In this alternate timeline, the Central Powers had a more succesful 1915, starting with a more comprehensive victory at the econd Batle of Ypres, continuing with the Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive (especially at Jaslo and Rzeszow) and finally a more decicise Serbian Campaign. For 1916 Germany believes that Russia can be knocked out and therefore adopts a defensive strategy in the West to absorb the larger Somme Offensive of the Entente.

In this alternate 1916 campaign, Chief of the German General Staff Erich von Falkenhayn abandons the Verdun concept and instead focuses on the destruction of Russia as the decisive act of the year. Reinforced by German formations not consumed at Verdun, Germany launches the Eichhorn Offensive, named after General Hermann von Eichhorn, commander of the German 10th Army and de facto operational leader of the central thrust.

The German plan relied on coordinated advances along a broad arc from the Baltic to the Pripet Marshes. In the north, Army Group Lauenstein moved from the Mitau sector, gradually compelling Russian forces back toward Riga. South of it, the German Eighth Army drove toward Daugavpils, securing the crossings of the Daugava and unhinging the Russian defensive line protecting the Baltic hinterland. The Tenth Army, the offensive’s central spearhead under General von Eichhorn, pushed through Molodechno and Borisov and advanced along the main rail and road corridors toward Minsk. This thrust struck the seam between the Russian Tenth and Second Armies and proved the most strategically significant element of the campaign. To the south, the German Twelfth Army and the mixed German-Austrian Südarmee attacked near Baranovichi and the marshy Polesia region, exploiting weakened Russian dispositions and preventing any coherent counterstroke. Army Group Linsingen and the Austro-Hungarian armies further south, though not part of the main effort, fixed large Russian forces by retaking ground lost in 1915 and threatening Lutsk and Tarnopol, thereby preventing Russia from shifting reserves north to stabilize the Minsk axis.

The Russian North-Western and Western Fronts attempted to slow the advance by reinforcing the threatened sectors with forces initially planned for offensive actions in the south, but their reserves were uncoordinated and their leadership strained by the rapid loss of key railway junctions. Cities such as Molodechno, Borisov, Minsk, and Daugavpils fell one after another, and German units probed toward the line running from Polotsk to Vitebsk. The Russian armies, though not destroyed, were compelled into a deep withdrawal toward Smolensk and Gomel. In the Baltic, the retreat created a long salient that threatened Riga, while in the center the loss of Minsk dismantled Russian logistical coherence in Belarus.

By late summer the offensive had reached the limits of its operational reach. Supply lines were extended, the terrain east of Minsk favoured defense. The Russians were deeply shaken but not yet collapsing. The loss of Minsk and the deep retreat was the last straw for the Tsar as supreme commander and would lead to a political shakeup in Petrograd, including peace feelers via neutral Sweden, Siwtzerland and the United States.