Riga offensive (1917)

Riga offensive
Part of the Eastern Front of the First World War
German troops entering Riga
Date 1–5 September 1917 Location banks of the river Mazā Jugla near Riga and Ikšķile (Uexküll). 56°58′10″N 24°19′24″E / 56.96944°N 24.32333°E / 56.96944; 24.32333 Result German victory Territorial changes German capture Riga
Belligerents
Germany	Russia
Commanders and leaders
Oskar von Hutier Georg Bruchmüller	Vladislav Klembovsky Dmitri Parsky
Units involved
8th Army	12th Army
Strength
60.000	192.000
Casualties and losses
4,200 casualties[1]	25,000 casualties[1] 9,000 captured[2]

The Riga offensive, also called the Battle of Jugla or the Battle of Riga (German: Schlacht um Riga), took place in early September 1917 and was last major campaign on the Eastern Front of World War I before the Russian Provisional Government and its army began disintegrating.

The battle was fought between Oskar von Hutier's German Eighth Army and Dmitri Parsky's Russian Twelfth Army. The Russian forces in Latvia were under the command of Vladislav Klembovsky's Northern Front,^[a] tasked with guarding the approaches to the Russian capital Petrograd. The Imperial German Army advanced through most of Lithuania and southern Latvia during the Russian Great Retreat in the summer of 1915, putting them in the vicinity of one of the largest industrial cities of the Russian Empire. The Twelfth Army was then tasked with defending Riga, though the situation on the northern frontier of the Eastern Front remained static until early 1917.

German quartermaster-general Erich Ludendorff gave the order for an offensive in the direction of Riga in early August 1917, shortly after defeating the Kerensky offensive, with the goal of pressuring Russia to accept a peace deal. Having anticipated the German attack, the Russian high command and General Klembovsky gave the order to abandon the bridgehead on the opposite side of the Dvina river near Riga on 20 August 1917. Preparations were made to abandon the city as well.

The German Eighth Army began its attack on 1 September, crossing the Dvina river south of the fortified Russian positions around the city. It was then split into two forces, with one attacking a nearby Russian corps that was threatening the bridgehead, while another advanced north along the river towards Riga. Most of the combat took place between with the former, near the Dvina bridgehead, when the Germans struck Russian positions further to the northeast along the Jugla river. Meanwhile, the second German force entered Riga with little resistance. But the fighting in the south and the march to Riga bought enough time for most of the Russian Twelfth Army to retreat from the city intact. The Germans captured only 9,000 Russian soldiers and overall the casualties were minimal on both sides.

The fall of Riga weakened the Russian front line along the Baltic Sea, bringing German forces closer to Petrograd, and was followed by Operation Albion, a German amphibious landing on several islands in the Baltic. The offensive was also the first large scale use of stormtrooper infantry tactics by the German Army, which had been pioneered by Oskar von Hutier, before their use in the West during the 1918 spring offensive.

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