![]() If and when, this study will suffer the effects of old age. Looking back on the significant year of 1991, it is a shame that there hasn’t been a new study of the same caliber, backed by a more balanced analysis of Russian sources. He opens with an apology for the dominantly German point of view. Professor Showalter is, however, aware of its limitations. Overall, this book is rightly hailed as one of the best modern works on the Tannenberg campaign. Traditional culprits such as Von François or Samsonov regain some of their dignity.Īn elaborate epilogue gives us the mythology of Tannenberg in the interwar period. He flavours each phase of the fighting with in-text discussions of scholarship from the 1920s to the present, mostly to take a revisionist stance. Showalter is at his best when he links human error to the stress placed upon the shoulders of elderly men who are brusquely torn away from a life of regular comfort, but are too Victorian to acknowledge any effect on their powers of judgement. The human element is explored by other means than contemporary assessments of a commander’s character, which usually accompany his pre-battle biography. ![]() The supremacy of the Masurian landscape in dictating strategy and the effect of the summer heat on battle readiness come to life in little vignettes, where tired boots churn up the dust that parches the throat. The narrative of the hostilities themselves goes above and beyond the standard sort of dry tactics which never comes with enough maps. On the other hand, no war game could hope to intimidate as much as the vision of Cossacks roaming Unter Den Linden, while the simultaneous clash in the West guaranteed the impossibility of reinforcements. There was still a place for massed bayonet charges in the giant Russian pincer movement, while the 8th Army could draw some confidence from using a familiar Austerlitz-inspired scenario. This cross-referencing also applies to the discussion of pre-war strategies for operations in East Prussia. Themes such as recruitment, training, and weaponry will resurface occasionally during the battle, for better or for worse. The subsequent thorough comparison of the combatants is one of the best I have yet encountered, even if the emphasis is on the Reichswehr and its cultural significance. First, the familiar origin story of the Great War is briskly told from a Russo-German point of view. The guns don’t fire until almost 200 pages in. In 1941, Hitler’s Wehrmacht grossly underestimated Soviet military capability, leading to disaster in World War II.ĭennis Showalter tackles Tannenberg with his trademark elegant erudition. ![]() For years its legends helped to shape German nationalist ideology and military policy. ![]() Tannenberg’s mystique later served the Weimar Republic and Third Reich propagandists. In addition, he demolishes many myths about the battle, such as the supposed superiority of the German military, the animosity among Russian field commanders, and the assumption that the Germans viewed their opponents as a horde of uniformed illiterates. Examining the battle in the context of contemporary diplomatic, political, and economic affairs, Showalter also reviews both armies’ social settings and military doctrine, and shows how the battle may be understood as a case study of problems that military organizations face in the initial stages of a major war. ![]() The author carefully guides the reader through what actually happened on the battlefield, from its grand strategy down to the level of improvised squad actions. In this first paperback edition of the classic work, historian Dennis Showalter analyzes this battle’s causes, effects, and implications for subsequent German military policy. The battle of Tannenberg (August 27–30, 1914) opened World War I with a decisive German victory over Russia-indeed the Kaiser’s only clear-cut victory in a non-attritional battle during four years of war. ![]()
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