On August 25th Mackensen, senior officer of the two corps, had telegraphed Ludendorff requesting clarification of his mission. At 5:00 p.m. Ludendorff telephoned that a Russian corps was advancing on Bischofsburg. Ostgruppe was to attack at once.53 But it was first necessary to get to Bischofsburg. Both of Mackensen’s corps had been faced with increasing numbers of frightened civilians—too many to halt; too many to avoid. I Reserve Corps marched thirty kilometers on the 25th, much of it on sandy side roads. Its horses were beginning to drop in the traces from sickness and overwork. On the same day XVII Corps’s 36th Division had been forced by detours into a fifty-kilometer march over secondary roads in burning heat. The 35th Division had had an even longer march; both units were almost exhausted by nightfall. The German army’s company officers, like their counterparts everywhere in Europe, were expected to inspect their men’s feet regularly. This, however, was the kind of task all too easily neglected, whether by haughty Junkers contemptuous of such tasks or, more prosaically, by tired young men in shoulder straps overwhelmed with more obviously urgent burdens of command. The results could be seen limping along far into the night, trying to overtake their units while avoiding the field police.
In the 1st Battalion of the 36th Division’s 175th Infantry, three companies suffered an average loss of between one hundred and 120 stragglers—well over 50 percent of the men who began the march. The fourth did not report a single man falling out of ranks. This feat was credited to its captain, who manifested an unaristocratic concern for such mundane problems as blisters and soft corns.54
In the course of the 25th Mackensen and Below had arranged to cooperate in dealing with any Russians to their front. While Mackensen struck the enemy right, I Reserve Corps and the 6th Landwehr Brigade, which had joined Ostgruppe during the march south, would attack the left. Lake Dadey and Gross-Lautern Lake formed an effective geographic boundary between the corps sectors.
At 11:45 p.m. Mackensen issued his orders for August 26. The XVII Corps would advance against Bischofsburg in a single column, with the 36th Division leading. It was imperative, Mackensen asserted, to drive forward as rapidly as possible. The success of the entire operation depended on the corps’s marching ability. Shortly afterwards Mackensen received an army order, issued at noon on the 25th, which said that a division should be left to secure Ostgruppe’s rear against any sudden moves by Rennenkampf. He considered this order superseded by his phone conversation with Ludendorff, and decided to disregard it. For the success of his plan he would need his whole corps.55
Below had received Ludendorff’s noon order before Mackensen did. Responding to it, he proposed to advance with his divisions abreast on a broad front in order to contain the Russians in case they should try to evade Mackensen by moving west. He ordered that advance to begin at 10:00 a.m., a relatively late departure time. Below, an infantryman and an experienced field soldier, consistently stressed the relationship between his reservists’ combat performance and the ability of their officers to see that the men had hot food and the chance to wash and clean their clothes. The administration of these improvised formations could hardly be free of friction. A bit of extra time at the beginning of what promised to be several strenuous days was likely to pay disproportionate dividends in improved spirit and efficiency.
