By focussing all of their strength on the Russian 2nd Army, the Germans were able to rout Samsonov's invading force and stabilize the situation in East Prussia. Tannenberg was, of course, a decisive victory for the Germans. 28 Germans and 322 are interred in this atmospheric spot. Our route took us through Skottau (Szkotowo) where local enthusiasts have very recently restored the military cemetery. similar to the terrain found in the Belgian Ardennes Forest. To the north on the route taken by the victorious German 15th Corps the landscape is made up of steep sided valleys and rocky hills. The XX Corps positions are marked by the small cemeteries that can be seen on the tree line adjacent to the Orlawa to Turowo road. We travelled south following the opposing defence lines. Our walk followed the line of the Russian attack through to the point which marked the line of withdrawal for the German defenders. Behind the tree line is a river crossing and old mill where the fighting on the 24th was particularly intense. This marks the military cemetery which contains 329 German and 1000 Russian graves. On the extreme left you will see a small cross at the front of the trees. In the picture on the right, my friends are standing on what was the Russian front line. We chose to walk the Russian front line position on a forward slope 100 yards in front of the German trenches which still exist in the environs of Orlau Military Cemetery. Cultivated fields, small woods & copses and a smattering of villages and farmsteads. The topography around Orlau is not what I had imagined - it is rather like the Somme area of Northern France. The first substantive contact on the North / South axis came at Orlau (Orlawa) on the 24th August where the German XX Corps were heavily entrenched. the Arrival of Rennenkampf's 1st Army and Samsonov's 2nd Army in East Prussia presented a major challenge. The Russians had mobilised much more quickly than anticipated. The area in question is in the vicinity of Allenstein (now Olsztyn). However with some help we covered some of the central ground covered by the Russian 2nd Army and the German 8th Army during the fighting of the 26th to 29th August 1914. It covers a vast area and most of the monuments, markers and cemeteries have been lost in the years that have intervened. This forced massive surrenders, and saw the almost complete destruction of the 2nd Army near Frogenau with 30,000 soldiers killed and 90,000 captured.The Tannenberg battlefield is not easy to interpret. The German field commander, General Hermann von Francois, allowed the 2nd Army to advance, and then cut them off from their supply route. Hoffmann's plan left a screening force to delay the Russian 1st Army (under General Paul von Rennenkampf) which was approaching from the east, and set a trap for the Russian 2nd Army (under General Alexander Samsonov) which was moving up from the south. While replacements taken from the West were in transit, the 8th Army's Chief of Operations, Max Hoffmann, redeployed the German forces. Due to the failure of the Germans to effectively break through on the Western Front in accordance with the Schlieffen Plan, headquarters began to panic. The German theatre commander, General Maximilian von Prittwitz, was sacked when he attempted to completely abandon East Prussia to the Russians. German infantry during the Battle of TannenbergĪt first, the battle appeared to go well for the Russians, who pushed westward before a German counterattack on August 20, which was repulsed. Here The Templar Order were finally defeated. They wanted to express that they had made good their defeat at the medieval Battle of Tannenberg or (Grunwald), in which they lost the battle to the Lithuanians. It was named after Tannenberg by the Germans. The battle ended with the almost complete destruction of the Russian Second Army. It was fought by the Russian First and Second Armies and the German Eighth Army between 17 August and 2 September 1914. The Battle of Tannenberg was a decisive engagement between the Russian Empire and the German Empire in the first days of World War I.
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