Tannenberg: Clash of Empires 1914

by Dennis E. Showalter

The battle of Tannenberg (August 27–30, 1914) opened World War I with a decisive German victory over Russia—indeed the Kaiser’s only clear-cut victory in a non-attritional battle during four years of war. In this first paperback edition of the classic work, historian Dennis Showalter analyzes this battle’s causes, effects, and implications for subsequent German military policy. The author carefully guides the reader through what actually happened on the battlefield, from its grand strategy down to the level of improvised squad actions. Examining the battle in the context of contemporary diplomatic, political, and economic affairs, Showalter also reviews both armies’ social settings and military doctrine, and shows how the battle may be understood as a case study of problems that military organizations face in the initial stages of a major war. In addition, he demolishes many myths about the battle, such as the supposed superiority of the German military, the animosity among Russian field commanders, and the assumption that the Germans viewed their opponents as a horde of uniformed illiterates.

Tannenberg’s mystique later served the Weimar Republic and Third Reich propagandists. For years its legends helped to shape German nationalist ideology and military policy. In 1941, Hitler’s Wehrmacht grossly underestimated Soviet military capability, leading to disaster in World War II.

Genres: History, World War I, Military History, Russia, Russian History, Military Fiction, Nonfiction

432 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

A specialist in German military history, Dennis E. Showalter was professor emeritus of history at Colorado College. He was president of the American Society for Military History from 1997 to 2001 and an advising fellow of the Barsanti Military History Center at the University of North Texas.

Reviews

[Dimitri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dennis Showalter tackles Tannenberg with his trademark elegant erudition. The guns don’t fire until almost 200 pages in. First, the familiar origin story of the Great War is briskly told from a Russo-German point of view. The subsequent thorough comparison of the combatants is one of the best I have yet encountered, even if the emphasis is on the Reichswehr and its cultural significance. Themes such as recruitment, training, and weaponry will resurface occasionally during the battle, for better or for worse. This cross-referencing also applies to the discussion of pre-war strategies for operations in East Prussia. There was still a place for massed bayonet charges in the giant Russian pincer movement, while the 8th Army could draw some confidence from using a familiar Austerlitz-inspired scenario. On the other hand, no war game could hope to intimidate as much as the vision of Cossacks roaming Unter Den Linden, while the simultaneous clash in the West guaranteed the impossibility of reinforcements.
The narrative of the hostilities themselves goes above and beyond the standard sort of dry tactics which never comes with enough maps. The supremacy of the Masurian landscape in dictating strategy and the effect of the summer heat on battle readiness come to life in little vignettes, where tired boots churn up the dust that parches the throat. The human element is explored by other means than contemporary assessments of a commander’s character, which usually accompany his pre-battle biography. Showalter is at his best when he links human error to the stress placed upon the shoulders of elderly men who are brusquely torn away from a life of regular comfort, but are too Victorian to acknowledge any effect on their powers of judgement. He flavours each phase of the fighting with in-text discussions of scholarship from the 1920s to the present, mostly to take a revisionist stance. Traditional culprits such as Von François or Samsonov regain some of their dignity.
An elaborate epilogue gives us the mythology of Tannenberg in the interwar period. Overall, this book is rightly hailed as one of the best modern works on the Tannenberg campaign. Professor Showalter is, however, aware of its limitations. He opens with an apology for the dominantly German point of view. Looking back on the significant year of 1991, it is a shame that there hasn’t been a new study of the same caliber, backed by a more balanced analysis of Russian sources. If and when, this study will suffer the effects of old age.

[Jerome Otte · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lively, chronological history of the battle of Tannenberg, mostly from the German perspective, with a smooth, thorough, balanced, and readable narrative.

Among the judgments commonly made about this battle is that the Russians were poorly led, poorly armed, and suffered from bad intelligence, and that Ludendorff and Hindenburg deserve credit for the battle’s outcome. Showalter challenges these, and points out many of the tactical errors on both sides. Showalter also emphasizes the fluidity of the battlefield, and how the “battle” was actually a series of battles fought over more than a hundred miles. Showalter does a great job synthesizing all of the sources on the battle, as well as explaining the impact of technology.

