions. Germans got strong reinforcements and many fresh divisions
Division
-Mathematics:*Division , the inverse of multiplication*Division , digital implementation of mathematical division*Division, in relational algebra-Science:*Cell division, the process in which biological cells multiply...

 was stationed in Jelgava.
On the early morning 23rd. January started massive artillery fire which was soon followed by infantry attack in the whole battle line. Main german forces consisted from 1st. Reserve division (1. Reserve-Division) and 2nd. infantry division (2. Infanterie-Division). They attacked across Tirelis swamp against latvian and russian positions. Latvian Rifleman and Sibirians desperately defended their positions for three days. Russians tried to launch three counter attacks, but all of them failed. In one of those counter attacks latvian riflemans were forced to attack across open field against german machine guns and thus suffered heavy losses (especially 3rd. Kurzeme regiment).
Temperature dropped until -38°C and both sides was unable to continue active warfare.
Germans managed to conquer back 4/5 of their lost positions, although Machine-gun hill stayed in the hands of russians.

Aftermath

Christmas battles brought to the Latvian riflemen capable warrior fame, but also huge losses as the Latvian Riflemen lines declined by more than a third (Latvian riflemens lost about 9000 soldiers
Soldier
A soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...

). Christmas eve's battle slogan of liberation of Jelgava and all of Courland
Courland
Courland is one of the historical and cultural regions of Latvia. The regions of Semigallia and Selonia are sometimes considered as part of Courland.- Geography and climate :...

 was proved to be just a slogan without serious coverage. The heavy casualties resulted in a strong resentment against the Russian generals and the Tsar among the riflemen. This resentment led to an increased support for the Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....

s, who were advocating an end to the war.
However 12th. Army Command severely punished Siberian Riflemens, who refused to go to battle - 92 of them were transferred to the war tribunal and condemned to death, but several hundred sent to Siberia.

Today Tirelis swamp and nearby forests is part of Museum of the Christmas Battles which in it's turn is branch of Latvian museum of War. Museum was made to honour latvian riflemans and all other soldiers who fought in the Riga front during First World war. Many of the old trenches is still visible today and there is also many reconstructed fortifications and bunkers
Bunker
A military bunker is a hardened shelter, often buried partly or fully underground, designed to protect the inhabitants from falling bombs or other attacks...

.
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