Tannenberg: Clash of Empires, 1914 (Cornerstones of Military History)

by Dennis Showalter

  32Schlieffen’s 1912 recommendation of amalgamating reserve and active units in the same corps owed less to his faith in reservists than his conviction that active corps were too weak in infantry and reserve corps too weak in artillery to be balanced fighting units. Schlieffen to Freytag-Loringhoven, Aug. 14, 1912, in Generalfeldmarschall Graf Alfred Schlieffen. Briefe, ed. E. Kessel (Göttingen, 1958), 317–318.

  33Cf. Eric Leed, No Man’s Land (New York, 1979); Robert Wohl, The Generation of 1914 (Cambridge, Mass., 1979); and Roland N. Stromberg, Redemption by War: The Intellectuals and 1914 (Lawrence, Kans., 1982).

  34The Russian army’s problems of professionalism and integration are presented in Dietrich Beyrau, Militär und Gesellschaft im vorrevolutionären Russland (Cologne, 1984), which focusses on the period before 1870; William C. Fuller, Jr., Civil-Military Conflict in Imperial Russia, 1881–1914 (Princeton, N.J., 1985); and Hans-Peter Stein, “Der Offizier des Russischen Heeres im Zeitabschnitt zwischen Reform und Revolution (1861–1905),” Forschungen zur Osteuropäischen Geschichte, N. F, XIII (1967), 346–504.

  35The most detailed presentation of Russian war plans remains A. M. Zaionchovski, Plany voiny (Moscow, 1926). This may be supplemented by Pertti Luntinen, French Information on the Russian War Plans 1880–1914 (Helsinki, 1984); and Jack Snyder, The Ideology of the Offensive. Military Decision-Making and the Disasters of 1914 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1984), 157 ff. Peter von Wahlde, “Military Thought in Imperial Russia” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Indiana University, 1966); and Walter T. Wilfong, “Rebuilding the Russian Army, 1905–1914: The Question of a Comprehensive Plan for National Defense” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Indiana University, 1977); incorporate excellent bibliographies. William C. Fuller, Jr., “The Russian Empire,” in Knowing One’s Enemies: Intelligence Assessment Before the Two World Wars, (Princeton, N.J., 1984), 98–126, focuses on intelligence aspects of Russian planning.

  36Mikhnevich’s concepts are best expressed in Strategia, 3rd ed. (St. Petersburg, 1911). Their impact is summarized in Jacob W. Kipp, “The Beginning: Imperial Russia and Soviet Mobile Warfare to 1920,” in Historical Analysis of the Use of Mobile Forces by Russia and the USSR, ed. J. W. Kipp et. al. (College Station, Tex., 1985), 50–51.

  37Col. Wyndham to Nicolson, May 31, 1909 and Apr. 6, 1910, in British Documents in Foreign Affairs: Reports and Papers from the Foreign Office Confidential Print, Series A, Russia, 1851–1914, ed. D. Lieven, 6 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1983), V, Nr. 78; VI, Nr. 14; Matton to ministry of war, Mar. 1909, in France, Ministére des Affaires Étrangerés, Documents Diplomatiques Français (1871–1914), 41 vols. (Paris, 1929–59), 2nd series, XII, Nr. 88 (hereafter cited as DDF); Pelle to Buirn, Mar. 6 and 24, 1910, ibid., Nrs. 453, 467.

  38N. N. Sukhotin, Voina v istorii russkogo mira (St. Petersburg, 1989), 13–14; cit. Richard Pipes, “How to Cope with the Soviet Threat,” Commentary LXXVIII (Aug., 1985, 13).

  39“Procès-verbal des entretiens du mois août 1913 entre les chefs d’état-major des armées française et russe,” DDF 3, VIII, Nr. 79. Recent analyses of Russian prewar planning include Bruce Menning’s forthcoming Bayonets before Bullets, Chapter 7; and Jacob W. Kipp, Fromn Foresight to Forecasting: The Russian and Soviet Military Experience (College Station, Tex., 1988), 31 ff.

  40D. W. Spring, “Russia and the Franco-Russian Alliance, 1905–1914: Dependence or Interdependence?” Slavonic and East European Review LXVI (1988), 564–592; and the older account by Donald R. Mathieu, “The Role of Russia in French Foreign Policy, 1908–1914” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Stanford University, 1968), highlight the growing importance to France of the Russian connection.