Below’s formal corps order, issued at 9:50 p.m. on August 25, did not reach XVII Corps until noon the next day. Mackensen, however, based his times of departure on the assumption that I Reserve Corps would advance around 7:00 a.m. This meant that instead of both corps attacking simultaneously, XVII Corps would strike the Russians first. Such sacrifice of Ostgruppe’s local numerical superiority gave the Russians a good chance to defeat the Germans in detail, or at least check their advance.56
Both chances proved theoretical. The Russian VI Corps, with the 4th Cavalry Division attached, had originally been instructed to advance from Ortelsburg to occupy Bischofsburg. Europe’s experiences since 1866 indicated that given some time to prepare positions, even an isolated army corps could give an excellent account of itself. But during the day of August 25, Samsonov changed the corps’s mission once more. A telegram from 2nd Army instructed VI Corps to advance to Allenstein with the bulk of its force in order to participate in the developing attack on the German center, leaving only a screen at Bischofsburg. This order was received at VI Corps headquarters late on the 25th. Preparations were immediately made to execute it. Then early on the 26th Samsonov thought better of exposing his flank so completely, and revised his revision. Now VI Corps was to remain at, or return to, Bischofsburg as a flank guard for the advancing 2nd Army. This order, however, was not received at all.57
Order and counterorder prefigure, but do not inevitably spell, disorder. Lieutenant-General Blagoveschensky was operating in a vacuum. The East Prussian theater, unlike the western front, was characterized by a low ratio of force to space. In France and Belgium one usually knew where the enemy was: everywhere. Opportunities for tactical and operational reconnaissance were correspondingly limited. In the east at this stage of the war, cavalry was just as necessary as in the days of Napoleon or Genghis Khan. But instead of scouting for VI Corps or screening its movements the 4th Cavalry Division remained concentrated. The divisional cavalry squadrons brought in no reports of German activity in the area. Airmen had reported troops moving southwest, but these were thought to be Russians, from Rennenkampf’s 1st Army! Blagoveschensky therefore proposed to move three-fourths of his corps west on the 26th, leaving a single brigade of the 4th Division at Bischofsburg. His plans were abruptly changed when at dawn Mackensen’s 36th Division, which had been marching since 4:15 after only a short night’s rest, ran into the Russians deployed around Lautern village.
General von Heineccius was an artilleryman who had spent most of his career following the guns. Commissioned into the 1st Guard Field Artillery in 1877, he had risen by 1911 to command the Guard’s 1st Field Artillery Brigade and had taken over the 36th Division only in 1913. Gumbinnen had been for him an unpleasant lesson in the limitations of the cavalry spirit; he was determined not to attack a second time without adequate artillery preparation. Mackensen arrived at Heineccius’s headquarters a few minutes later and confirmed his intention to wait for the guns. The corps commander also decided to bring the 35th Division forward on the left of the 36th, to support the attack and to guard the corps flank against Russian cavalry that had been reported maneuvering to the east.
Mackensen issued the appropriate orders at 8:00 a.m. An hour later he was informed the 35th Division was too tired to march without rest. Nor were the 36th Division’s infantrymen proving especially eager to repeat their behavior at Gumbinnen. Instead of storming forward at the head of their men, colonels and majors sent out patrols to test the Russian strength. Some disappeared into the dawn fog, dying under the bayonets of a waiting enemy. Others were pinned down by machine gun and rifle fire. Officers bunching to study their maps became targets of opportunity for Russian guns. Others were picked off by snipers concealed in the tall pine trees that covered most of the division’s front. Mackensen’s airmen soon brought confirmation of what the men on the firing line knew: the Russians were on the ground in force. Observers reported a division in front of Bischofsburg and another farther south at Ortelsburg.
The latter formation was probably VI Corps’s supply trains, but the misidentification intimidated the Germans. Around 10:00 a.m. the 71st Brigade’s commander ordered his men to “dig in to the eyebrows.” Passed down the line by word of mouth, it generated no suggestions about the incompatibility of entrenchments with Prussian military honor. The Germans had learned other things as well at Gumbinnen. Field kitchens were brought close enough to the forward positions to distribute hot food and coffee to the infantry—a KP detail that became a defaulter’s nightmare when the Russians mistook the “goulash cannons” for artillery pieces. As their own guns continued to shell the Russian positions, some Germans dozed off in their foxholes, succumbing to tension, fatigue, a
nd suddenly full stomachs.
These moments of martial domesticity did not obscure a potentially dangerous situation. The 36th Division had gone, as inexperienced troops are prone to do, from one extreme to the other. Its men were well content to improve their positions and await developments, but the Russian 4th Division was aggressively commanded at all levels. In Manchuria Russian officers had too often reacted to Japanese initiatives. Postwar wisdom in the tsar’s army correspondingly stressed the necessity of seizing opportunities as they appeared. Counterattacking skirmish lines, extending eastward into the sector still unoccupied by the 35th Division, rapidly threatened the German left. An infantry lieutenant spotted the maneuver and managed to get word to the gun positions. This was the kind of situation for which the 77-millimeter gun had been designed. German field batteries checked the advance with shrapnel as Mackensen and Heiniccius fumed over the continued absence of the 35th Division.
