Three Insights into Tannenberg

Hindenburg and the Eighth Army Staff

1. Paul von Hindenburg

We had not merely to win a victory over Samsonov. We had to annihilate him. Only thus could we get a free hand to deal with the second enemy, Rennenkampf, who was even then plundering and burning East Prussia. Only thus could we really and completely free our old Prussian land and be in a position to do something else which was expected of us—intervene in the mighty battle for a decision that was raging between Russia and our Austro-Hungarian ally in Galicia and Poland. If this first blow was not final the danger for our homeland would become like a lingering disease, the burnings and murders in East Prussia would remain unavenged, and our Allies in the south would wait for us in vain. . .

[As] the crisis of the battle now approached. One question forced itself upon us. How would the situation develop if these mighty movements and the enemy’s superiority in numbers delayed the decision for days? Is it surprising that misgivings filled many a heart, that firm resolution began to yield to vacillation, and that doubts crept in where a clear vision had hitherto prevailed? Would it not be wiser to strengthen our line facing Rennenkampf again and be content with half-measures against Samsonov? Was it not better to abandon the idea of destroying the Narew [Second] Army in order to ensure ourselves against destruction.

from Out of My Life 
Paul von Hindenburg, 1920

2. Max von Hoffman

Ludendorff and von Hoffmann

It is idle to ask the question: " Would it have resulted in a victory at Tannenberg if the Commanders had not been changed ? " I think : Yes—though perhaps not to so complete a victory, for the old chief commanders, as former experiences had shown, did not possess the necessary energy. There were at once difficulties with General François, and I do not know if the old Commander-in-Chief would have been able to get over them as easily as General Ludendorff did, and if he would have been able to support the strain that was put on his nerves during the next days by the question: " Will Rennenkampf advance or not ? "

The form of their recall was uncommonly rough. The subordinate Generals in command heard of it sooner than the Commander-in-Chief. Orders were sent by the General Headquarters to the Generals in command without the Commander-in-Chief being informed. For example, the ist Reserve Corps and the 17th Army Corps were ordered to take a day's rest; the necessity of this order may easily be doubted.

The Headquarters had moved on the morning of the 21st to Bartenstein and on the 22nd to Mühlhausen, in East Prussia. The reports that came in announced that the retirement of the troops before the Vilna Army had been effected surprisingly well.

Colonel Hell, the Chief of the General Staff of the 20th Army Corps reported that the Corps had been successfully concentrated in the neighbourhood of Hohenstein, and he received the order to draw up the Corps on the line Gilgenburg-Lahne. He expressed his doubts about the left flank of the Corps as it would take days to transport by rail the troops that were still on frontier duty, and therefore requested, that the 3rd Reserve Division should not be sent to the right wing of the 20th Army Corps, as the General Headquarters had ordered, but to have it sent to the left wing in the neighbourhood of Hohenstein. This the General Headquarters approved of.

It was only in the afternoon of the 22nd that the Headquarters heard of the change in the higher command when a telegram sent to the Chief of the field railway announced the arrival of an extra train with the new Commander-in-Chief and the Chief of the General Staff. It was only a few hours later that His Majesty's order arrived, which placed General von Prittwitz and General Count Waldersee on the unattached list. General von Prittwitz bore this stroke of fate in an extraordinarily noble manner, and he took leave of us without a single word of complaint of his hard destiny.

On the evening of the 22nd a telegram from Ludendorff announced his arrival in Marienburg on the following day with the new Commander-in-Chief who expected to find the chief commanders there. When he sent this order, General Ludendorff supposed that the Army Headquarters was already West of the Vistula and wanted to have it transferred beforehand to Marienburg, but as the retreat that Prittwitz had meditated had not been carried out, he really ordered us back.

Hindenburg and Ludendorff arrived in the evening of the 23rd. General von Hindenburg, who afterwards became the idol of the German people, was up to that time but little known beyond the district of his old Corps. I had never seen him. Ludendorff, on the contrary, was a well known and often mentioned personage in the circles of the General Staff officers. His efforts to strengthen the army, which were only partially carried out in the great defensive plans, and also his endeavours to persuade the Ministry of War to have greater provisions of ammunition in store, in the event of a mobilization, which met with the same fate, were much discussed. There could be no question that the first success of the War, the important capture of Liege, was entirely owing to him, as was the general opinion of the army. At the beginning of the War he was Quartermaster-General of the 2nd Army under Bulow and had joined one of the columns—the 17th Infantry Brigade—that was appointed for the capture of Liege.

When the Commander of this Brigade, General von Wussow, fell, he succeeded to the command, and it was owing to his energy and activity that the fortress was taken ; while all the other columns failed more or less.

I personally knew Ludendorff very well; we were at the same time General Staff officers at Posen, and from 1909 till 1913 had lived in the same house in Berlin.

General Ludendorff heard my report of the position, and approved of the measures that had been taken till then by the Chief Command.

The intelligence we had about the Russians reported that at least five Army Corps and three Cavalry Divisions from the front Soldau-Ortelsburg were advancing. Between Rennenkampfs army and our retreating troops there was a distance of about fifty kilometres, and Rennenkampf had made no efforts at pursuit up till then.

From The War of Lost Opportunities
Max von Hoffmann, 1924

Tannenberg Victory Memorial
Site of Hindenburg's Funeral (Later Destroyed)

3.  Historian Oksana Sergeevna Nagornaia

From a strategic point of view, the battle, which was to become known as the Battle of Tannenberg, was not a key event on the Eastern Front during WWI, neither leading to the final defeat of the Russian Empire, nor even to an end to the Russian occupation of East Prussia. Rennenkampf’s forces were only expelled from the province in the autumn of 1914, and in the winter of 1914/15 a second brief incursion ensued. Nevertheless, it is difficult to overestimate the symbolic and political significance of this battle. The very name "Battle of Tannenberg" indicated the German interpretation of it as revenge for the defeat of the Teutonic Knights at the hands of the united Slavic and Lithuanian forces in 1410 (known to the Russians as The Battle of Grunwald). The very idea of the "Second Cannes" of the Eastern Front was the origin of one of the more significant German national myths of the WWI period, the Weimar Republic and the early Third Reich.

For the Russians, the defeat of the Narevskaia Army was a heavy blow to morale.[2] The "infection of the Russian colossus by the Tannenberg bacillus"[3] led to the Russians’ loss of faith in their own power and the likelihood of eventual victory. Representatives of the military elite, thanks to the work of a specialist investigative committee, assessed the reasons for defeat very realistically. Nonetheless, even before the 1917 Revolution, society began to form its own impressions, foremost among these being the perception that it was Russia’s sacrifice to save Paris, and the story of Rennenkampf’s "treachery", which fitted in neatly with the idea of a German conspiracy. After the Revolution, the reinterpretation of this negative military experience was mainly undertaken by different social and professional groups of the Soviet and Emigrant military elites.

Oksana Segeevna Nagornaia
Article 1914-1918 Online, 2017