Tannenberg: Clash of Empires, 1914 (Cornerstones of Military History)

by Dennis Showalter

  Since 4:00 a.m. the whole force had been standing to arms. Hours passed, yet no news arrived of Sontag’s advance. Morgen’s impatience was heightened by the rapid lifting of the fog he hoped would mask his attack. Finally he decided to go forward on his own. On his left the 6th Reserve Brigade was sent forward through the Jablonken forest to find the Russian right flank and roll it up. The other three brigades would attack the Russians frontally, holding them in place for the blow. It was a textbook solution, not particularly original or imaginative, but presumably well within the capacities of Morgen’s men and their recycled officers to execute. At 7:00 a.m., Morgen’s guns opened on the Russian positions; his infantry advanced thirty minutes later.

  Morgen, aware that he was ignoring his orders, waited until the movement was well under way before notifying corps headquarters. Scholtz and his staff were unwilling to run the risk of disorganizing a sector they saw as threatened by calling Morgen back. But neither could they send troops to support him, and within an hour Morgen needed all the help he could get. His reservists were fighting from memories of active service during profound peace. They had none of the field howitzers whose fire was so useful in silencing Russian guns on other parts of the front. The 69th and 70th Brigades did little more than stab at their assigned objectives east of Mühlen. The 5th Reserve Brigade paid a stiff price to capture the village of Dröbnitz from Russian defenders that fought almost to the last man. One battalion lost all four of its company commanders and over two hundred men—casualties reflecting the reservists’ lack of skill at mopping-up operations. Under heavy fire from bypassed positions, the brigade was painfully slow to reorganize and continue advancing towards its next objectives.

  As for the flanking force, the 6th Reserve Brigade, it advanced through the Jablonken woods in closed columns, with so little regard for security that its vanguard was scattered by a Russian ambush. Its overeager commander then deployed his main body and pushed forward without waiting for artillery support. Instead the reservists’ machine guns, a company in each regiment, acted as units to provide bases of fire, keeping Russian heads down while the infantry worked forward in short rushes. But machine guns or not, the Germans found themselves in an all-morning, stand-up, tree-to-tree fight against the Narva and Korpor Regiments of XIII Corps. These men of the Russian active army had not read the foreigners’ prewar reports of their shortcomings. Not until 12:30 p.m. did the 6th Reserve Brigade force its way into Hohenstein—one house at a time. Of over six hundred Russians buried in this sector after the battle, almost all bore bullet wounds, as opposed to shrapnel or splinter marks, a fact suggesting the closeness of the fighting. All along Morgen’s front, hopes of a decisive breakthrough were translating into a rapidly escalating casualty list.44

  Another ambitious general of an improvised formation had also received his orders to advance the night before. Major General Freiherr von der Goltz’s “Higher Landwehr Command 1” had been formed on the outbreak of war to guard the coasts of Schleswig-Holstein against a possible British invasion. The force—more commonly and euphoniously dubbed the Goltz Landwehr Division—had been ordered east to reinforce the 8th Army on August 26.

  The Landwehr was the German army’s third line. Most of its men were in their thirties, with terms in the active army and its reserves well behind them. Their principal reminder of their days in uniform was the annually updated notice telling them where and when to report should general mobilization be ordered. In theory the officers and administrative NCOs were to report a day early, check preparations, and have all in readiness for the arrival of the rank and file. In practice things went far less smoothly, at least in the Hanseatic cities of Hamburg and Altona, Lübeck and Bremen, which mobilized most of the battalions now serving under Goltz. Officers were assigned and reassigned with bewildering rapidity. Those recalled from civilian life had lost much of their capacity for compelling instant obedience. Those transferred from administrative jobs were still caught up in the mystique of peacetime routines. Active and first-line reserve formations, concerned with expediting their own mobilizations, took first pick of available material. Questions of physical fitness, on the other hand, were met with initial indifference. “We’re all healthy, we all want to go,” shouted one anonymous private in broadest Hamburg dialect when his company fell in for its initial medical examination. A few days in barracks, perhaps accompanied by a bit of sober reflection, generated a significant turnover of men to the depots. But there were dozens more eager for a place in the ranks. By mid-August the Landwehr companies and regiments were beginning to shake down, testing their organization and equipment in field exercises and assuming local security responsibilities on the coast and in the harbors. Then came orders to move east.

