A History of War in 100 Battles

by Richard Overy

  As Wellington reformed his line, withdrawing some units, Ney thought his opponent was retreating. The French cavalry were now called on to charge the fleeing enemy. They were instead subjected to heavy fire from the forward British cannon even before they reached the crest; once across it they found that Ney had been wrong. Wellington’s infantry were arrayed in thirteen solid squares that proved impenetrable after two hours of exhausting charges, each one made across an ever-growing pile of corpses and horse carcasses. Wellington spurred on his men in person as he moved from square to square, exposing himself to continuous danger. By 6 p.m. the French horsemen had had enough and more infantry were sent in, once more subject to heavy fire from front and flank. News was at last arriving among the French soldiers that the Prussian army was advancing from the left. Napoleon had already sent his Sixth Corps to block the German advance, removing a large part of the French reserve. At 7.30 p.m., with the British line still firm, Napoleon flung in the last of his Imperial Guard but the famed force cracked and Wellington at last ordered a general advance, with the cavalry and his disciplined line of foot overwhelming a broken and exhausted enemy. The Prussians began to arrive at 8 p.m.

  This engraved portrait of the Prussian General Lebhard von Blücher appeared in an early twentieth-century edition of Meyers Lexicon. Blücher arrived towards the end of the Battle of Waterloo, but tied down French forces trying to obstruct the approach of his army.

  ‘Scotland Yet! On to Victory!’ is an iconic image of the Battle of Waterloo by the British-American artist Richard Caton Woodville II (1856-1927), painted in 1904. The picture captures the moment when Major General Ponsonby’s heavy dragoon cavalry, the Scots Greys, charged the French lines of advancing infantry. Swept on by their momentum they crossed the French lines and were decimated by enemy lancers.

  Did the Prussians save the day? The threat certainly worked to force Napoleon to squander his reserves while the news of the Prussian advance demoralized a French army already suffering debilitating casualties. The French had 31,000 killed or wounded, almost half their force. Wellington’s army had 16,200 casualties, 3,500 of them dead. Neither side had given much quarter. But the real damage had been done by the disciplined British line much earlier in the day. Colonel Stanhope of the First Foot Guards welcomed the sight of the Prussian troops but remarked with some justice the next day, ‘The French were beat before but this was a very pretty sight.’ The defeat was comprehensive. Napoleon fled to Paris but his army was broken. Light resistance was swept aside as Wellington and Blücher advanced on the French capital, which they occupied on 7 July. Napoleon ended his days on the Atlantic island of St Helena, wondering where he had gone wrong; Wellington became and has remained Britain’s most celebrated soldier.

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  No. 93 BATTLE OF TANNENBERG

  24-30 August 1914

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  The battle between advancing Russian armies and the depleted German forces in East Prussia just weeks after the outbreak of the First World War was one of the few really decisive battles of the whole conflict. It raises an important historical ‘what if?’ Had Russian armies swept the Germans aside and occupied Berlin, the war might well have been over by Christmas, as so many had hoped. As it was, German victory in an area of heath and forest around the small towns of Frankenau and Orlau (the village of Tannenberg was some distance from the fighting) meant that the German war effort could at least continue, and with it the long and bitter war of attrition that followed. But it was a close-run thing. New commanders were appointed in time to prevent a German disaster and the decisive operation was carried out with no room for mistakes, fully in the knowledge that with one error the path to Berlin would lie open.

  The Russians mobilized and deployed their armies much more rapidly than the Germans had expected. The idea had been to leave a covering force in eastern Germany while France was defeated rapidly in the West, and then to turn the bulk of the German army against Russia. Instead the battle in France became bogged down while two large Russian armies attacked the 14 second-echelon divisions and 774 guns available to General Max von Prittwitz. The Russian 1st Army commanded by General Paul von Rennenkampf had 12 divisions, half of them cavalry, and 492 guns; the 2nd Army under General Alexander Samsonov amounted to 18 divisions and 1,160 guns. Together the 30 divisions and 1,652 guns on the Russian side outnumbered the German enemy by more than two to one.