That formation for its part appeared on the point of disintegrating under the pressures of a forced march. Its men were discarding their knapsacks in defiance of orders. Some companies were down to sixty rifles. There seemed more wagons and field kitchens than infantry on the line of advance. The division commander finally ordered a halt and informed Mackensen not to expect his troops until around 4:00 p.m. Should the Russians attack in force, it was an open question whether the 36th Division could maintain itself until either its sister formation or I Reserve Corps relieved the pressure.58
Hearing the guns on Mackensen’s front, Below proposed to swing the bulk of his corps around the south end of Lake Dadey and take the Russians in the rear. The 6th Landwehr Brigade, attached to Ostgruppe after Gumbinnen, and part of the 36th Reserve Division would screen this movement by attacking the Russian positions around Gross-Bössau. This time Below’s reservists were well served by their cavalry. The 1st Reserve Uhlans in particular stayed in close touch with Russian movements; the regiment’s messengers kept corps headquarters well informed of enemy positions. By 12:30 p.m. I Reserve Corps reached its intended line of departure without having fired a shot.
The Russians made the corps’s task even easier. The 36th Division’s halfhearted attack had convinced the 4th Division’s commander that he was facing only flank guards thrown out by Germans retreating towards the Vistula. Blagoveschensky felt justified in sending the 16th Division westward towards Allenstein around noon, in obedience to the last set of orders he had received. The 4th Division remained with one brigade facing Mackensen, the other in position south of Gross-Lautern Lake. Without a German in sight, Major-General Komarov ordered that brigade forward to support the attack that had so discomfited the 36th Division. While on the march to its new sector the brigade ran into the 36th Reserve Division and the Landwehr.
In a textbook encounter battle, the Russians held their ground well. Below’s 69th Reserve Brigade was initially shelled into immobility by the corps’s own artillery. By the time the gunners were informed of their mistake Russian machine guns, dug in to the point of invisibility, were cutting swaths through the ranks of the reservists and their older comrades of the Landwehr. Most of the latter were married men with families, correspondingly unsusceptible to heroic inspiration, advancing at their own pace when they went forward at all. In one sector the tide turned almost by accident. Two Landsturm batteries, whose middle-aged gunners and officers had served in the days before indirect fire was a part of the training manuals, closed to point-blank range to blast Russians out of a gravel pit. Even then an infantry battalion commander had to ask his men if they expected him to win the war alone before they followed the guns. With night falling, the Germans played their last cards. Generals and colonels dismounted and drew their swords; bugles sounded the charge all along the line. The 69th Reserve Brigade’s commander was wounded leading the final rush. The Russians abandoned their positions; the Germans bivouacked on the field. Here and there around their fires a few enthusiasts even raised the Leuthen Chorale, “Now thank we all our God.”
The German victory was also a Russian defeat. As the afternoon wore on it became increasingly apparent to Blagoveschensky that he faced something much more dangerous than the flank guard of a retreating enemy. He ordered the 16th Division to turn around and return to support the 4th. Since the division was advancing on a single main road, the order was easier issued than executed. Once the Russians straightened themselves out, their attention was focussed on the battle they were marching towards. Flank security and rear guards were neglected. Around the southern end of Lake Dadey the division was overtaken by the vanguard of the 1st Reserve Division. German artillery firing over open sights wreaked havoc among the unsuspecting Russians. By 4:00 p.m. the 16th Division had been driven completely out of the battle area.59
In the meantime, Mackensen’s corps had not been totally idle. Around 6:00 p.m., as the reservists were clearing Gross-Bossau, the 36th Division’s artillery opened a hurricane bombardment on the Russian positions to the division’s front. The Russians, isolated, under attack from two sides, exhausted by a stubborn, day-long defense, collapsed. When the 36th Division’s infantry advanced—cautiously behind a screen of fighting patrols—they found only abandoned positions, corpses, and stragglers anxious to give themselves up.
