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The First World War was an unprecedented catastrophe that influence our modernistic earthly concern . Erik Sass is covering the events of the war just 100 years after they come about . This is the 141st installment in the serial .
August 26-30, 1914: Annihilation at Tannenberg
The saying “ triumph has many father ” is particularly unfeigned when it come to the Battle of Tannenberg . One of the superlative triumphs in history — which saw the encroach upon Russian Second Army altogether destroyed by the German Eighth Army in East Prussia — Tannenberg was the unlikely materialisation of serial air force officer , aided , oddly enough , by miscommunication and absolute disobedience on the German side .
Russians Rush Into Action
Like the other Great Powers , Russia ’s general staff had take up up elaborate plans for mobilization and opening move in the case of war . One of the main goals was an immediate invasion of East Prussia , in rescript to keep Russia ’s hope to its friend France . Both knew Germany would plausibly throw most of its military group against France when war broke out , put on that Russia would take about six weeks to mobilize . By invading East Prussia much sooner than that — ideally within two weeks of mobilization — the Russians hoped to drive the Germans to withdraw troops from the attack on France to defend the Fatherland .
After crossing into Germany on August 12 , Rennenkampf ’s First Army put up a nonaged defeat in the Battle of Stallupönen at the hand of Hermann von François , a headstrong corps commander in the German Eighth Army with a habit of disobey orders , on August 17 . advance by François ’ modest triumph , Prittwitz decided to abandon his justificatory posture and advance east against the Russian First Army , while the Russian Second Army was still struggling to move up from the south . However , the German attack was drive back at the Battle of Gumbinnen on August 20 , leaving First Army in control of the field .
Alarmed by this reverse and the plodding advance of Samsonov ’s Second Army , which ( at last ) threatened to gird Eighth Army , Prittwitz adjudicate to retreat to the Vistula River , sacrificing East Prussia to oppose the road to Berlin . But German chief of the general stave Moltke was unwilling to give up the Prussian heartland so easily and fire Prittwitz , pass bid of the Eighth Army to Paul von Hindenburg , an older superior general call in out of retirement , give notice by a young , dynamical boss of staff , Erich Ludendorff . Moltke also transferred one regular and one reserve army corps from the Western Front to East Prussia , further weakening the German right wing in Belgium and northern France ( just as the Allies hoped ) .
As Hindenburg and Ludendorff hurried to East Prussia , Prittwitz ’s gifted surrogate chief of operations , Colonel Max Hoffman , was devising a daring new architectural plan . Eighth Army would use East Prussian railroad line to suddenly shift François ’s I Corps in the south and get the Russian Second Army unprepared . To gain prison term XX Corps under Friedrich von Scholtz , currently the furthest south , would concord off the Second Army as long as potential .
Wikimedia Commons / Wikimedia Commons / Wikimedia Commons / Wikimedia Commons
This plan was very speculative , since it left Eighth Army ’s wing open to aggress by the Russian First Army — but , fortunately for the Germans , Rennenkampf prove no sense of importunity about follow up the triumph at Gumbinnen , and First Army advanced at a unquestionably sedate stride . His postponement provided a crucial window of chance for Hoffman ’s architectural plan , which was already in motion when Hindenburg and Ludendorff took over instruction of Eighth Army on August 23 .
In fact , the new commanders had been meditate a similar move , but they now face huge logistic challenges , working to hurry the gun for François ’ I Corps in the south by rails , while Scholtz ’s XX Corps staged a furious combat hideaway against forward component of Second Army , throwing the Russians back at Orlau - Frankenau on August 24 . Then on the even of August 24 the Germans had a shot of chance , intercepting uncoded radio messages send by the Russian Second Army headquarters , which gave aside its fix and direction of march . With this vital information in hand , Hindenburg and Ludendorff now made the crucial decision to put XVII Corps under August von Mackensen and I Reserve Division under Otto von Below to move south by forced Marche to complete the blockade .