An intimate, clearly written history. Some more maps would have helped, though, and the narrative gets pretty dry when it comes to troop movements.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tannenberg gets 3 Stars for a book that alternated between incredibly detailed and boring account of diplomatic maneuvers to insightful and memorable vignettes from the initial defeat at Gumbinnen to the victory at Tannenberg. However, his lack of maps to go with the minute details of Russian and German army moves was a real drawback. You can save a lot of time by skipping to Page 100 and starting there. Showalter’s objective in writing this book is clear:
The army of the Second Reich, however, is more often studied in its political or social contexts than as a military instrument. One of the major reasons for undertaking this study was a desire to evaluate the Kaiser’s fighting men as they made the transition from peace to war. The scale of the Tannenberg campaign offers opportunities to integrate case studies at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels into a framework small enough to be more readily comprehensible by non-specialists than the amorphous fighting on the western front.

Tannenberg had mythic properties as well. The victory in East Prussia stood comparison with Verdun as the most familiar battle of World War I in German public opinion. The legends and hopes clustering around it helped shape attitudes until the very end of World War I.
The book makes clear how the regular army, officers especially, did not want to serve in the backwater of the Eastern provinces. They wanted to be on the Western Frontier, where the “big battles” would take place. Cavalry was thought to be very important for the Eastern battle:
Properly used in the kind of open warfare made possible by the geography of Eastern Europe, cavalry was seen as vital for successful offensive operations. The German army, however, was relatively weak in this arm, particularly when compared to the Russians. The military budget, despite its size, could not be stretched to accommodate larger mounted forces without sacrificing even more important elements.

This tended to foster caution among both the formers of German cavalry doctrine and the officers who implemented it. Cavalry could not be improvised. As both the Union’s experience in the American Civil War and Great Britain’s in South Africa indicated, it took upwards of three years to turn a man on a horse into a fighting trooper. Given the general expectations of a short war, it is hardly surprising that the cavalry regarded itself as a one-shot instrument, to be used and expended only at the decisive moment of a campaign. This attitude had at least as much to do with the arm’s continued acceptance of shock tactics as did any nostalgic longings for the glory days of the arme blanche. For all their swagger, few German troopers really believed their arm could operate effectively against infantry or artillery under modern conditions. Instead they perceived their combat role as fighting other cavalry: the military equivalent of an exchange of knights in a chess game.

The Russian army put great faith in its cavalry, mobilizing the equivalent of over thirty divisions plus a large number of independent regiments and squadrons. A Russian cavalry or Cossack regiment included six squadrons, around a thousand men, and was correspondingly difficult to control in battle. Four of them made up a division which, with twelve guns and some small supporting units, consisted of around 4,500 men. This gave Rennenkampf over 20,000 of the best horsemen in the Russian army.

The German superiority in artillery was to pay dividends in the battle. The Russians may have been inferior in equipment but not in ferocity:
At least as serious was the absence from Russia’s order of battle of any equivalent to the German howitzers. Debate over the use and cost of this weapon had retarded its adoption. Compared to the forty-eight light and sixteen heavy howitzers of a German corps, in 1914 each Russian corps had only twelve 122-millimeter howitzers, throwing a heavier shell than the German 105-millimeter piece but significantly less mobile. All heavier artillery was concentrated at the army level-a good way of being reasonably sure of its unavailability in an emergency.

From later battles at Gumbinnen and Tanneberg:

More seriously, Russian gunners were showing an uncanny ability to range even the best-concealed German position and bring it under accurate fire in two or three salvos-a fruit of the Manchurian campaign the Germans had not expected.

In the midst of disaster, the Russian artillery lived up to a tradition dating back to Peter the Great. Batteries, sections, and individual crews fought it out to the muzzle until shot to pieces by German guns or overrun by German infantry. In one sector dawn found a silent Russian battery, its cannoneers shot or bayoneted to a man, with fifty German bodies heaped in front of the guns as grim tokens of the last rounds.

There were fewer villages and built up areas to use as strongpoints in the East but clearing them proved difficult due to poor doctrine and lack of training:
Since the introduction of firearms, Europe’s armies had utilized farms and villages to anchor defensive positions, nightmares to the attacker. For every Blenheim, with a garrison massed too closely either to move or to shoot, there were a dozen Hougoumonts or Le Bourgets to act as bones in the throat of a regiment, a division, sometimes an army corps. Clearing them usually meant street-by-street, house-by-house brawling that could leave the victors as disorganized as the vanquished, and correspondingly vulnerable to counterattack.

Logic suggests that street lighting should have formed a major element of any European army’s peacetime training-particularly one as offensive-minded as Germany’s. Yet while Europe grew more denser settled after 1871, maneuvers were held on open ground. No annual budgets included money to construct dummy villages, or to purchase farmsteads for practice assaults. Instead doctrine prescribed avoiding built-up areas wherever possible, bypassing them and leaving their neutralization to the artillery.

