Dennis Showalter - Tannenberg - Clash of Empires

64Report of Aug. 21 in Schulte, “Dokumente,” 154–155.

65Wenninger’s diary entry of Aug. 22, ibid., 156.

66Erich Ludendorff, Ludendorff’s Own Story, Vol. I (New York, 1926), 49–50.

67Among the major English-language indictments of Ludendorff are Martin Kitchen, The Silent Dictatorship. The Politics of the German High Command under Hindenburg and Ludendorff, 1916–1918 (New York, 1976); and Norman Stone, “Ludendorff,” in The War Lords. Military Commanders of the Twentieth Century, ed. M. Carver (London, 1976), 73–83. D. J. Goodspeed, Ludendorff: Genius of World War I (Boston, 1966), establishes its tone in its title. Roger Parkinson, Tormented Warrior: Ludendorff and the Supreme Command (London, 1978), tries without success to establish Ludendorff’s humane and human aspects. The most balanced brief treatment remains Corelli Barnett, The Swordbearers: Studies in Supreme Command in the First World War (London, 1963), 15–106.

68Ludendorff, Ludendorff’s Own Story, 52 ff.

69See particularly his Denkwürdigkeiten, ed. F. Freiherr von der Goltz and W. Foerster (Berlin, 1932); and Hermann Teske, Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz. Ein Kämpfer für den militärischen Fortschritt (Göttingen, 1957), 66–67.

70Wilhelm Groener, Lebenserinnerungen (Göttingen, 1957), 164–165.

71Verdy to Waldersee, Jan., 1884, in General-feldmarschall Alfred Graf von Waldersee in seinem militärischen Wirken, ed. H. Mohs, Vol. II, 1882–1904 (Berlin, 1929), 180.

72The story was probably apocryphal. August Lindner, in a letter to F. W. Foerster dated Mar. 23, 1957, said that a similar tale had earlier been linked with August Lentze of I Corps. BA-MA, Nachlass Foerster, NL 121/18.

73For summaries of Hindenburg’s peacetime career see Walter Görlitz, Hindenburg: Ein Lebensbild (Bonn, 1953), esp. 41 passim; Andreas Dorpalen, Hindenburg and the Weimar Republic (Princeton, 1964), 7–8; and Walther Hubatsch, Hindenburg und der Staat (Göttingen, 1966), 12 ff.

74Paul von Hindenburg, Out of My Life, tr. F. A. Holt, (London, 1933), 60.

75Wilhelm Deist in Kaiser Wilhelm II: New Interpretations, ed. J. C. G. Röhl and N. Sombart (Cambridge, 1982), 169–192.

76Isabel Hull, The Entourage of Kaiser Wilhelm II, 1888–1918 (Cambridge, 1982), 266 passim; Georg Alexander von Müller, The Kaiser and His Court, ed. W. Görlitz, tr. M. Savill (London, 1961), 22–23.

77Hindenburg, Out of My Life, 61; Ludendorff, Ludendorff’s Own Story, 55.

78Winston Churchill, The Unknown War (New York, 1931), passim; Ludendorff, Ludendorff’s Own Story, 14; Hindenburg, Out of My Life, 62.

79 Ibid., 63.

80Lyncker’s telegram of 4:45 p.m., Aug. 22, in BA-MA, Nachlass François, NL 274/16.

81Hoffmann, “Tannenberg,” 252–253; and War of Lost Opportunities, 33–34; letter of Aug. 23 in BA-MA, Nachlass Hoffmann, NL 37.

82Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, Aus meiner Dienstzeit, 5 vols. (Vienna, 1921–25), IV, 455–458.

83Hoffmann, “Tannenberg,” 252; Reichsarchiv, Weltkrieg II, 115.

84Ludendorff, Ludendorff’s Own Story, 55–56; Hoffmann, “Tannenberg,” 251.

85Hermann Büschleb, Die Verzögerung: Das schwerste Gefecht (Osnabrück, 1978), 32 ff.

86J. W. Wheeler-Bennett, Hindenburg: Wooden Titan (New York, 1936), 20–21; Hoffmann, War Diaries I, 18–19.

87Holger H. Herwig and Neil M. Heyman, Biographical Dictionary of World War I (Westport, Conn., 1982), 88.

