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Tannenberg 1914

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The critical battle of Tannenberg in 1914 that set the tone for the rest of Imperial Russia's involvement in the First World War has long been a neglected subject in English language histories. This deficiency was rectified in 1991 when Dennis E. Showalter wrote Tannenberg: Clash of Empires, and for eleven years that book has stood as the best on the subject. No longer. John Sweetman's Tannenberg 1914 totally outclasses Showalter's book and is now the best available account of this campaign.

Tannenberg 1914 consists of a historical prologue on the Battle of Tannenberg in 1410, five chapters on the campaign itself, an epilogue, a campaign chronology, an order of battle, a section on organization and weaponry, bibliography and notes. Unlike Showalter's book, which boasted only five crude sketch maps and no photographs, Sweetman's book has twelve splendid full-color maps of the campaign that cover the phases in great detail, as well as numerous excellent photographs. Graphically, Tannenberg 1914 is of very high quality and one would hope that the next books in this series will hold to that standard. Furthermore, most accounts of the campaign only cover the mauling of Samsonov's 2nd Russian Army during 25-30 August 1914 and neglect to say much about the fate of Rennenkampf's 1st Army. Sweetman covers both phases of this campaign in great detail, including the Battle of the Masurian Lakes on 8-13 September 1914.

Sweetman is no novice historian and he quickly moves to demolish the many myths and distortions associated with the Tannenberg campaign, such as the alleged Samsonov-Rennenkampf feud and Russian communications sloppiness (they simply lacked the necessary equipment and operators at this stage to encode messages). Why did the Russians suffer defeat in this campaign? Sweetman concludes that it was a number of factors, beginning with the ineptitude of the Northwest Front Commander Zhilinski who failed to properly coordinate the operation (interestingly, Sweetman is not so harsh on Rennenkampf or Samsonov). Other major factors were luck (what if the German commander von Prittwitz had not been replaced; he was more cautious than Hindenberg-Ludendoff), totally inadequate Russian logistics, inadequate communications, and of Russian mechanized transport. On the operational side, Russian commanders continuously neglected to conduct proper reconnaissance and screening operations with their available cavalry units, which permitted the Germans to gain tactical surprise time and again (the Germans benefited from air reconnaissance and signal intercepts). Many of these Russian problems were due to the premature nature of the entire offensive; Russia had pledged to France that it would invade East Prussia by M+15 and the Tsar and General Staff stuck to that schedule. The result was that Russian troops - without much food, ammunition or medical support - did invade East Prussia close to the schedule, but that the hasty preparations had almost doomed the operation from the onset. Many units crossed the border lacking vital sub-units and equipment, which made sustained operations problematic. If the Germans had retreated to the Vistula River this cobbled-together offensive might have succeeded at least initially, but the Germans called their bluff at Tannenberg.

One particularly interesting aspect of Sweetman's account is his detail on Russian losses. Many accounts - even Showalter's - suggest that the Russian 2nd Army was annihilated and the 1st Army was nearly so. Sweetman exposes this exaggeration, inspired no doubt by German propaganda, as falsehood. Samsonov's 2nd Army, which bore the brunt of the German counteroffensive, lost three of its five corps but still had seven divisions left after it withdraw back into Poland. Showalter even claims that only about 200 Russian cavalrymen broke out of the German pocket. However, Sweetman lists the escape of part of the Russian 13th Corps - one of the units usually listed as destroyed - which had over 13,000 troops in an organized column break through to Poland. Furthermore, most accounts tend to mention the defeat of Rennenkampf's army as an afterthought and imply that it too, suffered a double envelopment. Sweetman details how the docility of Rennenkampf led to his army's defeat, but that it conducted a decent tactical withdrawal without heavy loss and still retained 100,000 troops (as large as the Army of the Potomac in 1863). The photographs in this section are also worthwhile, since they demonstrate that the Russians were capable of constructing stout field positions with overhead cover.

Military officers should study Sweetman's book carefully for several reasons. First, this book details the high cost of letting political imperatives ride roughshod over military realities, particularly logistics and planning. Second, Tannenberg 1914 demonstrates how an army must be trained and prepared for the war that it is likely to fight; strategic success is the result of years of effort, and cannot be conjured up by ad hoc means. Third, commanders must aggressively seek out and fix an enemy; all the Russian commanders in 1914 seemed to focus too much on reaching this or that phase line, and seemed relatively unconcerned about grabbing on to the German 8th Army and crushing it. Nor did the Russian sacrifice at Tannenberg make much difference to the Allied war effort either; Sweetman details how the alleged role in the Russian offensive diverting two German corps from the Western Front and thereby contributing to Allied success at the Battle of the Marne is unlikely. In the end, Tsarist Russia honored its treaty requirements and paid a heavy price for its efforts.