  At first it did not seem much of a war. The north Germans of the Goltz Division were oriented westward, to the great struggle against France and Britain. Who cared for the potato farmers east of the Elbe? But as the Landwehr’s trains moved slowly eastward they had ample opportunity to observe trainloads of wounded and columns of refugees going in the other direction. They had an even better chance to be cheered as saviors once their trains began rolling through the towns of East Prussia.

  The Landwehr would need all of their morale. By the morning of August 27 only seven of the division’s twelve battalions, and one lone artillery battery, had been able to detrain. The arrival of the rest had been delayed indefinitely because of a collision on the line. Goltz knew a Russian division was supposed to be in Allenstein, east of his position. Despite this possible threat to his flank he started southward in the direction of Hohenstein at first light with the troops he had on hand, leaving the balance of the division to follow as best it might. After a sixteen-kilometer march, his advance guard reached the area south of the Kämmerei-Wald when at 9:00 a.m. it encountered Russian outposts. The night before, Max Hoffmann had suggested that the Landwehr avoid unnecessary risks. “We’ll bring them to you,” he declared. Instead Goltz, riding at the head of his column, deployed six battalions and attacked the Russian position across the Hohenstein-Mörken road, leaving only two companies at the south edge of the woods to guard against a possible advance from Allenstein.

  The Landwehr advanced with enthusiasm but without artillery. Like Morgen’s men they were unable to make much progress after the initial contact. Then at 9:20 a.m. a cavalry patrol brought Goltz the disturbing information that Russians had been reported advancing from Allenstein in his direction since 4:30 a.m. As if on cue, enemy skirmishers appeared in the German rear.45

  They were part of the vanguard of XIII Russian Corps. Kluyev had received neither direct orders nor direct information from 2nd Army during the night of the 27th/28th. His only link with the outside world was a message transmitted through one of Martos’s divisions. This, reflecting Samsonov’s army order for August 28, put Kluyev under Martos’s command and ordered XIII Corps to turn southward to cooperate with XV Corps in attacking the German left. It corroborated both Kluyev’s own view of the situation and the impressions of the staff officer who had acted as observer for the reconnaissance flight over Martos’s positions on the afternoon of August 27. But Kluyev’s corps was almost twenty miles away from Martos—a good day’s march even for fresh troops. To turn out exhausted men for a night move seemed an exercise in futility, especially since Kluyev believed XIII Corps could not reach the expected battle area until the evening of the 28th. The corps therefore started south only at dawn on that day.

  Kluyev’s decision was sound enough given the information available. Yet it remains one of the unconsidered might-have-beens of a battle that invited so much speculation on both sides. What were the potential effects of an army corps debouching even an hour or two earlier in the rear of inexperienced Landwehr already engaged to their front?46

  Things as they stood were discouraging enough. Goltz’s officers knew how to lead and how to die, but they were unable to move their men forward against even the limited opposition offered by elements of the same
brigade that was giving Morgen’s reservists such difficulties further south. Lieutenants found themselves leading twenty men instead of eighty as overweight family fathers collapsed from heatstroke. One of Goltz’s brigadiers galloped forward shouting to a bugler: “Sound the charge with everything you’ve got! I’ll give you a taler!” But this appeal to Hanseatic business sense could not sustain the Germans’ momentum. Not until part of Morgen’s 6th Reserve Brigade came up on the Landwehr’s right flank did the outnumbered Russians finally pull back. They had bought the 2nd Army a morning’s time. And they could still bite hard in the face of a pursuit characterized by more disorganization than enthusiasm—a combination reflecting heavy loss of officers and NCOs, a particular problem in Landwehr formations that often had no more than two officers in a company to begin with.47

