The Prussian Army's intention to break the stalemate in the southwest did not affect the strategic layout of the Tsarist Government. Marshal Ivanov continued with his previous strategy.
For a war involving millions of participants, the gains and losses on individual battlefields were no longer that significant.
As long as the southwestern front did not collapse entirely, it fell within the acceptable range for the Tsarist Government. Now, they had a more important target—Smolensk.
No matter how well-prepared the Prussian Army was, war always resulted in deaths.
Smolensk had become a meat grinder, with nearly a thousand men falling every day. The brutal casualties, whether for the Russian Army or the Prussian Army, were a difficult test for both.
After one month of warfare to take Smolensk, the Russian Army's casualties had already exceeded one hundred thousand; as the defenders, the Prussian Army didn't fare much better, suffering upwards of seventy thousand casualties.
