Attack of the Dead Men
| Attack of the Dead Men | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Eastern Front of World War I | |||||||||
The Russian garrison assembled at the Church of the Osowiec Fortress, 1915. | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
| German Empire | Russian Empire | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
|
Paul von Hindenburg Rudolf von Freudenberg |
Vladimir Kotlinsky † Władysław Strzemiński (WIA) | ||||||||
| Units involved | |||||||||
| 11th Landwehr Division | 226th Zemlyansky Infantry Regiment | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
|
14 battalions
|
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| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| Heavy |
~800 dead from gas (almost all present were wounded or killed) | ||||||||
The Attack of the Dead Men, or the Battle of Osowiec Fortress, was a battle of World War I that took place at Osowiec Fortress (in present-day northeastern Poland), at 4:00 AM on August 6, 1915.
The incident received its grim name from the bloodied, corpse-like appearance of the Russian combatants after German artillery had bombarded them with a mixture of poison gases, chlorine and bromine. While coughing up blood and often pieces of their inner organs, the surviving Russian soldiers covered their faces with cloths, counter-attacked, and routed the German troops.