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Front (military formation)

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Front (military formation)

A front (Russian: фронт, romanizedfront) is a type of military formation that originates in the Russian Empire, and has been used by the Polish Army, the Red Army, the Soviet Army, and Turkey. It is roughly equivalent to an army group in the military of most other countries. It varies in size but in general contains three to five armies. It should not be confused with the more general usage of military front, describing a geographic area in wartime.

After the outbreak of the First World War, the Russian General Headquarters set up two Fronts: Northwestern Front, uniting forces deployed against German Empire, and Southwestern Front, uniting forces deployed against Austria-Hungary.

In August 1915, Northwestern Front was split into Northern Front and Western Front.

At the end of 1916 Romanian Front was established, which also included remnants of the Romanian army.

In April 1917, Caucasus Front was established by the reorganization of the Caucasus Army.

The Soviet fronts were first raised during the Russian Civil War. They were wartime organizations only, in the peacetime the fronts were normally disbanded and their armies organized back into military districts. Usually a single district formed a single front at the start of the hostilities, or when hostilities were anticipated. Some military districts could not form a front. Fronts were also formed during the Polish-Soviet War of 1920.[citation needed]

The main fronts during the Russian Civil War and Polish-Soviet War were :

Army groups differ from fronts in that a Soviet front typically had its own army-sized tactical fixed-wing aviation organization. According to Soviet military doctrine, the air army was directly subordinated to the front commander (typically a ground commander). The reform of 1935 established that in case of a war the peacetime military districts on the border would split upon mobilisation each into a Front Command (taking control of the district's peacetime military formations) and a Military District Command (which stayed behind with the mission of mobilising the reserve formations and putting them at the disposal of the Fronts as replacement troops).[citation needed] In that sense the Air Armies were under Air Force command in peacetime, but under the command of the Front HQs in wartime; and the Fronts were commanded by ground-forces generals. An entire Front might report either to the Stavka or to a theatre of military operations (TVD). A Front was mobilised for a specific operation, after which it could be reformed and tasked with another operation (including a change of the Front's designation) or it could be disbanded - with its formations dispersed among the other active Fronts and its HQ reintegrated into its original Military District HQ.

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