The next daylight Hindenburg and Ludendorff rate François , whose I Corps was now arriving western United States of the Russians , to assail — but the commonly bellicose commander unconditionally refuse because his artillery was still in transit . Furious at this open rebelliousness and worry by ( exaggerated ) reports that the Russian First Army was approaching from the north , the Eighth Army leaders paid a personal visit to François ’ headquarters and pull him to issue the social club under their verbatim supervision . However François , refractory as ever , chance ways to put off their implementation until his artillery unit finally arrived .
As it turned out , François was probably right : stay the onset create more time for Mackensen ’s XVII Corps and Below ’s I Reserve Corps to march in the south and defeat the Russian VI Corps on August 26 , while Scholtz ’s XX Corps brushed aside a division from the Russian XXIII Corps and stay fresh the XIII and XV Corps busy in the center . After a trigger-happy daylong fight the VI Corps was in a hasty , jumbled retreat towards the Russian border , leaving Samsonov ’s right flank vulnerable and thus reach the way for blockade . Meanwhile the Russian troop were thirsty and demoralized after three day of marching with no food , due to provision failures resulting from the cannonball along deployment .
On the eve of August 26 , with I Corps ’ artillery in helping hand at last , François ordered an tone-beginning on the Russian I Corps guarding Samsonov ’s left flank the next day , open with a devastating “ hurricane ” bombardment at 4 am . John Morse , an Englishman serving in the Russian Army , describe the ordnance duel in this area :
In terms of casualty , Morse noted , “ Of course the red ink of aliveness was very great . I can only say the footing was heaped with dead and die . ”
As François ’ I Corps pushed the Russians back on August 27 , Scholtz ’s XX Corps was locked in a furious battle with the Russian heart , still attacking , while Mackensen ’s XVII Corps and Below ’s I Reserve Corps closed in from the northeast , officers exhort dog-tired troops towards the thunder of cracking guns to the south .
By the evening of August 27 , the flank of the Russian Second Army were in complete disarray , falling back towards the frontier all along the note . Alfred Knox , the prescribed British military observer seize to Second Army , described the pandemonium unfolding just behind the front , on the Russian side of the mete :
And thing were about to get much , much spoilt : Unbeknownst to the Russian troops rain cats and dogs southward , by this clock time François ’ I Corps had sent the Russian I Corps stagger back into Poland and thereby succeeded in turn over Second Army ’s left flank . On August 28 François followed up with a sweeping attack to the due east — once again disregarding Ludendorff ’s denotative Order — switch off 2d Army ’s line of hideaway into Russian Poland and completing the encirclement .
The catastrophe was full : As the remnants of the Russian I and VI Corps trail themselves to safe in Russian Poland , from August 28 to 30 the balance of Second Army was fence and annihilated . The scale of the licking was breathtaking , as the Russians suffered around 30,000 kill and lack , 50,000 wounded , and 90,000 taken prisoners ( below , Russian soldiers give up ) for a total of 170,000 casualties , versus just 14,000 casualty in all category for the Germans . Along with the horrifying human cost , another injured party of Tannenberg was the legend of the “ Russian road roller , ” which would drop all opposition in its irresistible forward motion to Berlin . Germany was dependable , at least for now .
Hindenburg and Ludendorff had scored a triumph that outstrip all their hopes , but in the true it was due just as much to Russian flunk as German skill . Knox , the British observer , tally up the deficiency :
Knox also recorded a firsthand report of the fitly tragical denouement for Second Army ’s air force officer , General Alexander Samsonov , who throw cautiousness to the wind and taunt to the frontline as the fortunes of war turn against him , then found himself cut off in the sweeping retreat :
Desperate Fight at Le Cateau
As the Russian Second Army was kill on the Eastern Front , on the Western Front the unspeakable Great Retreat keep , with the Gallic and British armies come down back before the onrushing Germans following the battles atCharleroi and Mons , slow them where they could with rearguard actions . On August 26 , the British II Corps commander General Horace Smith - Dorrien disregarded an monastic order from Field Marshal John French ( apparently a frequent occurrence with headstrong commanders in the early days of the war ) and decided to make a stall at Le Cateau , about 100 miles north-east of Paris .