  41Jean Savant, Épopée russe. Campagne de l’Armée Rennenkampf en Prusse-Orientale (Paris, 1945), 174; Norman Stone, The Eastern Front, 1914–1917 (New York, 1975), 55–56.

  42In the event, the Russians faced no significant hostile action in their rear until policies of repression generated such response. Daniel Graf, “The Reign of the Generals: Military Government in Western Russia, 1914–1915” (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Nebraska, 1972), passim.

  43Yanushkevitch’s Instruction of Aug. 10 to Northwest Front and Zhilinski’s of Aug. 13 to the 1st and 2nd Armies are translated in Edmund Ironside, Tannenberg, 42 ff. See also the summary in Yuri Danilov, Russland im Weltkrieg, tr. R. v. Campenhausen (Jena, 1925), 194 ff. Dean W. Lambert, “The Deterioration of the Imperial Russian Army in the First World War, August 1914-March 1917” (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Kentucky, 1975), is useful for its pedestrian, common-sense approach to the question of the army’s fighting power.

  44For German evaluations of the Russian command see Eggeling to war ministry, Feb. 2, 1914, in PAAA, Russland 72, Nr. 96; and BA-MA, Nachlass Below, N 87/45, 602. Cf. Snyder, Offensive, 179 passim. Savant, Épopée russe, 94 ff., is a laudatory description of Rennenkampf’s prewar career.

  45Max Hoffmann, War of Lost Opportunities in War Diaries and Other Papers, 2 vols., M. E. Sutton (London, 1929), II, 40–41; Savant, Épopée russe, 261 ff.

  46Maurice Paléologue, An Ambassador’s Memoirs, Vol. I, tr. F. A. Holt (London, 1923), 71.

  47For an extreme statement of the balance thesis of staff and command assignments see Stone, Eastern Front, 18 passim; von Wahlde, “Military Thought in Imperial Russia,” 182 ff., offers a more judicious interpretation.

  48aJeffrey Brooks, When Russia Learned to Read. Literacy and Popular Literature 1861–1917 (Princeton, N.J., 1985), 18 ff.; John S. Brown, Draftee Division. The 88th Infantry Division in World War II (Lexington, Ky., 1986), 13 ff.

  49Cf. N. N. Golovine, The Russian Campaign of 1914, tr. A. G. S. Muntz (Ft. Leavenworth, Kans., 1933), 101 passim; and The Russian Army in the World War (New Haven, Conn., 1931); with most recently Stone, Eastern Front.

  50Gempp, “Nachrichtendienst” II, 2, 223.

  51Yanushkevich to Zhilinski, Aug. 7 and Aug. 10, 1914, in Sbornik dokumentov mirovqy vqyni na russkom fronte. Manevrenni period 1914 goda: Vostochvo-Prusskaya operasya, ed. Generalny Shtab RKKA (Moscow, 1939), 81, 85–86; and the general accounts in Danilov, Russland, 194–195; Golovine, 1914, 93 ff.; and Savant, Épopée russe, 150–151, 165 ff.

  5. TAKING THE MEASURE OF DANGER

  1Familiar evaluation of Prittwitz include Max Hoffmann, War of Lost Opportunities, in War Diaries and Other Papers, 2 vols., tr. E. Sutton (London, 1929), I, 21; E. Kabisch, Streitfragen des Weltkrieges 1914–1918 (Stuttgart, 1924), 65; and Walter Elze, Tannenberg. Das Deutsche Heer von 1914 (Breslau, 1928), 93.

  2Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv, Nachlass Below, NL 87/45, 684.

  3Hoffmann, War of Lost Opportunities, 22; Walter Goerlitz, Hindenburg: Ein Lebensbild (Bonn, 1953), 55.

  4There is a brief survey of his career in Holger Herwig and Neil Heyman, Biographical Dictionary of World War I (Westport, Conn., 1987), 188–189.

  5A familiar example from the western front is von Kluck’s negative reaction to the “Hentsch mission.” Alexander von Kluck, The March on Paris and the Battle of the Marne 1914 (London, 1920), 137 ff.

  6Cf. Germany, Reichsarchiv, Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918, Vol. II (Berlin, 1925), 46ff.; and Hermann von François, Marneschlacht und Tannenberg (Berlin, 1920), 130–131.

  7Reichsarchiv to Tappen, July 4, 1921, BA-MA, Nachlass Tappen, NL 56/2; Weltkrieg II, 45.

