Last Friday, I released a video about the life of Paul von Hindenburg, and to give you
a spoiler if you missed it: one of the battles that made him into a living legend, was the
battle of Tannenberg at the beginning of the First World War.
The German forces annihilated the Russians and the victory cemented von Hindenburg’s
reputation within Germany.
After the crushing defeat, the commander of the Russian army took his own life and as
I was reading up on this, he really sparked my curiosity.
Who was this man, that led such a crushing defeat, and what was his background?
-intro-
Early Life & Before the Battle
Samsonov was born in an administrative territorial unit, the Kherson Governorate, of the Russian
Empire and moved to Russia during his early teens in order to attend the Nikolayev Cadet
School in Saint Petersburg.
This school was attended by many men that would play a role in history, among which
the Finnish military leader and statesman, Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim.
The Russo-Turkish war, from eighteen-seventy-seven to seventy-eight was Samsonov’s baptism
of fire - after which he decided to attend the Military Staff College.
Furthermore, he saw action during the Chinese Boxer Rebellion in nineteen-hundred and the
Russo-Japanese war from nineteen-o-four to nineteen-o-five.
The Russo-Japanese war saw, among other battles, the Battle of Mukden; the biggest battle the
world had seen and would see, until the First World War.
Now, what’s interesting later on, is that Paul von Rennenkampf, another Russian general,
got into conflict with Samsonov in the aftermath of the lost battle.
Paul von Rennenkampf was notorious for his… inadequate time-management.
Samsonov accused Rennenkampf of not coming to his aid during the Battle of Mukden.
This will be important later on… because these two men commanded the Russian army again
during the First World War…. and during the battle of Tannenberg.
We’ll get to that in a second, for now, the Russo-Japanese war was an absolute disaster
for Russia.
As a matter of fact, it was the first time a..
“Western” power was defeated by another one.
Anyway, Russia lost and after the war, Samsonov became the chief of staff of Warsaw in Poland,
and later on, until the First World War, he was the governor of Russian Turkestan.
Nine years after the Battle of Mukden, the First World War broke out, and Samsonov was
given the command of the Russian second army and tasked with the invasion of East Prussia
via the south, whereas Rennenkampf commanded the first army, invading Prussia from the
east.
The Germans were surprised by how quickly the Russians were able to mobilize and Samsonov
moved up to the southwest corner of East Prussia with the intention of later joining General
Rennenkampf's army, which had crossed the border within two weeks of the outbreak of
the war.
The one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand men of Rennenkampf outnumbered all German troops
stationed in East Prussia.
The German General Maximilian von Prittwitz retreated, in a panic, and abandoned East
Prussia.
This was the reason the German Military High Command decided to replace him with Paul von
Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff.
Though the Germans retreated, the lack of communication between the Samsonov and Rennenkampf
hindered coordination and not only that, but Samsonov and Rennenkampf were no friends of
each other.
This whole campaign, from Russia’s perspective, has been colourfully captured in the novel
“August nineteen-fourteen” by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn.
The Battle of Tannenberg
With Von Hindenburg and Ludendorff installed, the two men decided to use the German railway
system to emphasize on their ability to mobilize, over the Russians.
A German battalion* was sent to the western flank of the second army under Samsonov, still
advancing north-ward, confident that von Rennenkampf would attack the German first army from the
other side.
Fact of the matter was that Rennenkampf had stopped his advance, and Samsonov was unaware
that he was being surrounded by German troops.
To add to that: Rennenkampf had a code-book and could send coded telegrams, but Samsonov
did not have such a book, resulting in the telegrams meant for him being intercepted
by the Germans.
Now, the battle took place near Allenstein, in present-day Poland.
In order to understand why it was named the Battle of Tannenberg, we have to go back to
the early fifteenth century when Lithuania-Poland was the largest territorial state in Europe.
Extension Eastward was blocked by the Golden Horde at the Battle of the Vorskla River in
thirteen-ninety-nine and eleven years later, in fourteen-ten, a Polish-Lithuanian army
defeated the Teutonic Knights at the Battle of Tannenberg, also referred to as the Battle
of Grunwald.
Hindenburg coined his victory the Battle of Tannenberg, adding a ‘mythical’ dimension
to it, referring to the defeat five-hundred years before, and the revenge the Germans
had taken.
Two German battalions went southward to meet the Russian second army, whereas the remaining
German soldiers spread out, in order to form a ‘wall’, just in case Paul von Rennenkampf
did decide to move.
The first successes von Rennenkampf’s army had as they marched into East Prussia were
nothing compared to the absolute annihilation of Samsonov’s army.
He tried to lead his army out of the chaos, but they were encircled by the Germans.
Merely ten-thousand of the one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand Russian soldiers managed to escape.
Over seventy-five-thousand were killed or wounded, and over ninety-thousand were taken
as a prisoner of war, whereas the Germans lost under fifteen-thousand soldiers.
Samsonov amidst of the chaos must have been horrified and stunned.
Furthermore, he understandably worried about the reaction of Tsar Nicholas the Second.
Just three days ago, he had a quarter of a million elite Russian troops at his disposal,
of which only a few percent escaped.
During the staggering defeat, Samsonov walked into a nearby forest and committed suicide
on the thirtieth of August nineteen-fourteen.
His body would not be returned to Russia until nineteen-sixteen, two years later.
After the defeat, von Rennenkampf and his badly mauled army retreated back over the
pre-war border, in order to escape encirclement.
After Russian investigation, not Rennenkampf but another general, Yakov Zhilinsky, was
blamed for the failure of the East Prussian campaign and he was relieved of his command.
This however did not stop the angry Russian nationalists from hanging von Rennenkampf
in effigy, calling him “rennen-ohne-kampf”, “running without a fight”.
He would be dismissed a year later in nineteen-fifteen, after being held responsible for other failures
during the war but that’s a story for another time, however.
The battle of Tannenberg is mainly remembered because it cemented Von Hindenburg’s myth
in the German collective consciousness and contributed to the increase of prestige of
both Von Hindenburg and Ludendorff.
Often, the victors of battles are remembered, but perhaps after this video, you’ll agree
with me that the story of a beaten general can be just as interesting.
Thank you for watching this video, and what is an event of person that tends to be overshadowed
that you would like to know more about, and perhaps see a video of?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments and if you found this video interesting, consider
subscribing to this channel.
See you next time.