Battle of Tannenberg (1914): Germany's Victory in East Prussia

The Battle of Tannenberg, fought from 26 to 30 August 1914 in southern East Prussia, was one of the most complete victories of the First World War. The German Eighth Army under Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff encircled and destroyed most of the Russian Second Army, taking around 90,000 or more prisoners. The battle stopped the first Russian invasion of Germany and made Hindenburg a national hero.

Background: Russia invades East Prussia

Germany’s war plan placed most of its army in the west against France, leaving only the Eighth Army, about 150,000 to 200,000 men, to defend East Prussia. Russia, under pressure from France to attack quickly, sent two armies into the province in mid-August 1914: the First Army under General Paul von Rennenkampf from the east, and the Second Army under General Alexander Samsonov from the south.

The German commander, General Maximilian von Prittwitz, was defeated by Rennenkampf at Gumbinnen on 20 August and briefly considered retreating behind the river Vistula. The German high command replaced him with the 66-year-old Hindenburg, recalled from retirement, with Ludendorff, fresh from the capture of Liège, as his chief of staff. They arrived on 23 August.

Russia had mobilised faster than German planners expected. Under its alliance with France, it had promised to attack Germany within about two weeks of mobilisation, and it kept that promise at the cost of sending armies forward before their supply services were ready. Russian railways used a wider gauge than German ones, so once the troops crossed the border supplies had to be brought up largely by horse-drawn carts over poor roads.

The plan

Even before the new commanders arrived, the Eighth Army’s operations officer, Lieutenant Colonel Max Hoffmann, had prepared a bold plan. Most German forces would be moved south by railway and road to attack Samsonov, leaving only a thin screen of cavalry facing Rennenkampf, whose army was moving slowly westwards.

The plan was helped by Russian weaknesses. The two Russian armies were separated by the Masurian Lakes and poorly coordinated by their front commander, General Yakov Zhilinsky. Russian supply lines were stretched, and some Russian radio orders were sent without code and intercepted by the Germans, revealing the movements of both armies.

German railways were crucial. The I Corps was moved by train from the north-east to the southern front in a few days, arriving in time to strike the Russian left. Hundreds of thousands of East Prussian civilians had fled westwards from the Russian advance, and reports of looting and burning by Russian troops added to German determination to defend the province.

What happened

Samsonov’s army advanced north on a wide front, its troops tired and short of food. On 26 August German forces attacked both its flanks. In the west, General Hermann von François’s I Corps struck the Russian left near Usdau, while in the east the XVII Corps under August von Mackensen and the I Reserve Corps under Otto von Below drove back the Russian right.

The Russian XIII and XV Corps in the centre kept advancing towards Allenstein and Hohenstein against the German XX Corps under Friedrich von Scholtz, pushing deeper into the trap even as both wings collapsed. General von François, a headstrong commander, repeatedly delayed or ignored orders he thought premature, and his corps’ eventual drive east along the Russian rear did much to complete the encirclement. By 28–29 August the German pincers were closing behind the Russians near Neidenburg and Willenberg. Trapped in forests and marshes, Russian units broke up, and tens of thousands of men surrendered.

Rennenkampf’s First Army, only a few days’ march to the north-east, made no serious attempt to help. On the night of 29–30 August Samsonov, having lost contact with most of his army, walked into a forest and shot himself. The fighting was over by 30 August.

Key people

• Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934): commander of the German Eighth Army, later chief of the general staff (1916) and President of Germany (1925–1934).
• Erich Ludendorff (1865–1937): Hindenburg’s chief of staff and the driving force behind German strategy for much of the war.
• Max Hoffmann (1869–1927): the staff officer who did much of the planning.
• Hermann von François (1856–1933): commander of the German I Corps, whose attacks on the Russian left decided the battle.
• Alexander Samsonov (1859–1914): commander of the Russian Second Army.
• Paul von Rennenkampf (1854–1918): commander of the Russian First Army, criticised for failing to support Samsonov.

By the numbers

Figures vary because many Russian units were destroyed with their records, and different sources count different dates. Besides men, Russia lost the guns, rifles, horses and supplies of an entire army, much of it abandoned in the forests.

Consequences

Tannenberg removed the Russian threat to the heart of East Prussia. In the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes (7–14 September) the Germans turned on Rennenkampf and drove his army out of the province. Russia’s sacrifice nevertheless helped its allies: to meet the invasion, Moltke had sent two army corps from the west to the east, and they were missing when the Germans were stopped at the First Battle of the Marne.

Russia fared much better against Austria-Hungary, winning the Battle of Galicia in late August and September 1914 and besieging the fortress of Przemyśl. The Eastern Front would remain a war of movement, ending only with Russia’s exit from the war at Brest-Litovsk in 1918.

In Russia the disaster damaged the reputation of the army’s leadership. Zhilinsky was removed in September 1914, and Rennenkampf was dismissed later that year after further failures in Poland. The loss of so many trained officers and soldiers in the first weeks of the war could not easily be made good. Military writers later compared Tannenberg with Hannibal’s victory at Cannae in 216 BC, a model of encirclement that Schlieffen himself had studied closely.

Myths and the Tannenberg legend

The Germans named the victory after Tannenberg, a nearby village, to present it as revenge for the defeat of the Teutonic Knights at the Battle of Grunwald, also known as Tannenberg, in 1410. Hindenburg, rather than the staff officers who had prepared the plan, received most of the public credit, and his fame helped carry him to the presidency of Germany in 1925.

A popular story claims that Samsonov and Rennenkampf hated each other after a quarrel on a railway platform during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, and that Rennenkampf therefore refused to help. The tale was spread by Hoffmann and is doubted by historians; Rennenkampf’s slowness is better explained by poor intelligence, supply problems and confused orders.

A huge Tannenberg Memorial was built near Hohenstein and inaugurated in 1927. Hindenburg was buried there in 1934, and the Nazi regime used the site for propaganda. Retreating German troops blew it up in January 1945, and Hindenburg’s coffin was later reburied in Marburg.

Timeline

• 1914, 17 August: Rennenkampf’s First Army enters East Prussia.
• 1914, 20 August: the Germans are defeated at Gumbinnen.
• 1914, 22–23 August: Hindenburg and Ludendorff replace Prittwitz.
• 1914, 26 August: German attacks on Samsonov’s flanks begin.
• 1914, 29–30 August: the Russian Second Army is encircled; Samsonov dies.
• 1914, 7–14 September: the Germans drive Rennenkampf out at the Masurian Lakes.
• 1927, 18 September: the Tannenberg Memorial is inaugurated.

Why it matters

Tannenberg showed that bold planning, good intelligence and rapid movement by rail could produce a decisive victory even in 1914. It also created the Hindenburg legend that shaped German politics for the next two decades.