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Tannenberg is often considered one of the most complete tactical victories scored by either side in the First World War. The Russian Second Army was virtually destroyed as a result of the battle: out of an initial strength of about 180,000 men, about 92,000 had been captured and anywhere between 30,000 and 78,000 killed or wounded. Some 350 pieces of artillery were also taken by the Germans. Losses were proportionally highest in the XIII and XV Corps, from which together fewer than 2200 men escaped, including a single officer of the entire XV Corps. By comparison, out of about 150,000 Germans engaged at Tannenberg, only about 12-14,000 became casualties.
Tannenberg is often considered one of the most complete tactical victories scored by either side in the First World War. The Russian Second Army was virtually destroyed as a result of the battle: out of an initial strength of about 180,000 men, about 92,000 had been captured and anywhere between 30,000 and 78,000 killed or wounded. Some 350 pieces of artillery were also taken by the Germans. Losses were proportionally highest in the XIII and XV Corps, from which together fewer than 2200 men escaped, including a single officer of the entire XV Corps. By comparison, out of about 150,000 Germans engaged at Tannenberg, only about 12-14,000 became casualties.
Of the many factors that contributed to the German success, the most important are regarded as the appointment of Hindenburg and Ludendorff; the Russians' many supply problems brought on by their rushed mobilization, as compared to the Germans' ability to quickly move troops from one point to another via a superior rail system; and not least the Russian reliance on uncoded wireless communications that the Germans could intercept, thus discovering their intended movements. Colonel Hoffmann of the Eighth Army staff later said of the campaign, "We had an ally--the enemy. We knew all the enemy's plans."
After the battle, either Ludendorff or Hoffmann decided to name it "Tannenberg." Though the village itself had served as Scholtz's headquarters for part of the action, the battle had unfolded along a front of more than 50 miles, and some of its most critical phases had occurred around other, larger towns, such as Allenstein and Neidenburg. However, the name Tannenberg carried with it great historical weight, having been the site of a battle in 1410 in which the German [[Teutonic Knights]] had been defeated by Poland-Lithuania. Thus, it was received by the Germans as not only a victory in the current conflict, but the avenging of that earlier event. (Hindenburg personally, claiming descent from the Teutonic Knights, strongly supported the proposed name.)
The results of Tannenberg were neither as drastic nor as immediate as sometimes claimed. It did not end the Russian presence on German soil, as Rennenkampf's First Army still occupied part of East Prussia; that would continue until German victory at the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes the following month. Though Russian morale was shaken by the defeat, this was tempered somewhat by their own crushing triumph over the armies of [[Austria-Hungary]] in Galicia during the same period. Moreover, though Tannenberg had ended the prospect of a more thorough invasion of eastern Germany, the Russians had achieved their greater strategic purpose: by rapidly mobilizing and provoking fear among the German political and military leadership, they had led Moltke and the OHL to detach two corps from the critical Western Front to support the Eighth Army, weakening the armies sweeping through [[Belgium]] and into France when overwhelming strength was a necessity. After the narrow Franco-British victory at the [[First Battle of the Marne]] in September, a French officer stated, "Let us render to our Allies {i.e. Russia} the homage that is their due, for one of the elements of our victory was their debacle."
After Tannenberg, an official inquiry by the Russians blamed Zhilinskiy for poorly coordinating the operations of the two armies; he was relieved of command and sent to France as a military liaison. Rennenkampf was exonerated, but then dismissed after his defeat at the Masurian Lakes and forced into retirement in 1915. By contrast, Hindenburg and (to a lesser extent) Ludendorff were hailed as heroes in Germany, with medallions, postcards, and other media featuring Hindenburg's image quickly manufactured and distributed across the country. The aura created by Tannenberg (and by their subsequent successes on the Eastern Front) would lead to the two men being given supreme military authority in 1916 and becoming effective co-dictators thereafter, wielding more real power inside Germany than either the Kaiser or the Reichstag. In this way, the outcome of Tannenberg strongly influenced the course of events within wartime Germany.
==References==
==References==