TANNENBERG: CLASH OF EMPIRES 1914

In August 1914, at Tannenberg in East Prussia, the German Eighth 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 First World War battle; and clears up many of the myths associated with it. Among them: that Russian Generalnenkampf was "unwilling" to come to the aid of Samsonov's beleaguered Second Army; that the Second Army was "annihilated"; that the typical Russian soldier was "a uniformed primitive". Showalter judiciously analyses 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 calibre, written in a crisp and lively style that should attract the general reader as well as the military specialist. Now out-of-print and limited stock available.