  8Quoted in “Besass Deutschland 1914 einen Kriegsplan?” Ludwig Beck, Studien, ed. H. Speidel (Stuttgart, 1955), 102.

  9Norman Stone, “Austria-Hungary,” in Knowing One’s Enemies. Intelligence Assessment Before the Two World Wars, ed. E. R. May (Princeton, 1984), 49–50. Robert Asprey, The Panther’s Feast (New York, 1959), is a sultry popular narrative of the Redi affair with a reasonable archival basis.

  10Interwar descriptions of Austria’s plan include Rudolf Kiszling, “Feldmarschall Konrads Kriegsplan gegen Russland,” Militärwissenschaftliche und technische Mitteilungen (1925), 469–475; Max Freiherr von Petreich, 1914: Die militärischen Probleme unseres Kriegsbeginnes (Vienna, 1934); and Josef Metzger, “Der Krieg 1914 gegen Ru
ssland,” in Der Grosse Krieg, ed. M. Schwarte, Vol. V (Leipzig, 1922), 22–53. Graydon A. Tunstall, “The Schlieffen Plan: The Diplomacy and Military Strategy of the Central Powers in the East, 1905–1914” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Rutgers University, 1974), 353 passim, is a detailed modern analysis. Cf. also Georg von Waldersee, “Uber die Beziehungen des deutschen zum österreichische-ungarischen Generalstab von dem Weltkrieg,” Berliner Monatshefte VIII (1930), 103–142.

  11“Aufmarschanweisung 1914/15 für Oberkommando der 8. Armee,” Elze, Tannenberg, 185–196. The destruction of German military archives for this period during World War II is partly compensated for by Elze’s work, which includes a large number of the relevant documents.

  12Hoffmann, War of Lost Opportunities, 21.

  13“Allgemeinen Direktiven für die kommandierenden Herrn Genérale,” Aug. 6, 1914, Elze, Tannenberg, 201–202.

  14This description of the East Prussian terrain is based on Edmund Ironside, Tannenberg (Edinburgh, 1925), 12 ff.; and the Cook’s-tourist account in BA-MA, Nachlass Below, NL 87/45, 571 ff. For the nature of the road and railway network see Frank B. Tipton, Regional Variations in the Economic Development of Germany During the Nineteenth Century (Middletown, Conn., 1976), 113.

  15Fritz Gempp, “Geheimer Nachrichtendienst und Spionageabwehr des Heeres,” National Archives T-77 (rolls 1,438–1,440, 1,442, 1,507, 1,509), Part II, Section 2, 15 ff.

  16David R. Jones, “The Advanced Guard and Mobility in Russian Military Thought and Practice,” SAFRA Papers, No. 1 (Soviet Armed Forces Review Annual) (Gulf Breeze, Fla., 1985), 57–59.

  17Hoover Institution Archives, Adam Pavlovich Bennigsen, Papers 1914–1919, diary entries, July 27 [Aug. 9] and July 31 [Aug. 13], 1914; Jean Savant, L’Épopée russe (Paris, 1945), 152 ff., 197 ff.; and Basil Gourko’s more favorable War and Revolution in Russia, 1914–1917 (New York, 1919), 12–13. Gourko commanded the 1st Cavalry Division of Rennenkampf’s army.

  18The standard work on uniform and equipment is Richard Knötel, Herbert Knötel, and Herbert Sieg, Uniforms of the World, tr. R. G. Ball (New York, 1980), 129 passim.

  19Buchholz, “Die Coca und ihre Anwendung bei Mängel an Nährungsmitteln für die Verpflegung der Truppen im Felde,” Jahrbücher für die deutsche Armee und Marine II (1872), 211–216; Dr. Vogeler, “Bemerkungen zur Cocafrage,” ibid., Ill (1872), 260–265.

  20The anecdote of the doctor is from Walter Richter, Das Danziger Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 128, Vol. I (Zeulenroda, 1930), 8.

  21Gempp, “Nachrichtendienst” II, 3 passim; and II, 115 ff.

  22M. von Poseck, Die deutsche Kavallerie 1914 in Belgien und Frankreich (Berlin, 1924), passim.

  23For German cavalry operations in this sector see particularly Osterroht and Hermann, Dragoner-Regiment Prinz Albrecht von Preussen (Litthauisches) Nr. 1, 1917–1919 (Berlin, 1930), 40 ff.; the anecdote of the wounded Cossack is in Alexis Wrangel, The End of Chivalry. The Last Great Cavalry Battles 1914–1918 (New York, 1982), 13 ff.

