Developing Hoffman's original plan, Ludendorff concentrated six divisions against Samsonov's left flank and took a calculated risk to withdraw the rest of the German troops from Gumbinnen and move them to face Samsonov's right flank, leaving only a cavalry screen against Rennenkampf. The Germans then got lucky when they intercepted an uncoded Russian message indicating that Rennenkampf was in no hurry to advance. However, on 23 August Prittwitz was replaced by General von Hindenburg whose chief of staff, Ludendorff, immediately confirmed Hoffmann's plan to strike at Samsonov's left flank. By this time Samsonov's forces had crossed the southern frontier of East Prussia to threaten the German rear, defended by only three divisions.įaced with imminent attack, Prittwitz, commander of the 8th Army, approved Lieutenant Colonel Hoffman's idea to attack Samsonov's left flank, aided by another three divisions moved by rail from the Gumbinnen front. The plan began well at Gumbinnen on 20 August, when Rennenkampf's First Army defeated eight divisions of the German 8th Army on its eastern front. Rennenkampf's First Army was to converge with the Samsonov's Second Army to give a two-to-one numerical superiority over the German 8th Army, which they would attack from the east and south respectively, some 80km (50 miles) apart. Two Russian armies invaded German East Prussia in August 1914. This required mobility and nimbleness unfortunately the Russians had neither. He followed Hindenburg to Berlin as his quartermaster general upon Hindenburg's promotion to Army Chief of Staff.Allied with France and Britain, Grand Duke Nicholas, the Russian commander, agreed to help relieve the French, under attack from Germany, with an offensive in East Prussia. The action had resulted in two defeats of the Russian army, and largely removed any threat to German forces stationed in East Prussia, although a Russian counter-attack from 25-28 September (the Battle of the Niemen) forced a German retreat back to the border and resulted in the Russian army retaking much of the ground lost in the First Masurian battle.Īs a consequence of Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes - although the former battle was a much clearer cut victory than the second - Hindenburg was hailed as a hero in Germany, subsequently succeeding Falkenhayn as Chief of the German Staff in late summer 1916.ĭespite Hindenburg's fame at home, his Chief of Staff, Erich Ludendorff, was the chief architect of these, and future, Hindenburg victories. Yakov Zhilinski, the army group commander responsible for the Russian plan of invasion, was dismissed as a consequence of the Russian army's perceived poor performance. Furthermore, Russian casualties during the battle were high: 125,000 compared to the German figure of at most 40,000, although the Germans could ill-afford such high losses in the east. In this Rennenkampf was successful, although with the retreat of his forces East Prussia had been cleared of all Russian troops by 13 September. Rennenkampf, who feared being outflanked, consequently authorised a further orderly withdrawal on 9 September, simultaneously ordering a counter-strike at the Germans by two divisions so as to hold up the German advance whilst his men pulled back. Heavily outnumbered 3-to-1, the Russian forces dispersed, and the German advance continued northwards in pursuit of the main body of the Russian army. However, upon receiving news of the Second Army's defeat, Rennenkampf ordered his forces to retreat to a firmer position extending from the Baltic south-east to Angerburg.Ī preliminary German attack began on 7 September, lasting two days, launched from either side of the southern lakes, its aim being to push the Russians up towards the coast. Rennenkampf's army was presently moving through the Insterburg Gap between Konigsberg and the Masurian Lakes. Hindenburg aimed to encircle Rennenkampf by breaking through a weak flank of the latter's southern corps who had belatedly moved south to support the Second Army at Tannenberg and who had become somewhat separated from the main body in the west (who had remained passive during the earlier battle). With one arm of the pincer broken, Hindenburg determined to neutralise the other in short order. These two armies had been deployed as two arms of a pincer movement intended to snap up Hindenburg's forces in East Prussia. Having successfully dealt with the Russian Second Army, commanded by Samsonov, at Tannenberg, Paul von Hindenburg's Eighth Army - comprising 21 divisions, 18 of infantry, 3 of cavalry - turned their attention to the Russian First Army, commanded by Rennenkampf. Masurian Lakes, 1914(538 total words in this text)Ĭonducted between 9-14 September 1914, the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes (of two, the second in February 1915) was the second victory of the war by the Germans over the Russian army, the first occurring at Tannenberg in late August.
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