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The Battle of Tannenberg was fought between Russia and Germany from August 26th to August 30th 1914, during the first month of World War I.〔http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/582679/Battle-of-Tannenberg〕 The battle resulted in the almost complete destruction of the Russian Second Army and the suicide of its commanding general, Alexander Samsonov. A series of follow-up battles (First Masurian Lakes) destroyed most of the First Army as well and kept the Russians off balance until the spring of 1915. The battle is particularly notable for fast rail movements by the Germans, enabling them to concentrate against each of the two Russian armies in turn, and also for the failure of the Russians to encode their radio messages. It brought high prestige to Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and his rising staff-officer Erich Ludendorff. Although the battle actually took place near Allenstein (Olsztyn), Hindenburg named it after Tannenberg, 30 km to the west, to avenge the defeat of the Teutonic Knights at the earlier battle of that name in 1410. ==Background== The French war plan was to attack as soon as their army was mobilised to drive the Germans from Alsace and Lorraine. If the British joined as promised, they would become the left flank. Their Russian allies would have a massive army, more than ninety-five divisions, but their mobilisation would inevitably be somewhat slower. Getting their men to the war front would also be delayed because their railway network was far behind western European standards; for instance, three-quarters was still single-tracked.〔Strachan, H. (2001) ''The First World War. Volume I. To Arms''. Oxford University Press, p.298.〕 They intended to have 27 divisions at the front by day 15 and 52 by day 23, but it would take 60 days before ninety divisions were in action.〔Strachan (2001) p.312.〕 Despite their difficulties the Russians promised the French that they would promptly engage the armies of Austria-Hungary in the south and on day 15 would invade German East Prussia.〔Herwig, H. L. (1997). ''The First World War, Germany and Austria-Hungary 1914-1918''. Arnold, London, p. 53.〕 East Prussia was a vulnerable salient thrust into Russian territory, extending from the Vistula River in the west to the border with Lithuania in the east, a distance of roughly . On the north was the Baltic and on the south was the border with Poland; it was about wide. Somewhat east of the centre of the province was the heavily fortified peninsula on which its capital Königsberg (Kaliningrad, Russia) was located. The Russians would rely on two of their three railways that ran up to the border; each would provision an army. The railways ended at the border, as for defensive reasons Russian trains operated on a different rail gauge than Western Europe. Consequently, their armies could only be transported by rail as far as the German border and could only use Prussian railways with captured locomotives and rolling stock. The First Army would use the line that ran from Vilnus, Lithuania to the border southeast of Königsberg. The Second Army railway ran from Warsaw, Poland to the border southwest of Königsberg. The two armies would take the Germans in a pincers. The Russian supply chains would be ungainly because—again for defence—on their side of the border there were only a few sandy tracks rather than proper macadamised roads. Adding to their supply problems, they deployed large numbers of cavalry and Cossacks; every day each horse needed ten times the resources that a man required.〔Van Creveld, M. (1977). ''Supplying War. Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton.'' Cambridge University Press.〕 The First Army commander was General Pavel Karlovitch Rennenkampf who in the Russo-Japanese War had earned a reputation for "exceptional energy, determination, courage, and military capability." 〔Gourko, G. B. (1918) ''Memories & Impressions of war and revolution in Russia, 1914-1917''. John Murray, London, p. 10-11.〕 The Second Army, coming north from Warsaw, was under General Alekesander Vasilevich Samsonov, who was “…. possessed of a brilliant mind, reinforced by an excellent military education”. Since commanding a division in the war with Japan he had been governor of Turkestan. The two armies were directed by the military governor of Warsaw, who in wartime commanded the Northwest Military District, General Yakov Grigorevich Zhilinskiy. His duties in Manchuria had been more diplomatic than military. Before moving to Warsaw he had been chief of the Russian general staff for two years. He set up his headquarters in Volkovysk. (Vawkavysk, Belarus), about from Königsberg. Communications would be a daunting challenge. Their supply of cable was insufficient to run telephone or telegraph connections from the rear, all they had was needed for field communications. Therefore, they relied on mobile wirelesses stations, which would link Zhilinskiy to his two army commanders and with all corps commanders. The Russians were aware that the Germans had broken their ciphers, but they continued to use them until war broke out. A new code was ready but they were still very short of the code books. Zhilinskiy and Rennenkampf each had one; Samsonov did not.〔Norman, B. (1973). ''Secret warfare : the battle of codes and ciphers.'' David & Charles, Newton Abbot, p. 62.〕 Hence many messages were sent in the clear, hoping that they would not be intercepted. The Germans also used wireless during their invasions of Belgium and France. The German Schlieffen Plan proposed to defeat France swiftly while the Russians were mobilising. Then Germany's armies would shift by train to the eastern front. Therefore, East Prussia was garrisoned by a single army, the Eighth, commanded by General Maximilian von Prittwitz und Gaffron, which was to hold back the Russians while the outcome in the west was decided. A tangle of lakes, marshes and dense woods characterised the province, which would help defenders. When the war began the bulk of the German Eighth Army was southwest of Königsberg, ready to defend either the western or the southern frontier: 485,000 Russians were facing 173,000 Germans. More than half of the men in both armies just had been mobilised, so many were not yet fighting fit. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Tannenberg」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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