On 31 August, with Tannenberg lost, Rennenkampf had been ordered to stand his ground in the event of a German attack. Of course the Germans were also very far away, but unlike the Russians, the Germans could easily close the distance using their extensive rail network in the area. An attack by the German Eighth Army from the west would flank the entire army. In order to get even this close his units had to rush southward, and were now spread out over a long line running southward from just east of Königsberg. When the nature of the German counteroffensive became clear, Rennenkampf had his troops move as quickly as possible to help, but by then it was too late.īy the time the battle proper ended on 30 August (Samsonov committed suicide on 29 August), the closest of Rennenkampf's units, his II Corps, was still over 45 miles (70 km) from the pocket. When Samsonov became aware of the German movements he requested that the gap between the two armies be closed up, but Rennenkampf was in no hurry to act on this, leaving Samsonov isolated many miles to the southwest. The commander of the Second, Alexander Samsonov, had publicly criticized Rennenkampf some years earlier (about the Battle of Mukden in 1905), and it is said that the two had come to blows over the matter. The counter-offensive was made possible, in part, due to the personal enmity between the two Russian Generals - which was well known to the Germans. Hoffman's plan was quickly implemented, culminating in the complete destruction of the Second Army at the Battle of Tannenberg between 26 and 30 August 1914. However, Colonel Max Hoffmann developed a plan to attack the Second Army as it attempted to maneuver north over some particularly hilly terrain. Meanwhile the Russian Second Army approached from the south, hoping to cut the Germans off in the area around the city. Mournful, forsaken, they look at us through the barbed wire…”īy 30 August, more than 90,000 Russians had been captured about 30,000 had been killed or wounded barely 10,000 escaped.The Russian offensive in the east had started well enough, with General Rennenkampf's 1st Army (Army of the Neman) forcing the Germans westward from the border towards Königsberg. Here the prisoners are strewn about on the bare earth, lying, sitting, clasping their heads, standing, walking, exhausted, some with their arms in slings, some bandaged, some unbandaged, some bruised, some with open wounds and others, for some reason, in nothing but their underwear some are barefoot and none of them, of course, have been fed. “For other prisoners it is even worse: they are not allowed to march away but are harnessed instead of horses to their own Russian guns, which are now trophies of war, and have to drag them, pull them and push them up to where the victors are patrolling the main road in armoured cars, with armed cyclists and machine-gunners ready to open fire…The column of men on foot is led into a cage for people, fenced in with barbed wire, so makeshift as to be little more than symbolic, on temporary poles stuck into the ground. The Russian forces, many abandoning their weapons, fled in disorder, with huge numbers taken prisoner by the encircling Germans. The following day, the 2nd Army’s commander, General Alexander Samsonov, recognised that his force was completely surrounded and gave the order to withdraw – too late. The fast-moving Germans, helped by the planning of Colonel Maximilian Hoffman and by the capture of two unencrypted messages revealing the Russians’ intentions, were able to encircle the 2nd Army before it could link up with the 1st.Ī huge German artillery assault on 27 August (14 August in the Russian calendar) was a major turning-point. The Russians launched a vast two-pronged attack on East Prussia using its 1st and 2nd Armies, but lacked the competence to complete it. The Battle of Tannenberg, less than a month into the war, was one of Russia’s greatest military disasters.
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