  At 8th Army headquarters, the situation became increasingly opaque as the morning progressed. Where was Rennenkampf? What would happen when he found that he had almost no Germans in front of him? Where were the reports from the 41st Division? No information had arrived from Morgen since 8:00 a.m. Why were the garrison troops north of Lake Mühlen not yet advancing? What were the Russians in Allenstein doing? At 8:15 a.m. the governor of the Fortress of Thorn made that last question especially vital by forwarding an intercepted radio message. In it Kluyev informed Martos he was moving south to support XV Corps and intended to be in Grieslienen at the head of his vanguard “around noon.” Grieslienen was across Goltz’s and Morgen’s lines of advance! The flank and rear of 8th Army’s poorest troops might well be open to a major Russian counterattack. Uncertainty was an increasing torment.48

  Later reports did nothing to alleviate the tension. At 8:00 a.m. Sontag finally notified Scholtz of his defeat, concluding his dispatch by saying that he was unsure whether the 41st Division could hold its position, much less resume the advance. Army headquarters only learned of this situation an hour later—a significant lapse of time given the relative proximity of the headquarters. Ludendorff immediately sent an officer by car to investigate. His report “was not encouraging.”49

  The mood of the high command was improved significantly by the first reports from 8th Army’s problem child. Hermann von François had brought his share of the battle into full swing well before dawn. The initial corps orders, issued at 7:30 p.m. on August 27, reflected an expectation of strong Russian resistance around Soldau. François assigned his air squadron the special responsibility of reconnoitering that area. “For the solution of artillery problems” he organized a force of eight heavy and fifteen light batteries, a mass of 120 guns, the largest concentration yet seen in the Tannenberg campaign. The infantry would only advance at 6:00 a.m., presumably after the Russian guns were silenced. Every available battalion from I Corps’s organic divisions, Schmettau’s Force, and the 5th Landwehr Brigade, would cooperate in the attack.

  During the night, however, François’s anxieties diminished—perhaps once again with the assistance of technology. At 5:30 p.m. on August 27, an aircraft patrolling from Graudenz reported to the fortress commandant that the Russians around Soldau, far from entrenching or massing for a counterattack, were retreating south in apparent disorder. The information did not reach army headquarters until 1:35 a.m. on the 28th. The copy of the observers’s report sent to I Corps was not mentioned by François, nor did it exist in the archives by the mid-1920s. On the other hand, François acted as if he had received it. Certainly he changed his mind about needing his entire corps to overrun Soldau. Around 6:20 a.m. the corps commander ordered Lieutenant-Colonel Schäffer von Bernstein to take his own 8th Uhlans from the 1st Division plus the two cavalry squadrons of Schmettau’s Force, an improvised cyclist company formed by the 43rd Infantry, and a battery of field guns, and ride east to cut the Neidenburg road. Just how this mixed bag by itself was supposed to sever the main line of retreat of two Russian corps was left unanswered. But at 6:40 a.m. François also ordered the 2nd Division to remain in reserve instead of advancing on Soldau. In the absence of positive confirmation of enemy movements by his own scouts or aircraft, François was not going to split his force and attack in two directions at once. But if the airmen were right he would have a full and fresh division ready to march on Neidenburg in support of his mobile group.50

  The German advance on Soldau in the event met little resistance. The reports had been correct. Most of the Russian had left during the night; those remaining were battered into inaction by the German artillery. The Germans halted only when air reconnaissance reported that the Russian main body was far out of reach, beyond Mlawa. By 8:00 a.m. François was confident enough to start the 2nd Division toward Neidenburg.

  Hindenburg and Ludendorff initially responded to this initiative by confirming it, ordering François to occupy the town as soon as possible and send his cavalry toward Willenburg, deeper into the Russian rear. But the news of Sontag’s defeat changed minds in a hurry. At 9:10 a.m., François was told instead to divert both the 2nd Division and Schmettau’s Force northeast to deal with the supposed Russian breakthrough in the 41st Division’s sector. Army command took no chances dealing with its unruly subordinate. He was ordered to begin this movement at once, and to report as soon as he issued the orders. At 10:10 a.m. a phone message to 8th Army confirmed that the 2nd Division was on its way in the new direction.51.