  24BA-MA, Nachlass Below, N87/45, 577; John H. Morrow, Jr., Building German Air Power 1909–1914 (Knoxville, Tenn., 1976), 48 ff.

  25Germany, Kriegswissenschaftliche Abteilungen der Luftwaffe, Kriegsges-chichtliche Einzelschriften der Luftwaffe, Vol. Ill, Mobilmachung, Aufmarsch und erster Einsatz der deutschen Luftstreitkräfte im August 1914 (Berlin, 1939), 85–86 (hereafter cited as Luftstreitkräfte).

  26Waldersee to Moltke, Aug. 18, 1914, Elze, Tannenberg, 202–204.

  27Luftstreitkräfte, 87.

  28Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz, Denkwürdigkeiten, ed. F. Freiherr von der Goltz, W. Foerster (Berlin, 1929), 305–306.

  29Hoffmann, War Diaries I, 37; and the letter to his wife of 13.8.14 in BA-MA, Nachlass Hoffmann, N 37.

  30Cf. BA-MA, Nachlass Below, N 87/45, 687, 700–701; William to François, Feb. 17, 1914, BA-MA, Nachlass François, N 274/16.

  31Tappen to Reichsarchiv, Jan. 5, 1929, BA-MA, Nachlass Tappen, N 56/16.

  32Hoffmann, War of Lost Opportunities, 24–25; Weltkrieg, II, 56–57.

  33Norman Stone, “Die mobilmachung der österreichisch-ungarischen Armee 1914,” Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilung (1974), 67–95, both establishes Conrad’s fixation on Serbia and his ultimate indecisiveness, and forms the basis for Stone’s numerous subsequent evaluations of Austrian strategy. Emil Ratzenhofer, “Österreich-Ungarns Mobilisierung, Transport und Versammlung Sommer 1914,” Hoover Institution Archives, Ratzenhofer Deposit, demonstrates that strategic decisions rather than technical considerations ultimately determined troop movements in 1914. Conrad’s justifications and the correspondence supporting them are in Aus meiner Dienstzeit 5 vols. (Vienna, 1921–25), IV, 161 passim. Cf. Helmuth von Moltke, Erinnerungen. Briefe. Dokumente 1877–1916 (Stuttgart, 1922), 19–20.

  34Waldersee to Freytag (liaison officer at Austrian GHQ), Aug. 11, 1914; Conrad to 8th Army HQ, 14.8.14, and to Prittwitz, 15.8.14, in Elze, Tannenberg, 205, 265, 266–267; cf. Conrad, Aus meiner Dienstzeit IV, 388 ff.; and Theobald von Schäfer, “Deutsche Offensive aus Ostpreussen über den Narew auf Siedlice,” Militärwissenschaftliche und technische Mitteilungen (1930), 961–976.

  35Luftstreitkräfte, 88–89.

  360ne critique of this kind, delivered in 1910 by then-Lt.-Gen. Paul von Hindenburg, made such an impression on a young subaltern that he repeated it word for word in his memoirs over seventy years later. Erich Hampe, . . . ais Alies inScherbenfiel (Osnabruück, 1980), 10–11.

  37François, Marneschlacht und Tannenberg, 174–175.

  38As in Franz von Gottberg, Das Grenadier-Regiment Kronprinz (1. Ostpreussischen) Nr. 1 im Weltkriege (Berlin, 1927), 19 ff.; Alfred Dieterich, Geschichte des Grenadierregiments König Friedrich der Grosse (3. Ostpreussischen) Nr. 4 (Berlin, 1928), 651.

  39Lerchenfeld to Herding, Oct. 9, 1914, in Ernst Deuerlein, ed., Briefwech-sel Hertling-Lerchenfeld 1912–1917, Vol. I (Boppard, 1973), 341–342; Immanuel Geiss, Das deutsche Reich und der Ersten Weltkrieg (Munich, 1978), 62 ff.

