Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes: Germany Superiority Established

•\ As'Schlieffen and his staff labored at the turn of the century to refine his^masiter conception for conquest in the West, as the elegantly attired officers and ladies of the Royal Hapsburg Court swirled to waltz music in Vienna, and as a premature revolution waxed and waned in Czarist Russia, almost nobody thought that Russian Poland, German Prussia, or Hungarian Gal 1- cia would become the major lod of action 1n any war among the great powers. Even on the eve of war in late July or upon its outbreak in August, no one foresaw a titanic struggle between the Elbe and the Pripet marshes west of Moscow--a struggle that would carom back and forth for three years as one side and then the other seemed to gain a temporary advantage, until the con test was finally decided by social, rather than military forces. (See Map 24a) German military prowess was the catalyst that toppled a socially deter iorating Russia which was creaking its way into the 20th century. Each of the powers had its own conception of how the war should proceed. In Berlin and Potsdam, in 1914, the General Staff looked anxiously westward where they expected the issue to be decided. Certainly the sluggish Russians would not mobilize, concentrate, and march towards Konigsberg and Deutch- Eylau before the Anglo-French armies could be enmeshed by the coils of five German armies advancing concurrently and in parallel into the French heart land. After that, admittedly it would probably be necessary to shift armies eastward to bait or deal with the Russian bear. Nor was the vision of land locked "advance and retreat" warfare envisioned in the councils of St. Peters burg, the forbidding and cold capital of Czarist Russia. There, the euphoria engendered by an alliance with France and an unwarranted perception of the staying power and strategy of the Hapsburg monarchy led to some optimistic predictions—that once the ominous "Russian steamroller" commenced to move no military force in central Europe could arrest it short of Berlin. Only then its momentum might expend itself by sheer friction, but certainly not before.1 Even the Germans had a healthy respect of the apparent inevitability of the forward progress of hordes of Muscovites, Cossacks, Mongols, and a dozen other ethnic groupings in the Czar's service. Austria-Hungary, although alarmed by the restive behe moth and the fountainhead of the opprobrious Pan-Slavism, proceeded to concentrate its main effort against hated Serbia. Here, Austria's inten tions were more punitive than prag matic. England and France, like Germany, ascertained that national life and death would be decided in the Marne marshes and the uplands of Champagne. Thus, the French appealed to St. Petersburg for a premature Russian offensive against East and West Prussia, commencing on 14 August in the hopes that the Germans would Cossacks in Transit to East Prussia g eastward, to be flattened by the steamroller or at least 86 restrained from western front operations. the steamroller, the mechanical condition of this touted imple- SB&SSsH=*S in its definitive breakdown.* Russian imperial enthusiasm to be a good ally, during the opening weeks, would ultimately weigh heavily upon national collapse three years later. Germanv Austria-Hungary and Russia, the three major powers which would become Soiled on the acknowledged secondary front, all had contingency olans for operations ranging from the vicinity of the Niemen River in Russia's ba?ren northlands to mountain fastnesses of the Carpathians, the natural ba™ to Budapest and Vienna. (See Map 24b) Much to Austrian dis- mav the GeTman General Staff became increasingly oriented to a risky, all- out" anniKive stroke in the West, particularly after 1890. This demanded, accordingly economy of force in the East and a defensive strategy there; such a strategy would be implemented by the relatively light Eighth Army (General Max von Prittwitz) plus fortress troops (concentrated primarily in East Prussia) which would delay any Russian thrust into the German homeland until sub iantiallories could be relieved from the Western Front and rail roaded into position opposite the Polish salient.3 Rebuffed in her efforts to convince Germany to concentrate more of the coalite's strengthen the East?Austria found it easy to become enthralled with the concept of a con clusive invasion of Serbia, her emotionally paramount objective, still, in the hope that the German northern effort would have some offensive.punch, the Austrian Colander, General Baron Conrad von Hotzendorf, positioned four armies along the southern edge of the Polish Salient and eastern Gaiicia for another simultaneous offensive against the Russians from Brest-Litovsk south eastward io the Dniester River (Austrian plan "R").