Total Russian casualties for the day were about 5,300 officers and men, with the Germans taking over 1,700 prisoners. But VI Corps had lost more than men. It had advanced to Bischofsburg confidently, expecting to deal with nothing more threatening than a defeated enemy retreating across its front. Its generals conducted no systematic reconnaissance. No one in a responsible position tried to verify preconceptions of the German situation. As a result one division was surprised and defeated in detail by a superior enemy while the other was moving beyond effective supporting range. Then the second division was overrun from the rear. The VI Corps was so demoralized it retreated thirty kilometers without being pursued. Blagoveschensky’s nerves collapsed even more thoroughly than his corps. Like a schoolboy caught in mischief, he waited until 2:00 a.m. on August 27 to inform his superior what had happened, using the intervening time to issue a series of confused and contradictory orders that contributed nothing to rallying his shaken troops.60
Out of this day’s battle grew something else—the story of thousands of Russians being driven into the swamps of Masuria and left to die. A part of the 4th Division actually was thrown back against Lake Gross-Bössau, and a few men did drown there. At 8:30 that night, I Reserve Corps reported that “many Russians” had been driven into the lake. Eighth Army in turn repeated the information, suitably embellished, in a later army order that François and Max Hoffmann agree was the probable basis of the legend.61
Hindsight makes the German victory over VI Corps look easier than it appeared to the men on the spot. Blagoveschensky and his subordinates may have offered opportunities; the Germans had to take advantage of them. Below and Mackensen ordered tired, footsore men, three-fourths of whom had been wearing civilian clothes a month earlier, into broken terrain against an enemy whose tenacity in defense was proverbial. Mackensen’s men in particular still showed the effects of Gumbinnen in their sudden reliance on artillery to destroy the Russians instead of merely suppressing their fire. Despite their triumph, moreover, both German commanders expected to be attacked from somewhere the next day. The II Russian Corps, its advance through the Masurian Lakes barred by Fort Boyen, had been ordered to swing north of the lakes, then turn south and establish contact with Samsonov’s army. Air reconnaissance reported prepared Russian positions south of Bischofsburg. Other airmen reported Russian troops in Gerdauen—which an intercepted order had described as being on the line of advance of Rennenkampf’s IV Corps.62
Knowledge can generate anxiety as well as power. Since Gumbinnen Mackensen’s headquarters had strong images of Rennenkampf’s energy and ability—not least because he had beaten them so badly. Current information about Russian movements was hardly comforting. Air reconnaissance still depended heavily on the skill of indiv
idual observers and the daring of individual pilots. One team might mistake a few squadrons of cavalry for an army corps; another could confuse an infantry division with a wagon train. The question facing commanders on the ground was always just how much salt to sprinkle on the information. A day earlier Mackensen’s chief of staff had grumbled to one of his subordinates that XVII Corps was in more danger than Blücher had been after Ligny a century earlier. Making worst-case assumptions, the Germans now risked being sandwiched between II and IV Corps coming south and the bulk of the 2nd Army moving north towards Allenstein.
Mackensen’s response was determined by tactical rather than strategic, local rather than general, concerns. On the principle of “in for a penny, in for a pound,” he decided that the only feasible option was to continue the attack against the Russians to his front with every man able to march and shoot. The 6th Landwehr Brigade had neither field kitchens nor machine guns. Its men were exhausted. Mackensen ordered it out of the battle zone. The XVII Corps would drive straight ahead; I Reserve Corps would seek to turn the Russian left flank. All that remained to screen the Germans from II Corps, and perhaps the rest of Rennen- kampf’s army, was the 1st Cavalry Division. Small wonder that the XVII Corps staff gave up their supply trains for lost and abandoned hope of seeing their personal baggage again.63 That was far from the worst that might happen.
Tannenberg: Clash of Empires, 1914 (Cornerstones of Military History) Page 38