  As XX Corps and army headquarters continued to receive alarmist reports from Sontag’s sector,52 Hindenburg and Ludendorff decided around noon to turn the whole of I Corps not east against Neidenburg, but northeast in the direction of Lahna. This movement would both relieve the direct pressure on Sontag and bar once more the Russian lines of retreat left open by his defeat. It seemed safe enough since François had reported at 11:45 a.m. that Soldau was firmly in German hands. By this time the staff knew François too well for comfort. The new order ended with a statement that “everything depended on I Corps.” A junior officer telephoned I Corps headquarters a half-hour later with the solemn adjuration that the corps could render “the greatest possible service” to the army by carrying out its mission exactly.53

  François regarded the changed orders as unsound to the point of folly, reflecting Ludendorff’s inexperience in commanding large formations. The chief of staff wanted I Corps to cover the reteat of the 41st Division and to cut off the Russian lines of withdrawal. François was convinced that both missions could best be fulfilled by advancing not on Lahna, but on Neidenburg as originally planned. The only major road to Lahna ran through thick woods, where I Corps’s maneuverability would be useless. Nor could its artillery expect to do much more there than shell trees more or less at random. With Neidenburg in German hands, however, the Russians would be trapped and presumably too concerned for their own position to pursue the 41st Division in any direction. François, never a man to let a superior’s judgment overrule his own, decided to disobey once more. He hedged his bets only by instructing Conta to halt and feed the 1st Division, in effect giving I Corps a reserve. But he issued no new orders to the rest of his troops. As long as Hermann von François was commanding, I Corps would fight its battles his own way.54

  François’s behavior in this situation highlights once again the ambiguities created in practice by the German principle of “mission orders,” leadership by directive. François is a man easy to admire—from a distance. Among the military virtues initiative is the one most overrated, by soldiers and scholars alike. The general who wins the battle the wrong way when his superiors are losing it the right way appeals to the iconoclast lurking in every academic. The role organizational shortcomings play in turning military misfortune into military catastrophe has been most recently demonstrated by Eliot Cohen and John Gooch. These authors stress the role of generals in correcting organizational flaws, even at high risk.55 Yet there is another side to the question. How is it possible to direct a complicated battle when a principal subordinate with a crucial mission insists on total independence?

  Hindenburg and Ludendorff had no immediate answer. But by
1:00 p.m. it was clear to them that François either had an instinct for the dynamics of this particular battle, or possessed what the French colonial army called “baraka”—fighting man’s luck. The 41st Division had been badly shaken, but the Russians were not pursuing it. On the other hand reports of success were arriving from Goltz and Morgen. These were significantly exaggerated. They did, however, convince 8th Army command that François’s attack should be executed as originally planned. At 1:30 p.m. army command assumed its hope and announced to François that the Russians were in retreat to the southeast. The I Corps was to cut off their combat formations, sweep through their rear elements, and disrupt their lines of communication. The 1st Division was ordered to reach Neidenburg and Muschaken and the 2nd Grünfliess by nightfall. Cavalry and cyclists were to advance to Willenberg; the main body of I Corps would resume pursuit as soon as possible the next day.56

  François received this order at 2:30 p.m. Fifteen minutes later he started the 1st Division and Schmettau’s Force on the road to Neidenburg. Conta’s men were rested enough to be able to execute their mission with limited straggling—particularly when a corps staff officer drove along the column shouting that the Russians had been beaten and were on the run for the border. It was a textbook advance against light opposition, with artillery driving the Russians out of the few strong points they were able to organize before the infantry closed in. One battery even took thirty prisoners, who asked the gunners for an escort to protect them against further shelling! By midafternoon Conta’s 8th Uhlans had swung south of Neidenburg; the cavalry of the 2nd Division, the 10th Jäger zu Pferde, was advancing on the town from the west.