* Russian strategy, as originally conceived with French assistance, was to place the bulk of We forces (four armies) in a Southwestern Army Group to oppose Austrian strength in Ga icia (Pirn "A"), absorbing whatever initial blows Franz Joseph's troops could deliver; but after mobilization was complete, it was planned to conduct an offensive into East Prussia with the Northwestern Army Group, consisting of the First (General Paul V. Rennenkampf) and Second (General Alexander V. Sam- sonov) Armies.5 In combined planning conferences with the French in pre-war years, the Russians had declared that no offensive could be undertaken until at least twenty days after mobilization. The French had insisted that the Russians mult be able to move with 900,000 men by the 14th day. In 1913, a compromise, fraught with risk to Russia, was reached whereby Russia agreed to move as soon after the 15th day as possible. When war came, however, because of the intense pressure on the French in the west, Joffre's officers implored Russia to move against East Prussia even earlier than the mobilization target date. When the Russian staff acquiesced, General Yakov G. Jilinsky's Northwest Army Group lurched uncertainly westward toward East Prussia on 13 August, less than two weeks following the mobilization order and a full week before a realistic pre-war estimate implied readiness would be achieved." Ironi cally, it was Jilinsky who suggested that his command make the premature 87 advance in response to French pressure. This was done fully appreciating that although the Russian infantry and cavalry units approximated full strength-- they outnumbered the Germans by almost 3 to 1-the supporting units were not yet in place.7 Further, the lines of communications, marginal at best, were nowhere near the state of efficiency required to support an offensive by a half million men. On the other hand, the German and Austrian support base was already largely mobilized and in place. On 17 August, General Rennenkampf's First Russian Army crossed the bor der into the German homeland.* Movement orders prescribed that the Second Army was to keep pace with Rennenkampf's advance toward Kb'nigsberg. (See Map 25) Samsonov was to cross the frontier in the vicinity of Soldau and swing northwest to help close the pincers on the German Eighth Army; then the two armies were expected to proceed deeper into the German homeland, hopefully to Berlin. The vagaries of geography, Russian command ineptness, and the German capacity to seize opportunity when presented, however, would combine to foil the Russian scheme and derail the steamroller. TANNENBERG AND THE MASURIAN LAKES: GERMANY SUPERIORITY ESTABLISHED The Polish salient, at the time an extremely inhospitable place even for the Russians,'was an intriguing land form, having changed hands among warring powers many times over the centuries, (See Map 24b) From the German point of view, it represented a sizable base area between East and West Prussia and between East Prussia and Galicia which inhibited the lateral movement of friendly forces. It was like a fist, thrust constantly into the German mid riff. To the Russians, it was at once an asset and a liability. It afforded a forward base area from which to attack Galicia or Prussia, but it was also a vulnerable appendage, enticing determined drives from the northwest and southeast (the vicinity of Thorn and Cracow) which could surgically separate the salient from Mother Russia and provide the Central Powers with a con tinuous north-south front line. In this event, the communications and indus trial centers of Warsaw, Lodz, and Ivangorad, would fall well within the German lines. The salient was underdeveloped because before their peremp tory decision to go on the offensive the Russians had willed it so, antici pating in future wars a German invasion which might be slowed or stalled because of poor roads, few railways, and a dearth of food and forage. The loyalties of the population were also questionable; it was never clear whether Russian forces operating in the salient were on friendly terrain or alien, whether they were present as liberators or as occupation forces. The Germans deceived themselves, also, as to the real depth of Polish affinity for Teu tonic hegemony. It is entirely likely that the Poles endeavored to stay out of the reach of either army and cursed the houses of Romanov and Hohen- zollern.8 North of the salient and forming its northern base, ran the German-Rus sian/Polish frontier between the Niemen and Narew Rivers. A few kilometers *Rennenkampf's name is phonetically teutonic. His ancestors were German and during the war, prior to his relief for ineptness, rumors abounded that he was passing military information to the enemy. 88 wp*t of the frontier lay the chain of the Masurian Lakes (See Map 25), a series of fresh water obstacles running south from Angerburg to Johannesburg. The *akes, patroUed by German craft and guarded by the central fortress of Lotzen, prohibited the movement of large bodies of troops from east to west and channelized advancing armies into two streams-through the 40-nnle wide lns?erburg gap norihV the lakes and through Russian Poland to the south.

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