Battle of Tannenberg

The Battle of Tannenberg in 1914 was a decisive conflict between the Russian Empire and the German Reich in the first days of The Great War, fought by the Russian 1st and 2nd Armies and the German Eighth Army between August 17 and September 2, 1914.

The Russian Empire's army used a radio to transmit their attack plan, but they did not encrypt the messages, believing that the Germans would not have access to Russian translators. However, the Germans easily intercepted the transmissions, and thus were expecting every move of the Russians.

The Russian armies crossed into East Prussia with Königsberg as their goal. At first, the battle appeared to go well for the Russians, with a German counterattack repulsed on August 20. The German theatre commander, General Maximilian von Prittwitz, was sacked when he attempted to completely abandon East Prussia to the Russians.

While replacements taken from the western front were in transit, the 8th Army's Chief of Operations, Max Hoffmann, redeployed the German forces. Hoffmann's plan left a screening force to delay the Russian 1st Army (under General Paul von Rennenkampf) which was approaching from the east, and set a trap for the Russian 2nd Army (under General Alexander Samsonov) which was moving up from the south.

The German field commander, General Hermann von Francois, allowed the 2nd Army to advance, and then cut them off from their already tenuous supply route. This forced massive surrenders, and saw the almost complete destruction of the 2nd Army near Frogenau. General Erich Ludendorff, the chief of staff for the new theatre commander Field-Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, dated the official dispatch reporting the victory from the nearby village of Tannenberg (now Stębark), and the battle was named Battle of Tannenberg at the direct request of Hindenburg. Hoffman believed Hindenburg played almost no role in the battle, hence when giving visitors to the front a tour of the battlefield he was recorded as saying (while showing the encampment of the German command) "This is where the Field Marshall slept before the battle, this is where he slept after the battle, and this is where he slept during the battle." Hindenburg chose Tannenberg as a way to exact revenge for the defeat of the Teutonic Knights at the Battle of Grunwald [citation needed]. Interestingly, an ancestor of Hindenburg had fallen at the Battle of Grunwald in 1410.

Rather than report the loss of his army to the Czar, Samsonov committed suicide by shooting himself in the head on August 29, 1914. He would not be found until later the next day by a German patrol.

The German victory compelled Rennenkampf to withdraw his army from East Prussia, and thus cleared German territory of invaders. The Russians remained on the defensive along the German front for the rest of the war.