The Eastern Front 1914-1917 (56 page)

¹⁶
Shatsillo p.48.

¹⁷
Vys. utv. osobiye zhurnaly sovieta ministrov i osobhky soveshchaniy
(minutes of the Council of Ministers, microfilm-copy in the Hoover Institution, Stanford, Calif.) 1915/166 of 6(19) March.

¹⁸
Barsukov:
Podgotovka
p. 66, 75f.; A.M. Zayonchkovski:
Podgotovka Rossii k mir. voyne. Plan voyni
(Moscow 1926) p. 84f. The regular component in a German company was usually five officers and twelve men for eighty soldiers; in a Russian, at best two officers and eight men.

¹⁹
Zayonchkovski:
Podgotovka
pp. 30,40f. 152; Barsukov:
Podgotovka
p. 7of.; Polivanov: ‘dopros’ pp. 62–4; Kokovtsev 253f.; F. F. Palitsyn: ‘Dnevnik’ in
Voyenni sbornik
(Belgrade) vol. 4 p. 267; A. von Schwarz:
Ivangorod v 1914–15gg
. (Paris 1969) pp. 13, 19; S. Khmelkov:
Borba za Osowiec
(Moscow 1939) p. 9; Velichko:
Russkiye kreposti
(Moscow 1926).

²⁰
Sidorov op. cit. p. 65f. In 1910, the proposals were to spend 81 million roubles on heavy field artillery, 372. 6 million on fortresses; v. also table in Barsukov:
Podgotovka
pp. 56–7, and cf, pp. 88, 94–5.

²¹
The authoritative work on planning is Zayonchkovski:
Podgotovka
. Barsukov and Manikovski cover artillery-aspects thoroughly; N. Kozlov:
Snabzheniye russkoy armii voyenno-tekhnicheskim imushchestvom
vol. (Moscow 1926) covers engineering preparations, automobiles etc; K. Ushakov:
Podgotovka voyennikh soobscheniy k voyne
(Moscow 1926) is an invaluable survey of strategic railway-planning;
Materialy po istorii franko-russkikh otnosheniy za 1910–1914gg
. contains pp. 697–718 minutes of the General Staff meetings with France; N. Valentinov: ‘Voyenniye soglasheniya s soyuznikami’ in
Voyenno-istoricheski sbornik
(Moscow 1920f.) 2, 1920, pp. 94–128 discusses these in a wider context.

²²
G.U.G.Sh:
Voyenniye sily Avstro-Vengrii
(2 vols. Saint Petersburg 1912) vol. 1 p. 126–7.

²³
The ‘Great Programme’ is discussed by Sidorov op. cit. p. 44ff. and in his ‘Iz istorii podgotovki tsarizma k voyne’ in
Istoricheski Arkhiv 1962
No. 2 pp. 120–155; Barsukov:
Podgotovka
p.81f and 95–6; Barsukov:
Russkaya artilleriya
vol. 1 table, p. 56 and 63ff. In 1914, there were 685 batteries of field cannon (5,480), 85½ of light (48—line) field howitzers (512) and 60 of heavy field artillery (240). After the ‘Great Programme’ there would be twice the number of batteries, and, generally, a fifth more artillery, with significant increases in high-trajectory types; 1,176 light field howitzers, 468 heavy field guns, 6,048 light field cannon, 666 mountain cannon, such that a Russian army corps of two divisions would acquire a weight roughly equivalent to that of a German first-line army corps of 1914.

CHAPTER TWO

¹
W. Foerster:
Graf Schlieffen und der Weltkrieg
(Berlin 1925).

²
K. Ropponen:
Die Kraft Russlands
(Helsinki 1968) p. 268.

³
Reichsarchiv:
Kriegsrüstung und Kriegswirtschaft
vol. 1 (Berlin 1930). pp. 211–236 and
Anlageband
, passim. cf. vol. 2 (Berlin 1925) p. 15f.

⁴
M. Schwarte:
Der Weltkrieg Technik im Weltkreig
(Berlin 1920) p. 60ff. for German artillery.

⁵
L. Burchardt:
Friedenswirtschaft und Rüstungspolitik
(Freiburg 1970)

⁶
A. L. Sidorov:
Finansovoye polozheniye
p. 32.

