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pared and directed according to the indications of Russian wire- less messages sent in clear. On the W., the German I. Corps, with additional troops under Miilmann coming up on its right, attacked towards Usdau on the 26th. On the same day the Russian VI. Corps was met and defeated at Gross-Bossau by the oncoming eastern enveloping wing. Von der Goltz's Landwehr division, arriving opportunely from Schleswig- Holstein, was added to Scholtz's threatened flank. From the 26th the battle was general. Strategy had done its part. By the 3ist the destruction of Samsonov's army by double envelop- ment was complete, only the attached I. Corps echeloned back on the left being outside the ring and able to escape as a formed body. Samsonov himself fell, and 92,000 prisoners and 300 guns remained in the hands of the victors.

Meantime the German supreme command at Coblenz had taken a step which is generally regarded as having been fatal to Germany's success in the war. Moltke had recognized from the first that the strength of the VIII. Army was little above, if not below, the safety limit, and in the background there was Conrad's repeated demand for effective cooperation in the Siedlce scheme. Only after much hesitation was the IX. Res. Corps in Schleswig-Holstein taken to reenforce the W. on the strength of Prittwitz's optimistic reports on the eve of the battle of Gumbinnen. Two days later came the crisis which led to Hindenburg's appointment, but at that moment the battle of the Frontiers was developing all along the line in the W. and Moltke did not suggest (nor did Ludendorff ask for) a reen- forcement of the E. On Aug. 25, however, caught apparently in a wave of optimism which pervaded the armies of the W. after five simultaneous victories, Moltke decided to send no less than six army corps to the VIII. Army, not so much in order to re- establish a compromised situation there as to deal the offensive blow in the E. that was only waiting upon a decision in France. Two corps were to go from each portion of the western front, and the Guard Reserve and XI. Corps, being reported by their army commanders, after the fall of Namur, as free, were sent first, along with the 8th Cav. Div. In the event, the other four were never sent, as the results of Tannenberg altered the balance of forces in the E. at the same time as a new crisis was arising in the French theatre.

These reenf orcements arrived too late for the battle of Tannen- berg, but began to be available in the first 'week of September. Meantime the VIII. Army Command had to decide whether to pursue immediately to the southward, forcing the Narew line and making rendezvous with Conrad about Siedlce, or to deal with Rennenkampf's army which still stood, inactive but threatening, on the Deime-Wehlau-Allenburg-Angerburg-Bialla line. The latter course was preferred, as was practically inevi- table. The progress of the Austrian I. Army and Woyrsch (see below) in the Lublin region was evidently being neutralized by the advance of Ruzsky and Brussilov in E. Galicia, and Rennenkampf's inactivity could hardly continue. Moreover, he occupied a great part of E. Prussia and the call of the civil population for rescue from the Cossacks could not be ignored.

Rennenkampf's halt on the Deime-Angerburg line, when enemy forces were daily slipping away from him to take part in the destruction of Samsonov's army, was and is severely criti- cized, and exposed him to the reproach even of treason. Part at least of the causes of this passivity lay in the inherent slow- ness ' of Russian military practice a slowness which equally characterized the unfortunate army of Samsonov, as we have seen. For the rest, it is to be noted that the Grand Duke was himself at Insterburg during the critical days. Such evidence as is available suggests that the intention of the Russian supreme command was not to press even Samsonov's offensive, still less the frontal advance, farther than it would go, but to give the whole campaign a wider sweep by means of the new IX. Army assembling at Warsaw and intended to move on Thorn and Posen, 1 turning the Vistula barrier from the south.

1 The I. Corps of this army was not placed at Samsonov's disposal till Aug. 26, the Guard not at all. One cavalry division was actually taken from Samsonov.

From the German point of view, although information was no doubt lacking as to the large undisclosed reserves moving in the " corridor," it must have been clear that the defeat of Ren- nenkampf would effectively answer any renewed threat from the S. by endangering the Grodno-Kovno artery. In the con- ditions of the moment this defeat could best be ensured by attack- ing his left wing, and in the first days of Sept. the VIII. Army with the corps from the W. were disposed accordingly on a long line from Preussisch-Eylau to E. of Willenberg: in order from left to right Guard Res., I. Res. ; XI., XX., XVII., I. Corps and 3 rd Res. Div. Von der Goltz with his own division and another made up from Unger's and Mulmann's forces (called 35th Res. Div.) watched the southern front on both sides of Mlava. The Konigsberg force still held the Deime line. On his side Ren- nenkampf had already brought up two of his reserve divisions from the Niemen for the siege of Konigsberg, and he now strength- ened his left from botn active and reserve formations assembled about Grodno. As had been the case at Tannenberg, the forces were numerically almost even. On neither side was any important condensation of force at particular points effected, and the resultant battle, known as the battle of the Masurian lakes, or of Angerburg, was practically " linear."

The idea pursued by Hindenburg was to press the Russian right, as far S. as Angerburg, with four corps, to break out of Lotzen (the key of the lakes, which had been kept throughout) with the XVII. Corps while the I. Corps and 3rd Res. Div. ad- ! vanced from their Tannenberg positions eastward along the fron- tier railway. These 2j corps were intended to roll up the left of Rennenkampf and press northward, with an echelon to the right against the fresh enemy forces reported detraining about Grayevo. The battle began on Sept. 7 and on the 8th was general. But the lake barrier this time favoured the Russians. The German XVII. Corps made only slow progress in advancing from the pass of Lotzen, and most of the I. Corps was soon drawn north-eastward. The balance, however, passing S. of the lakes along the axis Johannisburg-Bialla, made marked progress, and on the night of the gth-ioth Rennenkampf decided to take down his front by successive fractions from right to left, and retire into the Mariampol region whence he had come. The battle then became one of tactical incidents, with all the local vicissitudes of a general chase. At the end, thanks to the traditional rearguard aptitudes of the Russian soldier, Rennen- kampf's army had flowed away to safety, leaving the bulk of the VIII. Army congested round Vladislavov and Eydtkiihnen with the I. Corps E. of Vilkovishki and the 3rd Res. Div. at Suwalki. Goltz's southern cordon had meantime extended eastward as far as Marggrabowa.

The battle of the Masurian lakes freed E. Prussia, and the victors gleaned a harvest of some 30,000 prisoners in manifold combats amidst woods and lakes. But it was not a Tannen- berg, and already events elsewhere were in progress which involved the VIII. Army in a general eastern front campaign.

The Galician Campaign of August-September 1914. As has been said above, Conrad had determined to carry out the offen- sive in the region Lublin-Chelm, where the Russians were con- centrated, though without definite assurances of cooperation from E. Prussia. In the offensive, the forces to be employed formed two armies the IV. Army (Auffenberg), consisting initially of the II., VI., IX. and newly formed XVII. Corps, and four cavalry divisions; and (detrainment area Yaroslav-Przemysl) the I. Army (Dankl), I., V., X. Corps and two cavalry divisions (detrainment area middle and lower San).

East of Lemberg it was intended to place two armies, the II. and III. But owing to the belief that the war crisis would be limited and localized as a campaign against Serbia, the II. Army was assembled initially on the Danube, and could only be brought N. by degrees. At the outset it was represented in Galicia only by the Army-group Kovesz (XII. Corps and some extra divisions S.E. of Lemberg and on the Dniester), but the IV. and VII. Corps were being disengaged from the Serbian front and sent up gradually. The III. Army (Brudermann) E t and N.E. of Lemberg consisted of the XI., III. and XIV. Corps