  The Russian general staff, however, weakened the impact of their larger force by dividing it in two. Rennenkampf was to advance north of the network of the Masurian Lakes into Prussian territory while Samsonov moved south of the lakes with the object of encircling and destroying the German forces as they struggled to contain the threat from Rennenkampf. Once that had happened, the Russian headquarters (Stavka) gambled on being able to sweep into the heart of Germany with little oppostition. The German supreme command told Prittwitz to make limited offensives to try to hold up the Russians, but when he let the headstrong General Hermann von François attack Rennenkampf’s advancing Russians at Gumbinnen on 20 August 1914, the German forces took heavy casualties. Uncertain of the outcome and conscious that Samsonov’s much larger force was moving forward in the south and might cut off and encircle the German 8th Army entirely, Prittwitz ordered a retreat back to the River Vistula. But by this stage Samsonov’s vanguard was already nearing the German rear, creating just the operational conditions the Stavka wanted.

  Two things saved the Germans in the east. On 24 August, Prittwitz was dismissed and replaced by the aged General Paul von Hindenburg (called out of retirement) and the quirky, nervous General Erich Ludendorff, victorious conqueror of the Belgian fortress of Liège a few weeks before. When they arrived, they adopted a plan proposed some days before by Prittwitz’s experienced chief-of-staff, General Max Hoffmann. He suggested sending some of the 8th Army by rail to hit Samsonov’s approaching left wing, while the rest disengaged from the battle with Rennenkampf and marched south to hit Samsonov’s right wing in the flank. The risk was immense, for if Rennenkampf realized that the Germans were moving away, he would pursue them and crush the force between the two Russian armies. But Rennenkampf and Samsonov had a sour professional relationship; communication between the two was poor, while radio messages were transmitted en clair, helping the Germans to calculate exactly how much time they had.

  A ribbon issued to raise funds for the German Red Cross celebrates the victory of Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg over the Russians at the Battle of Tannenberg in August 1914. The battle saved Germany from probable defeat in 1914 and opened the way for a war of stalemate.

  On 23 and 24 August, the movement began, taking all the forces facing Rennenkampf away and turning them south to confront Samsonov. The Russian 2nd Army was tired after an exhausting seven-day march, while supplies were a constant problem, particularly for the large contingent of horses. But Samsonov was also under the illusion that Rennenkampf was still marching westwards (and could thus bring to bear his forces as well) and that the Germans were in retreat back to the Vistula. Russian optimism encouraged him to push forward to try to encircle the fleeing Germans. On 24 August, his advancing army met the German 20th Corps between Orlau and Frankenau and what followed was a confused and unscripted four days of manoeuvre and counter-manoeuvre as each side tried to find a way to envelop the other. Both sides at times thought that the distant sound of battle indicated that Rennenkampf was nearing, but the effect played into German hands. Desperate to finish their envelopment rapidly, German commanders pushed on as fast as they could – in the case of François, in defiance of his orders. Samsonov, on the other hand, thought he could sense German collapse and hoped Rennenkampf would arrive to finish them off.

  Both were wrong. Rennenkampf slowed to a halt, rested and turned north towards the fortified region around Königsberg, leaving Samsonov to battle on his own. His corps became separated from each other and easy prey for German flanking attacks, but the key was the drive into the two wings of the Russian 2nd
Army. Both collapsed and the Russians found themselves encircled. On 28 August, Samsonov knew that he faced a catastrophic defeat. He and his staff retreated to the forest where, like thousands of Russian soldiers, they blundered about in the darkness not knowing where they were. Finally Samsonov slipped away and shot himself rather than face disgrace. His body was found by the Germans two days later. By this time, only 2,000 Russians had escaped in a confused final struggle in which neither side was certain of what had happened. Some 92,000 prisoners and 400 guns were captured and an estimated 50,000 Russians killed.

