Where did Generals Ludendorff and Hindenburg crush the Russian armies in August 1914?
"day. Militarily defeated, stripped of allies, and exhausted on the homefront, Germany signed an armistice in November 1918 that amounted to a surrender. In the East, however, the war was not confined to trenches. The Russian initial plans for war had called for simultaneous invasions of Austrian Galicia and German East Prussia. Although Russia's initial advance into Galicia was largely successful, it was driven back from East Prussia by the victories of the German generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes in August and September 1914. Russia's less-developed economic and military organisation soon proved unequal to the"
"Battle of Tannenberg The Battle of Tannenberg was fought between Russia and Germany between the 26th and 30th of August 1914, the first month of World War I. 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"
"explore. Battle of Tannenberg The Battle of Tannenberg was fought between Russia and Germany between the 26th and 30th of August 1914, the first month of World War I. 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"
"Cross. On 31 August Hindenburg formally reported to the Kaiser that three Russian army corps (XIII, XV and XXIII) had been destroyed. The two corps (I and VI) that had not been caught in the cauldron had been severely bloodied and were retreating back to Poland. He requested that the battle be named Tannenberg (an imaginative touch that both Ludendorff and Hoffmann claimed as their own). Samsonov's Second Army had been almost annihilated: 92,000 captured, 78,000 killed or wounded and only 10,000 (mostly from the retreating flanks) escaping. The Russians had lost 350 big guns. The Germans suffered just 12,000"
"to replaced their officers. At the end of August the advancing Central Powers stopped at the frontier of Moldavia. To keep up the pressure and to seize ground he intended to keep, Hindenburg shifted north to the heavily fortified city of Riga (today in Latvia) which has the broad Dvina River as a moat. On 1 September the Eighth Army, led by Oskar von Hutier, attacked; Bruchmüller's bombardment, which included gas and smoke shells, drove the defenders from the far bank east of the city, the Germans crossed in barges and then bridged the river, immediately pressing forward to the"
"and his chief of staff had already been relieved in favor of Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff. Hoffmann knew Ludendorff well because they had been neighbors in the same building in Berlin for several years. The two Russian armies were too far apart to readily aid one another, and the Germans could gauge their lack of coordination from intercepted radio messages. When Hindenburg and Ludendorff stepped off of their special train they announced that Eighth Army would be put into position to encircle and annihilate Alexander Samsonov's Russian Second Army. They succeeded, winning the crucial victory in the Battle"
"some . In 1911, the Russian Stavka had agreed with the French to attack Germany within 15 days of mobilisation; this was unrealistic and the two Russian armies that entered East Prussia on 17 August did so without many of their support elements. The Russian Second Army was effectively destroyed at the Battle of Tannenberg on 26–30 August but the Russian advance caused the Germans to re-route their 8th Field Army from France to East Prussia, a factor in Allied victory on the Marne. By the end of 1914, German troops held strong defensive positions inside France, controlled the bulk"
"their administrative arrangements On 1 November Colonel General Hindenburg was given command of all of the German forces in the east while Mackensen took over Ninth Army and Otto von Below led Eighth Army. They returned to the offensive in the Battle of Lodz. Russian North-Western Front. Commander-in-chief – Nikolai Ruzsky Battle of the Vistula River The Battle of the Vistula River, also known as the Battle of Warsaw, was a Russian victory against the German Empire and Austria-Hungary on the Eastern Front during the First World War. By mid-September 1914 the Russians were driving the Austro-Hungarian Army deep into"
"the resources of Europe at its disposal. Hindenburg and Ludendorff continued to believe that Russia could be defeated by a series of battles which cumulatively would have a decisive effect, after which Germany could finish off France and Britain. Between the coast and the Vosges was a westward bulge in the trench line, named the Noyon salient for the captured French town at the maximum point of advance near Compiègne. Joffre's plan for 1915 was to attack the salient on both flanks to cut it off. The Fourth Army had attacked in Champagne from 20 December 1914 – 17 March"