⁷
H. Herzfeld:
Die deutsche Rüstungspolitik von dem Welthrieg
(Berlin 1923) Rüdt von Collenberg:
Die deutsche Armee 1871–1914
(Berlin 1922) Général Buat:
L’ armée allenande
(Paris 1920).

⁸
K. Ushakov:
Podgotovka
passim, but especially p. 99ff. and appendix Cf. H. von Staabs:
Aufmarsch nach zwei Fronten
(Berlin 1925) p. 26ff. and Reichsarchiv:
Feldeisenbahnwesen
vol. 1 (Berlin 1928) pp. 1–47. The best western-language source for the whole issue of Russian preparedness is G. Frantz
Russlands Eintritt in den Weltkrieg
(Berlin 1924) and the introduction to his
Russland auf dem Weg
.

⁹
Kurt Riezler:
Tagebücher
(ed. K. D. Erdmann, Göttingen 1972) p. 184. Lichnowski ‘England von dem Krieg’. report of 19 August 1914 in
Auswärtiges Amt, Akten betreffend den Krieg 1914
Band 2 p. cf. A. A.
England No 78 Band 31 Bethmawn Hollweg
to Lichnowsky 10 and 16 June 1914.

¹⁰
A. J. P. Taylor:
War by Timetable
(London 1970) is the best statement of this view of the war’s outbreak, but of course there are many other views, the dominant one of which, at the moment, is still F. Fischer:
Griff nach der Weltmacht
(Düsseldorf 1964) and
Krieg der Illusionen
(Düsseldorf 1971).

CHAPTER THREE

¹
F. Franek: ‘Die Entwicklung der osterreichisch-ungarischen Wehrmacht in den ersten zwei Kriegsjahren’ (
Ergänzungsheft
No. 4 of the Austro-Hungarian official history,
Oesterreich-Ungarns letzter Krieg
, Vienna 1932) p. 10. Sickness rose from 23.5% of losses to 47% in the same period.

²
Materialy po istorii franko-russkikh otnosheniy za 1910–1914gg
. (Moscow 1922) p. 698f. give the texts (in Russian and French) of General Staff discussions. At the 9th meeting, in August 1913, Zhilinski undertook to send 800,000 men against Germany ‘in the main by the 15th day of mobilisation’.

³
Ushakov:
Podgotovka
(op. cit. Chapter 1) p. 106f. and
prilozheniye 6
; he shows that the north-western front, by the 13th day, was only sixteen trains short of its complement. S. Dobrorolski: ‘O mobilizatsii russkoy armii’ in
Voyenni Sbornik
(Belgrade) I pp. 91-116. A. L. Sidorov: ‘Zhelezno-dorozhny transport in
Istoricheskiye Zapiski
No. 26 (1948) pp. 3–64, especially p. 24.

⁴
Jean Savant:
L’époée russe
(Paris 1945) p. 18. There are many similar examples; the best-known account of ‘unreadiness’ is N. N. Golovin:
Iz istorii kampanii 1914 goda na russkom fronte. Nachalo voyni i operatsii v Vostochnoy Prussii
(Prague 1926, English translation 1928) p. 345 and passim.

⁵
Generalny Shtab RKKA: Sbornik dokumentov mirovoy voyni na russkom fronte. Manevrenni period 1914 goda: Vostochno-Prusskaya operasiya
(Moscow 1939) pp. 525–7, and cf. E. Barsukov:
Podgotovka
(op. cit. Chapter 1) table pp. 134–5.

⁶
Sbornik
(as in note 5) p. 540, no. 803.

⁷
Ibid. p. 528f. no. 798 (nos. 795–801 on supply). The most thorough contemporary investigation was the report drawn up by General Panteleyev after the disaster. There is certainly no suggestion in it that things went as they did because of the crushing
artillery weakness of which Golovin speaks again and again. The report (‘doklad pravitelstvennoy komissii, naznachennoy v 1914 godu dlya rassledovaniya usloviy i prichin gibela 2. armii’) appears as document no. 804 in
Sbornik
. Panteleyev’s findings that ‘materially, everything was complete’ are borne out by the dozen special articles devoted to this campaign by various (formerly highly-placed) authors in the Belgrade
Voyenni Sbornik
: v. e.g. K. Adaridi’s article in IX (1928) on 27th infantry division p. 162–85, or Rosenchild-Paulin’s on 29th infantry division in VIII (1926) pp. 291–45.

