Russian invasion of East Prussia (1914)

For the Soviet invasion of East Prussia, see East Prussian Offensive.
East Prussian Campaign
Part of the Eastern Front of World War I

Eastern Front, 17–23 August 1914.
Date17 August – 14 September 1914
LocationEast Prussia
Result German victory
Belligerents
 Russian Empire  German Empire
Commanders and leaders
Russian Empire Paul von Rennenkampf
Russian Empire Alexander Samsonov †
Russian Empire Yakov Zhilinskiy		 German Empire Paul von Hindenburg
German Empire Erich Ludendorff
German Empire Maximilian von Prittwitz
Strength

I Army
II Army
X Army
Total more than 800,000 men[1] another estimate: 650,000[2]

another estimate: more 1,000,000[3]		 VIII Army
Total 250,000 men[4] another estimate: 135,000[2]
Casualties and losses
in 4 main battles more than 320,000 men[5] (Stallupönen - 7,500;[6] Gumbinnen - 19,000;[7] Tannenberg - 170,000;[8] Masurian lakes - 125,000[9]) Another estimate: more than 300,000 [10] Total about 37,000[11] or 67,000 men (Stallupönen - 1,300;[12] Gumbinnen -14,600;[13] Tannenberg - 12,000;[14] Masurian lakes - 10,000[15] or 40,000[16][17][18][19][20][21][22])

The Russian invasion of East Prussia occurred during the First World War, lasting from August to September 1914. As well as being the natural course for the Russians to take upon the declaration of war with Germany, it was also an attempt to focus German military eyes on the Eastern Front, as opposed to the Western Front. Despite having an overwhelming superiority over the Germans in numbers, the Russian Army was spread out and suffered a defeat.

Plans

The Germans initially planned to have only the 8th army to act, as they expected that the Russians would be slow to mobilise, leaving Germany to beat France in a few weeks thereby allowing the victorious, battle-hardened German troops to transfer along Germany's superior transport network to fight the Russians on the Eastern Front. This was the basis of the Schlieffen Plan.

Comparison of strength

The invasion was led by two Russian armies: the First Army, which was commanded by General Paul Rennenkampf and consisted of 6,5 infantry divisions, 5,5 cavalry divisions and 500 guns, and the Second Army under the command of General Alexander Samsonov, composed of 11 infantry divisions, 3 cavalry divisions and 720 guns. They were confronted by the German Eighth Army, commanded by General Maximilian von Prittwitz and consisting of 14,5 infantry divisions, 1 cavalry division and 1000 guns.[23] Although outnumbering the enemy, the Russian Army had numerous problems that contributed to its defeat: its transport service was largely ineffective and slowed down the movement of troops, its forces were spread out over a large territory and had poor coordination with each other, allowing the enemy to engage each part of their army separately,[24] like in the Battle of Tannenberg[25] or the Battle of Stallupönen,[26] and most importantly, its intelligence-gathering technique was greatly inferior to that of the Germans.[27] The planning of the invasion was rushed and not well-thought out.[28]

Battle

German Silver medallion liberation of East Prussia 1914 by Paul von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg. Obverse
WWI German Silver medal East Prussia 1914. The naked General Hindenburg fighting the Russian Bear with his sword. Reverse

However, quite quickly, Russia was able to mobilize an invasion into East Prussia. Any invasion of Prussia was an important blow to German morale as well as her general strategic situation, due to Prussia (including East Prussia) being the historical heart of the German Reich (Empire). The German deployment on the outbreak of the war left only the 10 divisions of the German Eighth Army under General Maximilian von Prittwitz in East Prussia whereas the Russians had been able to mobilize the First Army, under General Paul von Rennenkampf and the Second Army, under General Alexander Samsonov. They entered East Prussia on 7–9 August. The Battle of Stallupönen, fought between Russian and German armies on 17 August 1914, was the opening battle of World War I on the Eastern Front. It was a minor German success, but did little to upset the Russian timetables.[29]

The Battle of Gumbinnen, started by the Germans on 20 August 1914 was the first major offensive on the Eastern Front during the First World War. Due to the hastiness of the German attack the Russian army emerged victorious. The Germans were forced to retreat, perhaps with the intention of performing holding actions in Mazuria, or even retreating to the River Vistula which would have meant abandoning the salient of East Prussia. This would have fitted in with the plans made before the start of the First World War; that these were the positions the Germans would retreat to if the Russians put up a much stronger fight than they had anticipated. Regardless of whatever preparations had been made, however, it still remained that the Germans could not let the Prussian capital, Königsberg fall into Russian hands. The moral, symbolic and military value (since it was a major military hub) of the city meant to lose it was to invite disaster on the home front, in addition to the strategic ramifications. Also, it was very likely that the Russians would have used the upper hand thus gained to use their superior forces to overwhelm the static German defenses. In short, the Germans had to fight back immediately and force the Russians from East Prussia.

Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, Chief of the German General Staff from 1906 to 1914 replaced Prittwitz with Paul von Hindenburg (brought out of retirement) on 22 August. Hindenburg, along with his Chief of Staff, the formidable Ludendorff would approach the crisis in East Prussia very differently from Prittwitz, who panicked when the Russian onslaught entered East Prussia. In contrast to Prittwitz, Hindenburg and Ludendorff decided to take the offensive and encircle one of the opposing armies. Following the plans of Colonel Max Hoffmann, Prittwitz's deputy chief of operations, they chose to send eight divisions against Samsonov in the Battle of Tannenberg resulting in over 90,000 captured and 70,000 killed or wounded. The Second Army was destroyed and Samsonov shot himself. In the Battle of the Masurian Lakes, the Germans forced the First Army to retreat out of East Prussia.

The invasion was a ghastly failure for the Russians, a setback which was followed by considerable German advances in the following year, including the capture of the Polish city of Warsaw. However, the crisis caused in the German High Command by the unexpected Russian advance forced the sending of 2 corps and a cavalry division from the Western Front as part of the new 9th Army in order to support the attack on the Russians. These additional forces did not arrive in time for the twin battles, as Ludendorff predicted and, had they entered France as originally planned could have been tremendously helpful to the precarious situation in the West. In the Head of French Intelligence Colonel Dupont's words, "their debacle was one of the elements of our victory."[30][31][32]

References

  1. ↑ Robert B. Asprey, L'Alto comando tedesco, Milano, Rizzoli, (1993), p. 39 (English edition: Robert B. Asprey,The German High Command at War: Hindenburg and Ludendorff Conduct World War I, 1993)
  2. 1 2 Chickering, R. (2004). Imperial Germany and the Great War, 1914–1918. Cambridge University Press. p. 24. ISBN 0-521-54780-6.
  3. ↑ Сергей Нелипович, Первый блин комом,Восточно-Прусская операция 1914 года, p. 64. 2012
  4. ↑ R.Asprey, L'Alto comando tedesco, p. 84.
  5. ↑ including 150,000 prisoners
  6. ↑ Tannenberg 1914, Warszawa, 2005; p. 18.
  7. ↑ Tannenberg 1914, 2005; p. 29
  8. ↑ Hastings, Max (2013). Catastrophe: Europe goes to war 1914. London: William Collins. p. 281. ISBN 978-0-00-751975-0.
  9. ↑ David Eggenberger, An Encyclopedia of Battles: Accounts of Over 1,560 Battles, 2012, p. 270
  10. ↑ Rasmussen, R. Kent (2014). World War I for Kids: A History with 21 Activities. Chicago Review Press. p. 43. ISBN 978-1-61374-556-4.
  11. ↑ Der Weltkrieg 1914 – 1918. Вand 2. S. 317, 346
  12. ↑ Tannenberg 1914, 2005, p. 18.
  13. ↑ Tannenberg 1914, 2005; p. 32
  14. ↑ Hastings, Max., 2013; p. 281
  15. ↑ David Eggenberger, 2012, p. 270
  16. ↑ Spencer C. Tucker. World War I: The Definitive Encyclopedia and Document Collection. ABC-CLIO. 2014. P. 1048
  17. ↑ Spencer C. Tucker. The European Powers in the First World War: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. 2013. P. 232
  18. ↑ Timothy C. Dowling. Russia at War: From the Mongol Conquest to Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Beyond. ABC-CLIO. 2014. P. 509
  19. ↑ Spencer C. Tucker, Priscilla Mary Roberts. Encyclopedia Of World War I: A Political, Social, And Military History. ABC-CLIO, 2005. P. 378
  20. ↑ Prit Buttar. Collision of Empires: The War on the Eastern Front in 1914. Osprey Publishing. 2014. P. 239
  21. ↑ Spencer Tucker, Priscilla Mary Roberts (2005). World War I: A Student Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. 2005. P. 613
  22. ↑ http://www.firstworldwar.com/battles/masurian1.htm
  23. ↑ Мерников А., Спектор А., Дорошкевич О., Ликсо В. Полная энциклопедия. Первая мировая война (1914-1918), АСТ, 2014, ISBN 978-5-17-084896-6. P. 40.
  24. ↑ Keegan, J. The First World War. Vintage Canada. 2000. P. 140-142
  25. ↑ Keegan, J. The First World War. Vintage Canada. 2000. P. 142ff
  26. ↑ Buttar, P. Collision of Empires: the War on the Eastern Front in 1914. Osprey. 2014. P. 120, 122
  27. ↑ Keegan, J. The First World War. Vintage Canada. 2000. P. 144
  28. ↑ Мерников А., Спектор А., Дорошкевич О., Ликсо В. Полная энциклопедия. Первая мировая война (1914-1918), АСТ, 2014, ISBN 978-5-17-084896-6. P. 40
  29. ↑ Gilbert, Martin (1994). The First World War: A Complete History. New York: Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 080501540X.
  30. ↑ Jukes, Geoffrey, ed. (2002). The First World War: The Eastern Front, 1914-1918. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. p. 22. ISBN 184176342X. Retrieved 2014-02-17.
  31. ↑ Simkins, Peter; Jukes, Geoffrey; Hickey, Michael, eds. (2003). The First World War: The War to End All Wars. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. p. 198. ISBN 1841767387. Retrieved 2014-02-17.
  32. ↑ Tuchman, Barbara W. (2009-07-22). The Guns of August: The Outbreak of World War I. Presidio Press. p. 520. ISBN 0345476093. Retrieved 2014-02-17.

Further reading

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