"an immediate attack was ordered against the German province of East Prussia. The Germans mobilised there with great efficiency and completely defeated the two Russian armies which had invaded. The Battle of Tannenberg, where an entire Russian army was annihilated, cast an ominous shadow over the empire's future. The loyal officers lost were the very ones needed to protect the dynasty. The Russian armies had great success against both the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman armies from the very beginning of the war, but they never succeeded against the might of the German Army. In September 1914, in order to relieve pressure"
"lull to the major fighting. A Russian invasion of Silesia must wait for spring. By this time, the Russians feared the German army, which seemed to appear from nowhere and to win despite substantial odds against them, while the Germans regarded the Russian army with ""increasing disdain."" Hindenburg and Ludendorff were convinced that if sufficient troops were transferred from the Western Front, they could force the Russians out of the war. Battle of Łódź (1914) The Battle of Łódź took place from November 11 to December 6, 1914, near the city of Łódź in Poland. It was fought between the"
"preferring direct frontal attacks. Outgunned, during the summer of 1915 the Russian commander Grand Duke Nicholas shortened his lines by withdrawing from most of Poland, destroying railroads, bridges, and many buildings while driving 743,000 Poles, 350,000 Jews, 300,000 Lithuanians and 250,000 Latvians into Russia. During the winter of 1915–16 Ludendorff's headquarters was in Kaunas. They occupied present-day Lithuania, western Latvia, and north eastern Poland, an area almost the size of France. Ludendorff demanded Germanization of the conquered territories and far-ranging annexations, offering land to German settlers; ""see "". Far reaching plans envisioned Courland and Lithuania turned into border states ruled"
"Hindenburg faced adversity with ""God be with us, I can do no more!"". On 1 November 1914 he was appointed ""Ober Ost"" (commander in the east) and was promoted to field marshal. Once the Russians repaired the railways they would be in position to push into Silesia, so Hindenburg re-positioned to strike their flank by moving Ninth Army by rail north to Thorn and reinforcing it with two corps from Eighth Army. On 11 November, in a raging snowstorm, they surprised the Russian flank in the fierce Battle of Łódź, which ended the immediate Russian threat to Silesia and also"
"until the sudden roar of German guns to his right heralded the surprise attack on the Russians' flanks. Ultimately, Russian losses amounted to the capture of 92,000 Russians and another 78,000 killed or wounded while German casualties numbered only 14,000. According to British Field Marshal Edmund Ironside it was the ""greatest defeat suffered by any of the combatants during the war"". Hindenburg realized that he would become a national hero and acted swiftly to fit that part, asking the Kaiser to name the victory the Battle of Tannenberg. After this decisive victory Hindenburg repositioned the Eighth Army to face the"
"by the Russian 1st Army at Gumbinnen, it had found itself in danger of encirclement as the Russian 2nd Army under General Alexander Samsonov advanced from the south towards the Vistula River. Momentarily panicked, Eighth Army commander Maximilian von Prittwitz notified OHL of his intent to withdraw his forces into Western Prussia. The Chief of the German General Staff, ""Generaloberst"" Helmuth von Moltke, responded by relieving Prittwitz and replacing him with Hindenburg. Upon arriving at Marienberg in 23 August, Hindenburg and Ludendorff were met by members of Eighth Army staff led by Lieutenant Colonel Max Hoffmann, an expert on the"
"of Tannenberg, saving the rest of Germany from invasion. Hoffmann saw the propaganda value of casting the German victory as long-awaited revenge for a nearby medieval defeat, so he suggested the engagement be named Tannenberg, though it actually took place much closer to Allenstein. (Ludendorff also claims credit for the name, though it was Hindenburg, having lost an ancestor at the earlier battle, who requested the kaiser to use it.) Next the Eighth Army turned east and mauled Paul von Rennenkampf's Russian First Army at the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes, freeing most of East Prussia. Then Hindenburg, Ludendorff"
"The initial attack on East Prussia quickly turned into a defeat following the Battle of Tannenberg in August 1914 but the second incursion was completely successful. Under the command of generals Nikolai Ivanov and Aleksei Brusilov, the Russians won the Battle of Galicia in September and began the Siege of Przemyśl, the next fortress on the road towards Kraków. By the end December 1914, the Russians controlled almost all of Galicia. However the victory was short-lived, the Russians were pushed out of Galicia in the spring and summer of 1915 by a combined German, Austro-Hungarian and Turkish offensive. In 1918,"
