Tannenberg: Clash of Empires

In August 1914, at Tannenberg in East Prussia, the German 8th Army under Hindenburg and Ludendorff won a stunning victory over two Russian armies. In this richly textured account of the greatly outnumbered German army's defeat of the Russian forces, Showalter, a history professor at Colorado College, provides a thorough historical and cultural context; examines the tactical, operational and strategic aspects of this decisive WW I battle; and clears up many of the myths associated with it. Among them: that Russian General Rennenkampf was ``unwilling'' to come to the aid of Samsonov's beleaguered 2nd Army; that the 2nd Army was ``annihilated''; that the typical Russian soldier was ``a uniformed primitive.'' Showalter judiciously analyzes Tannenberg's long-range effect on German military thinking, showing, for instance, that the victory led the Wehrmacht to underestimate Russian capabilities during the planning of Operation Barbarossa in 1941. This is a scholarly military study of the highest caliber, written in a crisp and lively style that should attract the general reader as well as the military specialist. (Dec.)