88Jean Savant, Épopée Russe, Campagne de l’ ármée Rennenkampf en Prusse-Orientale (Paris, 1945), 249 passim, eloquently defends Rennenkampf’s behavior. Churchill, Unknown War, 185–187, is an imaginative reconstruction of possibilities. Cf. also Norman Stone, The Eastern Front, 1914–1917 (New York, 1975), 62. The anecdote of the staff officer encouraged to retire is from Alfred Knox, With the Russian Army, 1914–1917 (London, 1921), I, 89; the interrogator’s experiences are quoted in Savant, 428.

89François, Marneschlacht und Tannenberg, 198.

90Curt von Morgen, Meiner Truppen Heldenkämpfe (Berlin, 1918), 6–7.

91Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnugen, 46–47.

92 Richter, IR 128, 24 ff.; Steuer, IR 129, 30–31; Seydel, Grenadier-Regiment Nr. 5, 45 ff.

93Edmund Ironside, Tannenberg (Edinburgh, 1925), 154; RIR Nr. 3, 22 ff.; Meyhöfer, RFAR Nr. 36, 11 ff.

94A detailed account of the cavalry’s movements and condition is in Lt.-Col. Osterroht and Major Herrmann, Geschichte des Dragoner-Regiments Prinz Albrecht von Preussen (Litthauisches) Nr. 1, 1717–1919 (Berlin, 1930), 53 ff. Cf. Savant, Épopée russe, 219 ff.

1For the movements of the Russian 2nd Army, cf. the general staff history, La Grande Guerre. Concentration des armées. Premières operations en Prusse Orientale, en Galicie et en Pologne (1 erâout–24 novembre 1914), tr. E. Chapouilly (Paris, 1926), 32 ff, 89 ff.; N. N. Golovine, The Russian Campaign of 1914, tr. A. G. S. Muntz (Ft. Leavenworth, Kans., 1933), 178 ff.; Edmund Ironside, Tannenberg (Edinburgh, 1925), 42 ff.; 117 ff.

2David R. Jones, “The Advanced Guard and Mobility in Russian Military Thought and Practice,” SAFRA Papers, No. 1 ( Soviet Armed Forces Review Annual ) (Gulf Breeze, Fla., 1985); Ironside, Tannenberg, 120–121.

3Yanushkevich to Zhilinski, Aug. 10, 1914; Zhilinski to Samsonov, Aug. 13, 1914; 2nd Army’s Directive No. 1, Aug. 16, 1914, in Sbornik dokumentov mirovoy voyni na russkom fronte. Manevrenni period 1914 goda: Vostochno-Prusskaya operasiya, ed. Generalny Shtab RKKA (Moscow, 1939), 85–86, 157–158, 245–246. Golovine, 1914, 166 passim; and Alfred Knox, With the Russian Army, 1914–1917, Vol. I (London, 1921), 59 ff., remain the most vivid descriptions of the 2nd Army’s situation. The Russian use of radio in 1904/05 is mentioned in Mario de Arcangelis, Electronic Warfare from the Battle of Tsushima to the Falklands and Lebanon Conflicts (Poole, Dorset, 1985), 11 ff.

4Golovine, 1914, 184–185.

5Andreas Kuhn, Das Tannenberg-Nationaldenkmal (Allenstein, 1932), 22 passim. This account is essentially a reprint of Kuhn’s earlier pamphlet, Die Schreckenstage von Neidenburg in Ostpreussen. Kriegserinnerungen aus demjahre 1914 (Minden, 1915). Cf. Heinrich Plickert, Das 2. Ermländische Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 151 im Weltkriege (Berlin, 1929), 27 ff. Gerhard Kneiss, Der Kreis Neidenburg/Ostpreussen im Ersten Weltkrieg und die Tannenberg-Schlacht 1914 (Bremerhaven, 1981), is local history in the old style, but useful for its anecdotes.

6Knox, With the Russian Army, 62; Kuhn, Tannenberg, 30 ff.

72nd Army Directive Nr. 4, Aug. 23, 1914, Sbornik, 263–264; Grande Guerre, 96–97; Ironside, Tannenberg, 132–133.

8For Scholtz’s peacetime career and his approach to corps command, see Ferdinand von Notz, General von Scholtz. Ein deutsches Soldatenleben in grosser Zeit (Berlin, 1937), 11 ff. For the problems faced by artillerymen aspiring to high command cf. Hermann von François, “Kriegslage bei der 8. Armee zur Zeit des Kommandowechsels,” 7, Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv, Nachlass François, NL 274/17; and more generally Daniel J. Hughes, “The Social Composition of the Prussian Generalcy” (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of North Carolina, 1979), 139 ff.