When Hindenburg and Ludendorff Finally Gained Supreme Command

Ober Ost Command & Staff in the Field

After the triumph of Tannenberg, the Hindenburg and Ludendorff  duo would spend the next 22 months of their collaboration in the east attempting to knock Russia out of the war. They would be constrained and sometimes fully frustrated by two factors. In the words of Eastern Front historian Norman Stone, the pattern of the war in the east was of "more or less constant Austro-Hungarian crisis." After their early successes in the fall of 1914, the partnership—mindful of the early failed Austrian offensive in the south—got their first taste of cries for help from their weaker ally when they were compelled to send a German division to help hold the Russians out of Hungary in December of 1914. Much has been written about how burdensome the Austro-Hungarian Empire was on Germany during the war. The empire was deep in decline, its army wildly diverse ethnically in a time of rising nationalism, under-manned, under-gunned, and inexpertly commanded. Through diplomatic ineptitude, they even managed to draw in an additional enemy against the Central Powers, Italy. In the course of the war, the Dual Monarchy required the Kaiser's assistance in conquering its original adversary, Serbia, and—to avoid collapse several times on the Eastern Front—assistance in the Carpathians in 1915 and against the Brusilov Offensive of 1916. Only the German troop deployments at Caporetto made that attack feasible and saved the Austro-Hungarian position on the Italian Front in 1917. All of these "extra responsibilities" had, of course, the greatest impact on the German planning and operations on the Eastern Front during the Hindenburg-Ludendorff regime. Admiral Tirpitz described the situation as being "tied to a corpse."

The partnership's second on going distraction was the unpredictable support from their two superiors, Kaiser Wilhelm and the new chief of the General Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, who had succeeded Helmuth von Moltke after the First Battle of the Marne. Falkenhayn initially recommended negotiating a peace settlement with the Russians and focusing on the war against France. This approach was blocked quickly due to a meeting of the minds of the Austrian high command and his own commanders in the East. Falkenhayn's thinking next moved to an offensive strategy on the Western Front, while conducting a limited campaign in the east. He hoped that Russia would accept a separate armistice more easily if it were not humiliated too much. This still brought him into conflict with Hindenburg-Ludendorff, who favored massive offensives in the east. In effect, Ober Ost argued for an inversion of the Schlieffen Plan concept of knocking out France quickly to concentrate on Russia. 

At Last, at the Kaiser's Side

Other initiatives in 1914 failed for Hindenburg. He felt the Russian Army simply had too many troops at that point. After the turn of the year, however, the clear stalemate on the Western Front found the Kaiser open to other possibilities. Convinced by Hindenburg-Ludendorff of the possibilities on the Eastern Front, he intervened for once in the disputes among his commanders and ordered that the major military effort for 1915 take place in the East. Falkenhayn accordingly strengthened German forces there with a new army (Tenth) and authorized the formation of a new, mixed Austrian-German force to cooperate with Habsburg efforts in Galicia. 

On the surface, the stupendous 1915 success in the south with the Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive and at an earlier victory in the north at the Second Battle of Masurian Lakes, were substantial victories. The partnership was credited with massive territorial gains and having inflicted hundreds of thousands of casualties on the enemy. Yet, oddly, the Russians were still in the war. Further, garrisoning larger territory required more troops and the Central Powers planners began realizing they were starting to run out of manpower. To the disappointment of Hindenburg-Ludendorff, the Kaiser and Falkenhayn were losing their enthusiasm for the East and planned to move some of the partnership's forces to the West. Fighting on both fronts in 1916 would be of a different character than in 1915. These changes, though, would also open a surprising opportunity for the partnership.

The following year brought the downfall of the hated Falkenhayn. Behind the scenes, the political infighting had been brutal. Falkenhayn had found it hard to counter the partnership's aggressive Eastern Front strategy given their national popularity. Ludendorff openly hated the Chief of Staff and found it impossible to work with him. In retaliation, Falkenhayn had tried to transfer Ludendorff out of his headquarters position and even asked Hindenburg to retire. Kaiser Wilhelm personally disliked both Ludendorff and Hindenburg's personal ambitiousness but needed to publicly support them.

Double Portrait by Hugo Vogel

Against this backdrop, Erich von Falkenhayn had an utterly disastrous 1916. His advocacy of the blood-draining Verdun Offensive committed his nation to an attritional battle at a time when Germany was running out of manpower. The Allied offensive on the Somme was strongly resisted, but it was allowed to turn into a second attritional struggle. Finally, during the summer of 1916, his long-held view that Romania with its substantial 650,000-man army would never join the Allies in the war proved incorrect. They joined the Allies when the Brusilov Offensive showed Russia was still dangerous. Kaiser Wilhelm lost all confidence in his warlord. Falkenhayn had to go. For Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg, the army and the nation, the choice was obvious. His Majesty had deep reservations about the pair, both individually and collectively, but he made the appointment of Paul von Hindenburg to the post of Chief of the Great General Staff on 29 August 1916. Ludendorff demanded joint responsibility for decision making and authority to sign most orders. Hindenburg did not refuse and authorized that a new position, First Quartermaster General of the Great General Staff, be created to emphasize Ludendorff's nearly equal and comprehensive authority. The pair had completed their march from anonymity to supreme command.

Sources: Battles East by Irving Root; The Eastern Front, 1914-1920 by Neiberg and Jordan; Wikipedia