The British II Corps faced three division from the German First Army under Alexander von Kluck . After an opening artillery onslaught , the German foot make headway in close constitution over open undercoat towards the British crease , as at Mons , and with likewise bloody results , as mass rifle fire and shrapnel shells contract swathes in the assail units . A British police officer , Arthur Corbett - Smith , described the carnage :
Philip Gibbs , a British war correspondent , quoted an average “ Tommy ” ( British soldier ) with a like , if more succinct view : “ We kill ‘ em and obliterate ‘ em , and still they come on . They seem to have an endless line of invigorated adult male . right away we correspond ‘ em in one attack a fresh onslaught develops . It ’s impossible to harbor up such a heap of men . Ca n’t be done , nohow ! ”
As casualty mounted , the Germans attempt to scoop the British from the west but were rebuffed by the newly formed French Sixth Army under General Michel - Joseph Maunoury , in haste produce by honcho of the general faculty Joffre with troops from the Army of Lorraine . Nonetheless by mid - good afternoon the German head-on assault was beginning to wear upon the British down and Smith - Dorrien , seeing himself dispiritedly outnumbered and with a discovery imminent , organized an neat retirement to the due south , covered from the Cicily Isabel Fairfield by French buck artillery . The British had suffered 7812 casualty , include around 2500 taken captive , while 5000 Germans lay dead ; perhaps more importantly , Le Cateau helped delay the German procession on Paris .
After the battle the Great Retreat resumed , pushing French and British troops to the limit of their endurance . Gibbs , bind to a horse cavalry unit , recalled :
The retirement was made even more difficult by huge columns of refugee , mostly bucolic and villagers take flight Belgium and northern France . A British Corporal , Bernard Denmore , recalled :
However there was a argent lining , as the journey was as onerous for the pursuing Germans . John Ayscough , a chaplain with the British Expeditionary Force , wrote his mother : “ A German officeholder occupy captive yesterday say that their men had had nothing to eat for four days , and had to be driven to fight at the point of the bayonet . ”
As the opposition shut in on Paris , the Allies begin bring in out of vulnerable positions . On August 28 the British commander , Field Marshal French , ordered the evacuation of the British forward basis at Amiens , followed the next day by the main supply radical at Le Havre and the strategical channel port of Boulogne ; the new British foundation would be at aloof St. Nazaire on the Bay of Biscay . Arthur Anderson Martin , a surgeon attend with the BEF , chance to be present at Le Havre , where he witness the chaotic shot at the haven , involving all the trappings of a advanced regular army :
Meanwhile as August drew to a end the chief of the Gallic general stave , Joseph Joffre , decide to relocate his HQ from Vitry - le - François , located on the Marne River about 60 miles east of Paris , to Bar - sur - Aube , about 30 miles further to the south , and the military governor of Paris , General Joseph Gallieni , rede the government that the working capital itself was no longer good . Across the channel , on August 30,The Timespublished a viciously honest account by Arthur Moore , by and by known as the “ Amiens Dispatch , ” giving the British public its first unvarnished view of the war to date ; farsighted perceiver now understood that Britain was in for a draw out conflict that would require all her strength .
But nameless to even the highest sureness , the tide was already turn in the Allies ’ favor . On the even of August 30 , von Kluck , commanding First Army on the German right , decided to stir his counselling of march from due south towards the southeast , to go after the retreating British . However this would open his fight flank to attack by the newfangled French Sixth Army under Maunoury , trace on troops kowtow together by Gallieni from the garrisons in Paris . Meanwhile Joffre also created a new particular army separation under Ferdinand Foch , one of the most aggressive Gallic superior general , with troops from the Third and Fourth Armies .
The level was coiffure for the Miracle on the Marne .
See theprevious installmentorall entry .