However sound might be the principle, its execution proved impossible on the 2nd Division’s front. There were enough Russians in Uszballen to pin down any clever flanking movements, and no time to wait for the guns. Lieutenants took their platoons into the village outskirts, a subaltern of the 45th’s 9th Company showing the way by capturing two dug-in machine guns one after the other. By the time the fighting reached
the center of town, sergeants and corporals were setting the pace. As yet the German infantry had no grenades, that subsequently indispensable weapon in house-to-house fighting. The magazines of their rifles held only five rounds. Not all of the peacetime training in gymnastics and bayonet drill had been wasted. Cold steel and rifle butts took the men of the 45th forward against desperate resistance. It was noon when the Russians broke, the few survivors seeking shelter in the basements and outbuildings of a village ablaze from end to end.

As the firing died down Uszballen’s conquerors became suddenly and uncomfortably conscious of the stench of charring bodies, the screams of trapped Russians suffocating or burning alive. For not a few of the 2nd Division’s young men the taste of victory was a mouthful of vomit as company officers and NCOs tried to collect prisoners and organize rescue parties.

What is the proper etiquette in surrendering/accepting the surrender? Another lesson to be learned again:
(The Germans) fought within a hundred meters of another Russian position to be confronted with white flags, shirt-tails, and handkerchiefs. The unwary who moved forward to take the presumed surrender were met with a burst of fire at point-blank range.

Time after time in the early days of World War I, combatants accused each other of deliberate misuse of the white flag. Apart from the obvious chances of confusion, with troops unaware of the flag’s presence responding to an apparent enemy advance, German junior officers and enlisted men seem to have been generally ignorant of two facts about a white flag. It signifies no more than a desire to parley, and it is not necessarily a sign of surrender. Moreover, the hoister of the flag is expected to take the initiative in making contact. The Germans were not required to expose themselves in response to the Russian gesture; they did so at their own risk. But few rifle platoons contained experts in the fine points of the laws of war. The Grenadiers overran the trenches and shot or bayonetted every man in them. Their regimental history records the deed with pride.

Peacetime vs wartime--another lesson--always train like you will fight:
Regimental and battalion staffs discovered that remaining mounted within range of the Russian rifles was suicidal; even led horses offered too inviting a target. This in turn reduced the speed of order transmission to the strength of a man’s legs and the soundness of his lungs. In peacetime adjutants and orderly officers, well rested and well mounted, carried fresh instructions to rifle companies advancing against blank cartridges or marked enemies. Now they ran desperately from place to place, cursing every glass of beer and every cigar consumed so casually before August 1.

An interesting observation on retreating while fighting on the modern battlefield:
At his headquarters Mackensen was finally beginning to doubt that his corps could break the Russian line unassisted when his men made the same decision. Flight in modern war is frequently an unfeasible option. Apart from the pressures of discipline and comradeship, the battlefield is swept by such a heavy volume of fire that staying put, even in an unfavorable position, may reasonably seem a lesser risk. Situations combining obvious danger and limited possibilities of escape encourage a kind of passivity that can become furious defense when the enemy shows itself.

An amusing anecdote about General Otto von Below. Just because you are a general in war, doesn't mean a mother will neglect her kids to serve you:
A few years later Below, in full uniform, found himself stranded in a small rural Gasthaus late in the evening. When he requested a meal, the landlady informed him that she had no time; she needed to help her son with his schoolwork. The general promptly and gallantly mounted the breach and earned his dinner by taking the youngster through his Latin exercises.

Tannenberg was a solid victory but it gained an undeserved mythic reputation:
By September 1, Germany’s media began to react. Tannenberg made headlines in every corner of the Reich. It inspired speeches, parades, and thanks. Such a mystique developed about no other battles of World War I. One of the most enduring legends pictured an old general who spent the years of his retirement devising a gigantic trap for a Russian invasion, exploring paths and sounding the bottoms of marshes in which the enemy was to be engulfed and then fulfilling his dream in 1914.“ Another, this one slightly more plausible, developed as the shadow of Ludendorff grew behind Hindenburg. It described a masterly plan for a second Cannae, improvised and dictated by Ludendorff as the train bore him eastwards. Ludendorff, never a man to be modest about his own achievements, himself denied this by recounting in his memoirs a conversation which he had in October 1914 with the Spanish military attaché. That officer asked if Tannenberg had been fought according to a set plan, and was extremely surprised when Ludendorff told him it had not. But the myth defied suppression.