  40Hoover Institution, Bennigsen Diaries, July 29 (Aug. 11), Aug. 3 (Aug. 16), Aug. 10 (Aug. 17), Aug. 10 (Aug. 23); Gourko, War and Revolution, 42 ff.; Graf, “Military Government,” 123. John Bushnell, “Peasants in Uniform: The Tsarist Army as a Peasant Society,” Journal of Social History XIII (1980), 565–576; makes the case that that army’s real internal structure was a network of artels, which the average junior leader had neither the will nor the competence to dominate. This in turn suggests the structural pattern of command by consensus described above. On the general issue of requisitions see Martin van Creveld, Supplying War (Cambridge, 1977), 190 passim.

  4lGrenadier-Regiment Nr. 1, 22, 24; Fritz Rohde, 2. Ostpreussisches Feldartillerie-Regiment Nr. 52 (Oldenburg, Berlin, 1928), 9–10.

  42Reichsarchiv, Weltkrieg II, 59 ff.; François, Marneschlacht und Tannenberg, 167.

  43Gerhard Lapp, Das 1. Ostpreussische Feldartillerie-Regiment Nr. 16 (Oldenburg, Berlin, 1928), 13; Grenadier-Regiment Nr. 1, 24.

  44François, Marneschlacht und Tannenberg, 170. Cf. the general account of Stallupönen in Reichsarchiv, Weltkrieg II, 73 ff., with the major regimental histories: Alfred Bülowius and Bruno Hippler, Das Infanterie-Regiment v. Boyen (5. Ostpreussisches) Nr. 41 im Weltkriege 1914–1918 (Berlin, 1929), 9 ff.; Fritz Schillmann, Grenadier-Regiment König Friedrich Wilhelm I (2. Ostpreussisches) Nr. 3 im Weltkriege 1914–1918 (Berlin, 1924), 22–23; Georg Dorndorf, Das Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 43 (Berlin, 1923), 13 ff.; Grenadier-Regiment Nr. 1, 26 ff.

  45David Landes, Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern World (Cambridge, Mass., 1983), 51–52, 95 ff.

  46Comments on Schäfer to Conta, Mar. 15, 1929, in BA-MA, Nachlass François, N 274/18.

  47Bülowius and Hippler, IR 41, 13–14.

  48Elze, Tannenberg, 101; record of phone conversation, 3:30 p.m., ibid., 215; and François, Marneschlacht und Tannenberg, 170 ff. François blamed his chief of staff for the incident, and demanded that officer’s immediate relief for disloyalty. Not until after the battle did he seek to withdraw hi
s complaints. Telegram of Aug. 31, 1914, in BA-MA, Nachlass François, N 274/16.

  49Prittwitz to François, 6:50 p.m.; record of phone conversation, François to Prittwitz, 8:00 p.m.; and report of 11:15 p.m. Aug. 17, 1914, in Elze, Tannenberg, 215–216.

  50Bülowius and Hippler, IR 41, 14–15.

  51General accounts critical of Rennenkampf’s behavior include Ironside, Tannenberg, 85 ff.; Golovine, 1914, 114 ff.

  52Army orders of Aug. 17 and Aug. 18; communication of Aug. 18 to OHL; order of Aug. 18 to I Corps, in Elze, Tannenberg, 215 ff.

  53François, Marneschlacht und Tannenberg, 179.

  54Reichsarchiv, Weltkrieg II, 79 ff.

  55Luftstreitkräfte, 90–91.

  56Gemmp, Nachrichtendienst II, 1, 30; 1st Lt. Randewig, “Deutsche Fun-kaufklärung in der Schlacht bei Tannenberg,” Wissen und Wehr XII (1932), 129–130, 139. Not until the end of Sept., 1914, did the Germans break the Russian field code.

  57Record of telephone conversation between I Corps and AOK, 4:10 p.m. Aug. 19, Elze, Tannenberg, 218–219; François, Marneschlacht und Tannenberg, 180.

  580rders to XVII Corps and I Corps, Aug. 19, in Elze, Tannenberg, 219; François, Marneschlacht und Tannenberg, 181–182.

  59“Bei Gumbinnen findet heute grosses Gefecht statt,” Order to Air Detachment 16, 2:45 a.m., Aug. 20, in Elze, Tannenberg, 221.

  60Order to 3rd Reserve Division, 4:50 p.m. Aug. 19, in ibid., 220; and Reichsarchiv, Weltkrieg II, 83–84.

  6. FIRST CONTACT: GUMBINNEN

  1Hermann von François, Marneschlacht und Tannenberg (Berlin, 1920), 182–183; N. N. Golovine, The Russian Campaign of 1914, tr. A. G. S. Muntz (Leavenworth, Kans., 1933), 123.