"States to enter the war. The OHL ensured safe passage for Vladimir Lenin and his associates from Switzerland to Russia. After the October Revolution, the OHL negotiated the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk to free troops for the 1918 Spring Offensive on the Western Front. As the tide of the war turned against Germany with the Allied Hundred Days Offensive, in late September 1918, Ludendorff called for the ""parliamentisation"" of the German government and immediate armistice negotiations. When he reversed course and demanded the fight to be resumed in October, Ludendorff was sacked and replaced by Lieutenant-General Wilhelm Groener. Hindenburg remained in"
"was the instructor in tactics at the War Academy for six years”. A German monument commemorating the battle was completed in 1927 in Hohenstein. However, it was blown up in World War 2 by the Germans during their retreat from Prussia in January 1945. German film director Heinz Paul made a film, ""Tannenberg"", about the battle, shot in East Prussia in 1932. The battle is at the center of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's novel ""August 1914"", published in 1971. The video game ""Darkest of Days"" features the Battle of Tannenberg as one of the game's signature historical locations the player gets to"
"toward the Vistula River and also in East Prussia in the vicinity of the Masurian Lakes (site of the 1914 Battle of the Masurian Lakes). The Austro-Hungarians would emerge from the Carpathian Mountain passes to attack the Russians by driving toward Lemberg. They would be led by General Alexander von Linsingen. Further south General Borojevic von Bojna would attempt to relieve the besieged fortress at Przemysl. German Chief of Staff Erich von Falkenhayn strongly believed that the war would be won on the Western Front. Nonetheless, he sent four additional army corps to Paul von Hindenburg, commander of their Eastern"
"Most controversially, on 28 August, Moltke sent two corps and a cavalry division to reinforce Ludendorff and Hindenburg, just before the epic victory at the Battle of Tannenberg. The series of moves has been viewed by some historians as responsible for much of the strategic failure of the Schlieffen Plan as enacted in 1914. A number of historians, notably Zuber and S. L. A. Marshall, contend that the failure of Alexander von Kluck's 1st Army to keep position with Karl von Bülow's 2nd Army, thus creating a gap near Paris that was exploited by the French, is a more direct"
"heads into Courland, attempting to pocket the defenders, but they were foiled by the prudent commander of the Fifth Russian Army who defied orders by pulling back into defensible positions shielding Riga. The German Tenth Army besieged Kovno, a Lithuanian city on the Nieman River defended by a circle of forts. It fell on 17 August, along with 1,300 guns and almost 1 million shells. On 5 August his forces were consolidated into Army Group Hindenburg, which took the city of Grodno after bitter street fighting, but the retreating defenders could not be trapped because the wretched rail lines lacked"
"after the sacking of Falkenhayn, who had commanded the armies of Germany since September 1914. The new commanders, who became known as the Third ""OHL"", had spent two years in command of ""Ober Ost"", the German section of the Eastern Front. Hindenburg and Ludendorff had demanded reinforcements from Falkenhayn to fight a decisive campaign against Russia and intrigued against Falkenhayn over his refusals. Falkenhayn held that decisive military victory against Russia was impossible and that the Western Front was the main theatre of the war. Soon after taking over from Falkenhayn, Hindenburg and Ludendorff had no choice but to recognise"
"the Russians were pushed back across the Carpathians. The Austrian-Hungary forces claimed the battle as a victory. Battle of Limanowa The Battle of Limanowa took place from 1 December to 13 December 1914, between the Austro-Hungarian Army and the Russian Army near the town of Limanowa ( south-east of Kraków). The Austro-Hungarian high command had assumed that the German success would weaken Russian forces in the north and that the Galician front would remain quiet. Both these assumptions were incorrect. Though the Habsburg 2nd army offensive opened on 16 November and met early success, the Russians proved stronger than expected"
"Tannenberg Memorial The Tannenberg Memorial was a monument to the German soldiers of the Battle of Tannenberg (1914), the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes and the medieval Battle of Tannenberg (1410). The victorious German commander, ""Generalfeldmarschall"" Paul von Hindenburg, became a national hero, and was later elected ""Reichspräsident"". Dedicated by Hindenburg on the 10th anniversary of the Battle of Tannenberg in 1924 near Hohenstein (Ostpreußen) (now Olsztynek, Poland), the structure, which was financed by donations, was built by the architects Johannes and Walter Krüger of Berlin and completed in 1927. The octagonal layout with eight towers, each 20 metres"