  The battle was going to be called the Battle of Frögenau, after a nearby settlement. Hoffmann suggested instead taking the name of the village of Tannenberg, once the site of a famous battle between Slavs and Teutonic Knights in 1410 that had halted Prussian advance, a defeat that had now been avenged by modern Germany. Hindenburg became the greatest hero of the war, his gnarled, military portrait displayed everywhere. Victory had not been assured at Tannenberg, but the arrival of Hindenburg and Ludendorff proved just enough to turn the tide. The slender margin of success showed, as so often in battle, that improvization at the last moment can turn imminent disaster into unexpected triumph.

  German troops prepare to fire from the shelter of a long wall in East Prussia during the Battle of Tannenberg, which lasted from 24 to 30 August 1914. Victory over a numerically superior Russian force was only achieved by rapid deployment of German forces at the critical moment.

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  NO. 94 THE FIRST BATTLE OF THE MARNE

  5-12 September 1914

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  The First Battle of the Marne became immortalized by the story of the plucky Parisian taxi drivers who ferried half the French 7th Division out of the capital to fight the advancing Germans and at the last moment turned the tide of the battle. The story has become greater in the telling, though it is not untrue. If the strange cavalcade of taxis did not quite amount to the cavalry arriving in the nick of time, the men had to be moved somehow. The 7th Division was one part of the offensive by the French 6th Army against the encroaching German forces, an attack that distorted the German front line and opened the way for the hasty German retreat back across the River Marne. The taxi drivers did their bit to ensure that Paris did not fall to the oncoming enemy.

  The crisis in early September 1914 had been looming since early August, when the bulk of the German army took the offensive through Belgium and further to the south through Luxembourg in order to carry out a version of the famous ‘Schlieffen Plan’, originally drawn up a decade before by the then German chief-of-staff, General Alfred von Schlieffen. The plan was to wheel through Belgium and northern France, encircle Paris and the left wing of the French defences, and then attack the remaining French armies from the rear. It was a grandiose operation and it depended on speed and co-ordination before the French, supported in 1914 by a small British Expeditionary Force (BEF), could rally. An annihilating victory would then open the way to a similar destruction of the Russian forces in the east.

  A modified version of the plan, directed by General Helmuth von Moltke (the Younger), came close to success. The French, Belgian and British forces in the north were driven back in a month of frantic and draining campaigns. By early September they had not yet broken but the soldiers were demoralized by weeks of retreats and some of the highest losses recorded throughout the four-year war. By early September, there were further signs of panic. The French government left Paris for Bordeaux on 3 September, and the roads nearing the capital were clogged with refugees streaming away from the conflict. The German advance was nevertheless achieved at great cost. High losses, the difficulty of supply over long distances and sheer exhaustion after a month of battling movement all took a toll. The French commander-in-chief, General Joseph Joffre, recognized that opportunities still existed. He shifted the focus of the French army away from Alsace-Lorraine, where the French 1st and 2nd Armies were trying to hold back a sustained German offensive, in order to meet the German sweeping manoeuvre towards Paris with a reformed and strengthened front. This was difficult to do with a rail system already under heavy strain, but by early September a new French 9th Army under General Ferdinand Foch and a 6th Army under General Michel-Joseph Manoury were forming against the onrush of General Alexander von Kluck’s German 1st Army and the 2nd Army under General Karl von Bülow.

  French Renault taxis outside the École Militaire in Paris wait to ferry reinforcements to the French armies defending the capital in the First Battle of the Marne. The 600 taxis moved around 4,000 men to the front at a key moment in the battle.