If only Showalter had found a way to make the prior history more interesting and provided maps to match the detailed maneuvering…. Still, a worthwhile read for a key WWI battle.

[Rob Humphrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very informative but tends to get bogged down in excruciating details. There is an overview map at the beginning of the chapters, but with the level of description that the author goes into it would be helpful to have more maps.

[Dave Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought it initially bogged down in the personality steered pre-war politics that set the stage for the really big show; but that is an essential part to the story. The author did a fine job of making this event a part of a big picture throughout the book and did not develop any tunnel-vision. Throughout, there was a mix of political, strategic, operational and anecdotal information with an occasional wicked sense of bone dry humor surfacing. My one complaint was poor maps. The quality of the printing was not good (in my 1991 version) and the locations of specific units mentioned was not always apparent and sometimes a bit out of place with the narrative.

[Geoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

A masterful account of the battle and its significance on various levels. I didn't enjoy the initial chapters, which cover the diplomatic history leading to the outbreak of World War I, as much as the rest, but this has more to do with my own tastes than anything else.

[Todd Ewing · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good book and I enjoyed following the battle in the East, especially having read two books on the campaigns of 1914 in the West. It is a little dry at times and I wish the maps were better to use. Many times the author discussed the advances of troops and the maps did not give indication here these places were at and I am one of THOSE kinds of readers when it comes to military campaigns. Overall, it was a strong history and dispelled several myths.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good history of a classic battle. Used in conjunction with a battlefield visit. Very useful and detailed.

Showalter does a great job stressing the problems faced by unblooded armies during their initial fight. The real goodness is within this analysis where friction is magnified by inexperience.

[Marco · Rating 5 out of 5]

The maps could be better. But the history is solid and the tales from battle are amazing. It's up until the regimental history, if you complement it with some maps from internet or an atlas of WW1 you'll be avaible to know where it was everyone on those momentous days.

[ProfX · Rating 3 out of 5]

Scholarly with interesting insight, but lacking in some fundamentals, most notably maps. I read in many reviews that the lack of maps was an issue but figured it was being overblown, but after reading it I really had to agree. The names of towns, rivers, regions, etc. are thrown at the reader almost constantly, but with no maps to give those locales any context. The few maps that are given are poorly done drawn maps, not very helpful if you are not already familiar with the region. The only reason this is so important is that so much of the battle was decided by maneuverings of various generals and divisions, not by head on clashes as was common on the Western Front. Without the proper maps to given the described movements context, I feel I didn't understand the battle nearly as well as I could have.

The chapters describing German-Russian relations and military planning prior to 1914, however, are rather superb. Very nice refresher since I hadn't studied the era in detail since college.

[Jimmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good look overall, but I do have a few criticisms. The author tends to concentrate mostly on the Germans; at several points in the book, he would to into detail about the decisions made by the German corps and division commanders, while giving only brief mention about what the Russians were doing (with minimal information about the Russian corps commanders, and practically nothing about the division commanders). Additional maps showing unit positions during the battle of Tannenberg itself would have helped. The author also used German words and phrases throughout the book but usually failed to translate any of them; while I was able to look up the words on Google Translate, it would have been easier if the translations had been in the book itself.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall this was a fairly good book but I was disappointed by the lack of maps. I found it very difficult to remain focused on the reading due to a lack of geography. Yes, I could have downloaded a map and kept by my bedside...but alas I did not. On the brighter side I enjoyed the story of Hindenburg, Ludendorff, Francois, and Hoffman. The one bright tactical victory for Imperial Germany could not stop the end of the empire.

[Vanjr · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my first book that is clearly "military history." I am not one drawn overly to this type of book, but this book interested me because of its place in Russian history and Solzhenitsyn's book AUGUST 1914 and a recent interest in WW1. I do wish more maps and geographic details were included. This book does cover the pre-war and pre-battle and post battle aspects from both German and Russian viewpoints but clearly has either more German sources or sympathies.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

A comprehensive review of one of the few decisive battles of World War I, Showalter's book does a fine job of exploring the details of the battle while also revealing the truth about many of the myths that surround it. A well-written history of an important, if now almost forgotten, chapter of the First World War in the east.

[Rob · Rating 1 out of 5]

Historico-political synthesis masquerading as operational history with an emphasis on social relations between Pan-Slavic culture versus that of Prussia... this wasn't quite what I was looking for.