The Great Retreat was a strategic withdrawal on the Eastern Front of World War I in 1915. The Imperial Russian Army gave up the salient in Galicia and Poland. The Russians' critically under-equipped and (at the points of engagement) outnumbered forces suffered great losses in the Central Powers' July–September summer offensive operations, this leading to the Stavka ordering a withdrawal to shorten the front lines and avoid the potential encirclement of large Russian forces in the salient. While the withdrawal itself was relatively well conducted, it was a severe blow to Russian morale.