Out of my life

THE STRUGGLE FOR EAST PRUSSIA

new enemy. Against their resistance the attempt to mitigate the catastrophe to Samsonoff came to nought. While despair seized on those within the deadly ring, faint-heartedness paralysed the energies of those who might have brought their release. In this respect, too, the course of events at the Battle of Tannenberg confirmed the human and military experiences of yore.

THE STRUGGLE FOR EAST PRUSSIA

Rennenkampf appears to have intended to attack the line of the Deime, east of Konigsberg and between Labiau and Tapiau, this day. From the region of Lands- berg and Bartenstein his masses of cavalry were approach¬ ing the battlefield of Tannenberg. However, we had already concentrated strong forces, weary but flushed with victory, for defence in the neighbourhood of Allenstein.

THE STRUGGLE FOR EAST PRUSSIA

The sound of battle on the field of Tannenberg had hardly died down before we had begun to make our preparations for the attack on Rennenkampf s Russian Army. On August 31 we received the following tele¬ graphic instructions from Main Headquarters :

IOI

than twenty divisions, yet he stood still and remained thus, while our army came up from the west and deployed for battle against him. Why did he not use the time of our greatest weakness, when the troops were exhausted and crowded together on the battlefield of Tannenberg, to fall upon us? Why did he give us time to disentangle our units, concentrate afresh, rest and bring up rein¬ forcements? The Russian leader was known to be a fine soldier and general. When Russia was fighting in eastern Asia among all the Russian leaders it was the name of Rennenkampf that rang out over the world. Had his fame then been exaggerated ? Or had the general lost his military qualities in the meantime?

THE CAMPAIGN IN POLAND

The consideration that formed the basis of our new plan was this : In the existing situation, if we tried to deal purely frontally with the attack of the Russian 4th Army, a battle against overwhelming Russian superiority would take the same course as that before Warsaw. It was not thus that Silesia would be saved from a hostile invasion. The problem of saving Silesia could only be solved by an offensive. Such an offensive against the front of a far superior enemy would simply be shattered to pieces. We had to find the way to his exposed, or merely slightly protected flank. The raising of my left hand explained what I meant at the first conference. If we felt for the enemy’s northern wing in the region of Lodz we must transfer to Thorn the forces to be employed in the attack. We accordingly planned our new con¬ centration between that fortress and Gnesen. In so doing we were putting a great distance between ourselves and the Austro-Hungarian left wing. Only comparatively weak German forces, including Woyrsch’s exhausted Landwehr Corps, were to be left behind in the neigh¬ bourhood of Czenstochau. It was a condition precedent

THE CAMPAIGN IN POLAND

East Prussia we .were to be released by the offensive of the 9th Army in the direction of Lodz against the flank of the Russian main mass .which .was only weakly pro¬ tected. It is obvious that if the attack of this army did not get home quickly the enemy masses would concen¬ trate upon it from all sides. The danger of this was all the greater because we were not numerically strong enough, nor were our troops good enough in quality, to pin down the Russian forces in the bend of the Vistula, as well as the enemy corps north of the middle Vistula, by strong holding attacks, or indeed mislead them for any considerable length of time. In spite of all this we in¬ tended to make our troops attack everywhere, but it would have been a dangerous error to expect too much from this.

THE CAMPAIGN IN POLAND

It would exceed the limits of this book if I were now to give a summary, however general, of the military events which are compressed into the designation 4 * Battle of Lodz.” In its rapid changes from attack to defence, enveloping to being enveloped, breaking through to being broken through, this struggle reveals a most confusing picture on both sides. A picture which in its mounting ferocity exceeded all the battles that had previously been fought on the Eastern F ront !

THE CAMPAIGN IN POLAND

The battles of this Polish campaign, however, did not end [with Lodz, but were continuously fed by both sides. More troops came to us from the West, but they were anything but fresh. Most of them were willing enough, but they were half exhausted. Some of them had come from an equally hard, perhaps harder struggle — the Battle of Ypres — than we had just fought. In spite of that, we tried with them to force back the Russian flood we had successfully dammed. And indeed for a long time it looked as if we should succeed. But in the long run, as in the battle of Lodz, it was seen that once more our forces were not sufficient for this contest with the most overwhelming superiority which faced us in every battle. We should have been able to do more if our reinforcements had not come up in driblets. We should have been able to put them in simultaneously. But the colossal block we tried to roll back to the east only moved a short stretch, then lay still, and nothing would shift it. Our energies flagged. But it was not only in battle that they were dissipated, but also in — the marshes !