I read this book in three days last August and it is a good account of a battle that hasn't been covered very well in the English-speaking world. What makes this book even more interesting is how the author connects it with the 1410 battle when the Teutonic Knights were decimated by the Poles. If there were only more books in print on this little-known front of the First World War

This book perhaps shows how easy it is to get published in military history compared to other fields. There is no new material here, and the author relies heavily on Norman Stone. Unlike with Dennis Showalter's book, there is no attempt to give the reader a feel of either being there or an appreciation for the equipment and organization challenges.
The book also suffers from poor editing. The author often uses rare (or possibly original and unique)spellings for the names of the Russian generals, and confuses the Russian XX and XV corps.
At the end, one is left with the question: What was the point of writing this? Yes, the pictures are nice, but so what? The maps are poor, not showing the roads and variation of terrain. Anyone who buys this book will enjoy it to some degree to have a pleasant rehashed and re-run account of their favorite battle. I suppose there is a need in our civilization to repeat accounts, to keep publishing for the sake of publishing, but as there is nothing new here, the style alternates between that of a college term paper and a cut-and-paste ransom note.
Finally, it is unfortunate that the author muddies the waters by suggesting that General Rennenkampf had been in a fight with General Mischenko in Manchuria--and provides a reference to Stone for that, when Stone showed that not only Rennenkampf was in a hospital at the time, any brawl between Russian generals was between Mischenko and Bezobrazov. If you are going to rely heavily on a secondary source, you really should read it closely.

"Tannenberg 1914" is a clear, concise narrative of this famous battle. In reality, it was not the complete catastrophe the Germans symbolically made of it, but it was close enough. One should be grateful for everything of substance written about the eastern front during the first world war, and this book is a nice supplement to Shovalter's classic on Tannenberg. These books are very different. Shovalter draws the large canvas and goes much more in depth on the political background etc. Sweetman is much more concise, with a narrower focus on the campaign/battle itself. The story unfolds day-by-day and is very easy to follow, although not all place-names are shown on the maps. A lot of care has obviously gone into the layout and design of the book itself, which is very inviting and reader-friendly. I longed for a bit more coverage of the battle of the Masurian Lakes, which closed the East Prussian campaign. But otherwise this is a very good read, supplemented with useful orders of battle, colourful maps and many fascinating, rarely seen and at times poignant photographs.

Tannenberg 1914 by John Sweetman is a well written book describing one of the key battles of the First World War. In 1914 Russia and France had entered into an alliance which compelled Russia to launch offensive military operations soon after Germany began the war in the West. The purpose of Russia's offensive was to take pressure off the Western Front, give France some breathing room and force the Axis to fight a two front war.

While Sweetman questions the military significance of Tannenberg, he does a marvelous job describing the battle and how a German force, half the size of its Russian counterpart, could have destroyed one Russian army and severely crippled another. Sweetman writes well and gives the reader a good sense of hows, whys and wherefores. This is a book that is well worth reading especially since there has been a dearth of writings about the Eastern Front.

Tannenberg is unique among the battles of the First World War. In a conflict characterized by inconclusive trench warfare, Tannenberg was a decisive battle of mobility, one that shaped the course of the entire war on the Eastern Front. Yet Tannenberg is all too often treated as an afterthought, overshadowed by the simultaneous battles taking place in France. In this respect, John Sweetman's book is a valuable addition to the literature on the First World War. An entry in the "Cassell's Fields of Battle" series, Sweetman offers a narrative of the battle that focuses on its operational elements, describing the movement of units in southern Prussia in August and September 1914. To set the battle in context, he broadens his focus beyond the battle itself to encompass the entire campaign that was fought there, showing how the Germans and Russians came to that point and what followed after the Germans' decisive victory.

The scope of this book, along with the generous supply of maps and photographs offered, makes it a good starting point for a reader looking for an introduction to the conflict. Yet a more knowledgeable student of the conflict might find Sweetman's book lacking. The author spends far too many pages in his short book setting up the broader context of the battle, including a chapter on the previous battle of Tannenberg in 1415 and the diplomatic prehistory of the war. This space could have been better spent examining the tactical aspects of the battle for their contribution to the German victory. Moreover, his concluding analysis is incomplete, focusing more on the Russian failures than on what the Germans did right, or on why other factors played a less significant role. These deficiencies make this book useful primarily as an introduction to the conflict, as readers seeking a more detailed analysis of the conflict would be better served by reading Dennis Showalter's superior Tannenberg: Clash of Empires (Cornerstones of Military History) instead.

All the facts are here, and the too few maps are thinly adequate, but connecting the text's location references to locations on these maps proves a frustrating and irritatingly gap-filled task.

At the very least there should have been a separate map provided for each two pages of evolving military movement description. And these maps should have noted every location referenced in the text - a basic requirement which this book repeatedly fails to achieve.

In my opinion, the author should also have researched many more of the pivotal human beings on each side of the battle and provided anecdotes making their individuality more alive to the reader.

The only two figures in the event who are given even a small sense of dimension as separate individuals are Hindenberg, Ludendorf, and one or two Russian generals. All others, and most of the Russian leaders are described with little more than name, rank and/or a brief career history.

Of what the various battles must have been like as an experience for the participants, we learn nothing. (Perhaps I've been spoiled by John Keegan)

The result of these deficiencies makes this technical description an extremely arid read, but the text does fully supply basic information regarding military movements and their attendent mistakes, accidents of war, and consequences.

If I had it to do over, I'd look around for other accounts of this campaign before buying this one.