page_title: Operation Faustschlag
section_title: Offensive
hierarchical_section_title: Operation Faustschlag / Offensive
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Последствия Брестского мира: германские войска под командованием генерала фон Эйхгорна заняли Киев. Видна вывеска киевского отделения Коммерческого банка в Варшаве. Март 1918 года.
context_page_description: The Operation Faustschlag, also known as the Eleven Days' War, was a Central Powers offensive in World War I. It was the last major action on the Eastern Front.
  Russian forces were unable to put up any serious resistance due to the turmoil of the Russian Revolution and subsequent Russian Civil War. The armies of the Central Powers therefore captured huge territories in the Baltics, Belarus, and Ukraine, forcing the Bolshevik government of Russia to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
context_section_description: On 18 February, the German and Austro-Hungarian forces started a major three-pronged offensive against the Soviets with 53 divisions. The northern force advanced from Pskov towards Narva, the central force pushed towards Smolensk, and the southern force towards Kiev.
  The northern force, consisting of 16 divisions, captured the key Daugavpils junction on the first day. This was soon followed by the capture of Pskov and securing Narva on 28 February. The central forces of the 10th Army and XLI corps advanced towards Smolensk. On 21 February Minsk was captured together with the headquarters of the Western Army Group. The Southern forces broke through the remains of the Russian Southwestern Army Group, capturing Zhitomir on 24 February. Kiev was secured on 2 March, one day after the Ukrainian Central Rada troops had arrived there.
  Central Powers armies had advanced over 150 miles (240 km) within a week, facing no serious Soviet resistance. German troops were now within 100 miles (160 km) of Petrograd, forcing the Soviets to transfer their capital to Moscow. The rapid advance was described as a "Railway War" (der Eisenbahnfeldzug) with German soldiers using Russian railways to advance eastward. General Hoffmann wrote in his diary on 22 February:
  It is the most comical war I have ever known. We put a handful of infantrymen with machine guns and one gun onto a train and rush them off to the next station; they take it, make prisoners of the Bolsheviks, pick up few more troops, and so on. This proceeding has, at any rate, the charm of novelty.
caption: German troops in Kiev, March 1918.
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