"Battle of Limanowa The Battle of Limanowa took place from 1 December to 13 December 1914, between the Austro-Hungarian Army and the Russian Army near the town of Limanowa ( south-east of Kraków). The Austro-Hungarian high command had assumed that the German success would weaken Russian forces in the north and that the Galician front would remain quiet. Both these assumptions were incorrect. Though the Habsburg 2nd army offensive opened on 16 November and met early success, the Russians proved stronger than expected and their 4th Army yielded little ground. Meanwhile, further south the Russian 2nd Army advanced across the"
"lakes, marshes and dense woods characterized 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 mobilized, so many were not yet fighting fit. Rennenkampf's First Army crossed the frontier on 17 August 1914, moving westward slowly. This was sooner than the Germans anticipated, because the Russian mobilization, including the Baltic and Warsaw districts, had begun secretly on 25 July, not"
"phase of the war, Russian Empire wanted to knock Austria-Hungary out of the conflict. To achieve this, the Russians invaded Galicia. By November 1914, they had captured Tarnów and Tuchów, and moved westwards, to Kraków. In December 1914, the Russians, who were divided into two armies (those of Generals Aleksei Brusilov and Radko Dimitriev), were stalled in the bloody Battle of Limanowa. Following the battle, the Russians began to retreat to the positions along the Dunajec river, on the Carpathian Foothill. Soon afterwards, they counterattacked with 3rd Army of General Dimitriev, in the area of villages of Łowczów and Łowczówek."
"Italy stiffened with German advisers and reserves. In July, Russian attacks on the Germans in the north were beaten back. On 27 July 1916 Hindenburg was given command of all troops on the Eastern Front from the Baltic to Brody in the Ukraine. They visited their new command on a special train, and then set up headquarters in Brest-Litovsk. By August 1916 their front was holding everywhere. In the West in 1916 the Germans attacked unsuccessfully at Verdun and soon were reeling under British and French blows along the Somme. Ludendorff's friends at ""OHL"", led by Max Bauer, lobbied for"
"of Hindenburg's forces to a new army group under Prince Leopold of Bavaria and transferring Ludendorff to a new joint German and Austro-Hungarian Southern Army. Hindenburg and Ludendorff reacted by threatening to resign thereby resulting in Ludendorff's reinstatement under Hindenburg's command. Following his return, Ludendorff provided Hindenburg with a depressing evaluation of their allies’ army, which already had lost many of their professional officers and had been driven out of much of Galicia, their part of what once had been Poland. Meanwhile, the Russians were inexorably pushing from Galicia toward Hungary through the Carpathian passes. Under orders from Falkenhayn to"
"by the much larger refugee crisis in Russian Empire and the expulsion of Germans after World War II. Military action began on the Eastern Front on 17 August 1914 with the Battle of Stallupönen during the Russian invasion of East Prussia. As German army was concentrated on the Western Front, Russians occupied about two-thirds of Prussia and stood just away from Königsberg. It was the only German Empire territory, apart from Alsace-Lorraine on the Western Front, that saw direct military actions during the war. Russians were defeated in the Battle of Tannenberg and retreated, but counterattacked in October 1914. This"
"World War I, East Prussia became a theatre of war when the Russian Empire invaded the country. The Russian Army encountered at first little resistance because the bulk of the German Army had been directed towards the Western Front according to the Schlieffen Plan. Despite early success and the capture of the towns of Rastenburg and Gumbinnen, in the Battle of Tannenberg in 1914 and the Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes in 1915, the Russians were decisively defeated and forced to retreat. The Russians were followed by the German Army advancing into Russian territory. After the Russian army's first"
"throughout northern France and Belgium in which each side made reciprocal attempts to turn the other's flank, until they reached the North Sea and had no more room for manoeuvre. The British and French eventually stopped the German advance at the First Battle of Ypres (October–November 1914). Falkenhayn preferred an offensive strategy on the Western Front, while conducting a limited campaign in the east: he hoped that Russia would accept a separate armistice more easily, if it were not humiliated too much. This brought him into conflict with Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, who favored massive offensives in the"