  The critical point came by 3 September. The German armies decided to move south rather than encircle Paris from the west, which was beyond their capabilities. As they did so, von Kluck’s forces ran ahead of von Bülow’s, creating a growing gap between them and exposing Kluck’s right flank. This news was understood by the commander of Paris, General Joseph Galliéni, who pestered Joffre for permission to use his garrison and the 6th Army to assault the German flank. It was at this point that the 600 famous taxis were ordered to drive out to Nanteuil-le-Haudoin with their military fares. They moved five infantry battalions, a total of around 4,000 men, along the 50 kilometres (30 miles) to the front line. The advance from Paris worked. The German 1st Army flank was fully exposed and von Kluck was forced to turn and defend himself. In doing so, a large gap opened between the two German armies and the French 5th Army and the BEF (which needed all Joffre’s imploring to move again) poured into the gap, exposing von Kluck to attacks from the rear and von Bülow to an equally damaging flank attack. To make matters worse, von Moltke had now lost effective contact with his front commanders and did not know what decisions they had taken.

  The answer was clear: the German army had tried to do something too large and operationally sophisticated for the tired forces at its disposal. Moltke sent a liaison officer, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hentsch, from his headquarters in Luxembourg to find out what was happening. When he arrived on 8 September, Hentsch could see at once that the German plan was close to collapse. Despite von Kluck’s assertion that the British and French he had fought were not up to scratch, it was evident that without a withdrawal, the German 1st and 2nd Armies risked being cut off and destroyed. Hentsch ordered both commanders to pull back behind the River Marne to rest and regroup. With reluctance they complied and within weeks the long, trench-covered Western Front solidified along the line where the Germans stopped their retreat. The French and British success was not decisive, since the war dragged on for four more years, but it ended the prospect of Germany defeating the Allies quickly and opened the way for the bloody war of attrition that followed.

  The taxi drivers were rewarded for their pains. They had been allowed to keep their meters running throughout the two-day operation to move the troops and were paid on their return by the garage clerks, an average of 27 per cent of what was actually on the clock. The taxi drivers were even mentioned in dispatches for their ‘keenness and devotion to duty’. Moltke, on the other hand, was close to a nervous breakdown and was replaced by General Erich von Falkenhayn on 14 September. Some thirty-three German commanders were sacked, but for the Allies General Galliéni and his taxis became the unlikely heroes of the hour.

  The cover of the French magazine Le Rire Rouge for the New Year in 1915 shows a grateful Marianne embracing the French commander-in-chief, General Joseph Joffre, who holds the statue of victory to mark his triumph at the First Battle of the Marne in September 1914.

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  No. 95 DEFENCE OF TSARITSYN

  22 September – 25 October 1918

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  The battle that took place to defend the town of Tsaritsyn on the River Volga in the autumn of 1918 against anti-Bolshevik forces was foster parent, in a number of ways, to the great battle of Stalingrad, fought twenty-four years later. During the key stages of the battle, the special plenipotentiary of Lenin’s new Bolshevik government was a young Georgian revolutionary, Joseph S
talin. He gave the impression, both then and later, that it was only thanks to his courage, ruthlessness and energy that the enemy had been driven back. A number of myths began to emerge once the threat was over, one of which was the success of Dmitrii Zhloba’s ‘Steel Division’, summoned by Stalin at the last moment from the Caucasus to save the embattled revolutionaries. Victory in the nick of time, Soviet propaganda later proclaimed, was thanks to the military genius of Stalin. Tsaritsyn was renamed Stalingrad in 1925 in memory of Stalin’s heroic defence of the town. Stalin seems to have believed the myths himself. During the first years of the Soviet-German war in 1941-42, the long legacy of Tsaritsyn was enough to persuade the dictator that he could once again save the day.

  A heroic painting of Joseph Stalin (centre right) and Kliment Voroshilov (to Stalin’s right) by the Soviet artist Vasili Khvostenko (1895-1960) portrays the two men directing the battle at Tsaritsyn in the autumn of 1918 against the encroaching White armies. In truth, Stalin’s role in the battle was more modest and his vindictive punishment of alleged shirkers a foreshadow of the terror and purges of the 1930s.