![]() ![]() More than 100,000 people gathered to witness the ceremony. On 18 September 1927, Paul von Hindenburg, who was almost eighty years old and had been Reichspräsident since May 1925, inaugurated the monument. On 31 August 1924, the ceremonial laying of the foundation stone took place in Hohenstein, attended by von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff and a total of 60,000 people, most of whom were veterans of the battle exactly ten years ago. The great war memorial and mausoleums at Tannenberg, East Prussia in 1935 (left) and 1927 (right)Īn enormous memorial ( Reichsehrenmal Tannenberg), with mausoleums, was subsequently erected at Tannenberg in Hohenstein. East Prussia had been saved, and von Hindenburg became a folk hero - despite the military strategic plans being overseen by a brilliant staff officer, Max Hoffman, and won in large measure because of the initiative and sure judgement of von Francois. These great, imaginative and connected victories of the German army against much larger forces were Christened the Battle of Tannenberg (after the 1410 battle where the Teutonic Knights were defeated by a much larger multitude of Slavs, Lithuanians and Tartars etc.) and it was a valuable lift to German morale. (He would be murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1918.) He himself fled in ignominy by car to the fortress of Kovno ( Kaunas) eighty miles away in Lithuania. In the Battle of the Masurian Lakes, September 8-9, Rennenkampf was driven out of East Prussia. He was, however, able to retreat some way with the bulk of his troops. Reinforced by two German Corps from the Western Front who had arrived by train, von Hindenburg was now able to defeat von Rennenkampf, who lost between thirty and forty-five thousand men as prisoners. Late on August 29th General Samsonov managed to slip away from his staff officers and shot himself. German losses were between ten and fifteen thousand. The Germans took ninety-two thousand prisoners and at least thirty thousand were killed. One Russian column suddenly found itself under searchlight beams and facing machine-guns and cannon-fire. A general retreat on August 29-30 developed into a cataclysmic disaster and countless soldiers were killed by German soldiers who were combing the forests. Only two of Samsonov's corps were any longer able to fight with any effect and communications and supplies were badly disrupted. Von Rennenkampf was moving forward so ponderously as to be useless. Ludendorff was meanwhile haunted by the spectre of von Rennenkampf's "formidable host". Von Francois although hemmed in on three sides, now moved to cut off Samsonov's retreat. The Commander of the Russian North-western Army Group, Yakov Zhilinsky, now ordered von Rennenkampf to move forward but seemingly without urgency. They were hurled back from their positions suffering horrendous casualties in the process. On August 27th von Francois hit the Russians with his heavy artillery. Nevertheless Samsonov decided to continue the battle as a holding action until von Rennenkampf could arrive to turn the tables on the Germans. By the evening the Russian position was becoming untenable and almost hopelessly confused one Russian division was pinned down around Lake Bössau. Generals August von Mackensen and Otto von Below drove Samsonov back. The following day General von François was ordered by Ludendorff to attack and there was fierce fighting. Samsonov hurried with undue haste to move forward but was forced to halt on August 25th due to the near exhaustion of his men marching in scorching heat. ![]() The German plan was aided by the fifty-mile chain of the Masurian Lakes which formed a natural barrier between the two Russian armies.The German First Corps were now detraining west of Tannenberg, commanded by General Hermann von François ( de). The Russian Second Army under General Aleksandr Samsonov had also crossed the East Prussian frontier on August 20th and the Germans decided to deal with this force first before the slow-moving Rennenkampf and the known fact that the two Russian generals were unwilling to co-operate with each other. The ageing German Eighth Army ( de) commander, Max von Prittwitz ( de), was replaced by his brother-in-law, General Paul von Hindenburg, who had been brought out of retirement, with Major-General Erich Ludendorff as his Chief-of Staff. The insufficient German forces in this part of East Prussia fell back. Three days later he defeated a German force at Gumbinnen, about ten miles inside the frontier. In the opening phases of World War I, the French had urged the Russians to take action to relieve the German pressure on them, and the Russian First Army under General Paul Georg von Rennenkampf (a Baltic baron) invaded East Prussia on 17 August 1914 in the direction of Königsberg (a fortress city). Some of the leading German commanders at Tannenberg meeting in Königsberg in 1924. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |