Summer Campaign of 1915 – August-September. EAST The Galizien Sturm offensive has now slowed to a crawl, while the Russian forces of General Aleksei Brussilov have retreated to Galicia and the Western Ukraine, abandoning their drives in Budapest and Vienna. The Germans, under the command of General Paul von Hindenburg, are now switching to a defensive form of warfare, as they are additionally faced with new offensives, one on the Lithuanian (German occupied) fortress of Kaunas and the Brest Litovsk fortress they conquered a month earlier. Meanwhile, German General August Mackensen’s attack on the Przemysl Fortress continues but cannot break through the stout Russian defensive lines. While the Galizien Sturm offensive has reached its main objective of stopping the Russian offensive on Austria-Hungary, it now faces the brunt of the Russian forces, attacking with millions of men. The fight for the Black Sea rages on, and Kolchak wants to fight some more, but German-Ottoman admiral Wilhelm Souchon is now looking West following the results of Operation Hydra in the Central Mediterranean. In the Middle East, the British advance to a small town called Ctesiphon, where the Ottomans are waiting to give battle. The ultimate prize of the campaign (Baghdad) lies just to the north. In the Sinai, the Entente forces are also poised to start making a play for Palestine, while Winston Churchill thinks about attacking the Turks where it hurt, in the Dardanelles, and the fighting in the Caucasus is rekindled by the Turks to try and take the town of Batum on the Black Sea shores. WEST The terrible strategic defeat of Elba and Otranto forces the Entente to retire from the Central Mediterranean. The Central power fleets are now assembled in Sicily, and the battered French fleets limp home to Southern France. Now, the Italo-Germans will be able to reinforce Libya and threaten French North Africa and Egypt from the West. The fight for France is about to increase in intensity with the recent arrival of the Big Red One American division and several U.S. shell ammo shipments, the Entente really needs to go on the offensive again. As the fight for Verdun and the Fort de Vaux rages on, General Ferdinand Foch and his British counterpart (Douglas Haig) will launch an attack that will shock the German high command, already having its hands full trying to cope with the Russian hordes in the East. Franz von Hipper’s raiding fleet continued to elude its numerous pursuers and sails to Cameroun in Western Africa, with the U.S. Fleet and the German Western Mediterranean Squadron hot on his heels. In the Baltic and following its victory at Dantzig, the German Kaiserliche Marine now sails to the Gulf of Finland to attack the Russian Navy in its Kronstadt base. All through it, all men fight and die. Men like Dimitri Fedorov in Przemysl, Oskar Dantz of the Infanterie-Regiment Graf Schwerin in Verdun, or else fighter Armand Bonnier and Italian soldier Enrico, amongst others, fight with the desperation of men wanting to win and live. Above them, officers like Lavr Kornilov and German General von Kneussl also fight with their units on the East Front for supremacy on the battlefield. This is the story of the Great War that might have been.