⁸
Savant op. cit. p. 80. The cavalrymen none the less thought highly of their own activity—e.g. B. Gourko:
Memories and Impressions
(London 1918), and V. Zvegintsev:
Kavalergardy
(3 vols. Paris 1936, 1938 and 1964).

⁹
N. Kozlov:
Ocherk snabzheniya russkoy armii voyenno-tekhnicheskim imushchestvom
I (Moscow 1926) p. 7f.

¹⁰
N. V. Abakanovitch: ‘Istoricheski obzor organizatsii i ustroystvo provolochnoy svyazi armii’ in
Voyenno-inzhenerni Sbornik
vol. 2. (Moscow 1918–19) pp. 197–336 pp. 198 and 201.

¹¹
Sbornik pp. 87f. and nos. 87–133 (p. 129ff.) on deployment.

¹²
Sukhomlinov:
Dnevnik
(op. cit. Chapter 1) p. 232.

¹³
Life in Stavka is best seen from the following: V. Kondzerovski:
Vospominaniya
(Paris 1967); M. K. Lemke:
250 dney
(op. cit. Chapter 1); A. Samoylo:
Dve zhizni
(Moscow 1958); G. Shavelski:
Vospominaniya poslednego protopresvitera russkoy armii i flota
(2 vols. New York 1954); A. Bubnov:
V Tsarskoy Stavke
(New York 1955); N. M. Romanov, ‘Zapiski’ in
Krasny Arkhiv
47 (1931) pp. 140–83. The despatches of General Hanbury-Williams(v. Chapter 7) also reveal much of
Stavka’
s ways—including the consumption of spirits, despite official prohibition.

¹⁴
v. note 13 (particularly Lemke pp. 190, 624 and 801, Kondzerovski p. 10, Samoylo p. 142f); W. Hubatsch:
Hindenburg und der Staat
(Göttingen 1966) p. 24; K. Peball: Briefe an eine Freundin’ in
Mitteilungen des österreichischen Staatsarchivs
25. (1972) pp. 492–503.

¹⁵
Planning is best seen from the documents in
Sbornik
p. 27ff. (Nos. 1,2 and 9 particularly); relations with allies in
Materialy
(op. cit.) and N. Valentinov (Volski):
Snosheniya s soyuznikami po voyennym voprosam vo vremya voyni
(Moscow 1920) pp. 22–3.

¹⁶
My account of operations is taken mainly from the following:

a)
Osnovniye direktivy i direktivinye ukazaniya Verkhovnogo Glavnokomanduyushchego i zhurnaly soveshchaniy
, a set of all strategic orders issued by the first
Stavka
(i.e. until late August 1915), of which a copy is preserved in the ‘Archive of Grand Duke Nicholas’, with the Golovin-Archive in the Hoover Institution, Stanford, California. This is of course a very important source, although it is less important in those engagements—such as East Prussia in August 1914—that are extensively covered in secondary works and collections of documents. Whenever I refer to a
Stavka
order, it may none the less be assumed that I have used the original version in the
Osnovniye direktivy
(the orders are readily identifiable by their dates and addressees). The instructions regarding IX Army are given, for instance, in Yanushkevitch to Zhilinski of 25th and 28th July (old-style), Danilov to Alexeyev 30th July, by which an attack of six corps was prescribed, four against Thorn—Breslau, two against Breslau—Posen. The source is hereafter identified as ‘O.D.’

b)
Sbornik
as quoted in note 5. It belongs to an unfinished series of documentary collections, for Red Army use, on various campaigns of the war in the east, and represents the single most important source on Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes.

c) 1.1. Vatsetis:
Operatsii na vostochno-prusskoy granitse
v. 1 (Moscow 1929) which is the most solid documentary investigation

d) G. Isserson:
Kanny mirovoy voyni
(Moscow 1926) which is less solid.

e) Reichsarchiv:
Der Weltkrieg
vol. 2 (Berlin 1925) which is an exhaustive, but still not very reliable, German account

f) M. Hoffmann:
Tannenberg, wie es wirklich war
(Berlin 1925)

g) Memoirs, such as those of Ludendorff, François, Hindenburg, Morgen. They proved to be of limited usefulness.