Oil Fires of the First World War: Military Use and Destruction of Galicia’s Fuel Industry

Abstract

During the First World War, the Russian army was faced with the task of developing areas captured from the adversary and sought to integrate the new territorial acquisitions into the Russian economy while simultaneously adapting them for effective warfare. At the time of its occupation by the Russian troops, Austrian Galicia already existed as a fully-formed industrial landscape dominated by private and state-controlled oil fields and refineries. The environmental situation in Galicia had remained extremely problematic over several decades preceding the First World War due to intensive oil extraction and manufacturing of petroleum products. The Russian administration which largely ignored the environmental issues (or, rather, exacerbated them) attempted to resume oil mining in Galicia and organize the production and distribution of petrol, kerosene, and fuel oil to supply the urban centers as well as the army and railways. However, the 1915 Gorlice – Tarnów offensive by the German army prevented Russia from taking full advantage of the Galician oil production capacities and prompted the Russian commandment to apply the scorched earth tactic. Special military units were ordered to destroy most drilling rigs, oil reservoirs, and refineries around Boryslav and Drohobych. Official reports and testimonies by eyewitnesses provide a striking picture of demolition on a vast territory to the west and southwest of Lviv. The documentary and historiographical sources lack consensus as to the actual number of facilities destroyed and the overall damage caused to the country’s economy during the retreat of the Russian troops in April–May 1915. This study aims, firstly, to identify the key features of these events, and secondly, to explore the development of the Galician combat landscape, whose elements morph into “combat formations”, equally fit for productive activity and total (self-)destruction during warfare.