His second battle--with Rennenkampf--Ludendorf describes with a similar
distortion of facts. On this occasion he goes so far as to assert that
Rennenkampf had not 400,000 men but 600,000, and he states at the same
time that Rennenkampf was a traitor because he retreated too soon. As
we have already seen, Rennenkampf had only about 160,000 men, and he
was reinforced by one more corps, the 22nd,--about 40,000 additional
men; therefore his army could not have exceeded 200,000 men. Ludendorf
places his own army at 300,000 men, much less, of course, than his
actual strength, but even at that rate he attacked 200,000 Russians
with 300,000 German troops, outnumbering his adversary one and a half
times.
That accounts for the ease with which Ludendorf was able to throw
200,000 men into the frontal attack and still was able to send up
100,000 men to get into Rennenkampf's rear (see map No. 2). Rennenkampf's
troops were kept engaged for seven days in repulsing Ludendorf's
attacks upon their front, and he had no troops left with which to parry
the attack on his rear. When the Germans invaded the Russian rear and
were threatening to cut off the Russian main line of retreat, the
Vershbolovo-Kovno Railroad, Rennenkampf was compelled to retreat so as
not to be cut off. In fact, had Rennenkampf not retreated at that time,
he would have committed the same act of treason that Marshal Bazaine
was guilty of in 1870, when he, under similar circumstances, did not
consent to escape from the steadily closing-up iron ring of Germans and
was finally captured with his entire army. Rennenkampf gave orders to
retreat only when the Germans were firing at the city of Gumbinnen and
at his rear railway lines. This was not too soon by any means, but may
have been rather a little late.
[Illustration: Rennenkampf's troops are indicated between Welau and
Ingenburg (white square). Opposite them is the German army (black
square).
Rennenkampf had 4 corps,--less than 160,000 men. He was attacked
frontally also by 4 corps which engaged all his effectives. Meanwhile
two German corps (the 17th and the 1st) that remained free began
invading his rear (these corps are indicated in black). When these two
corps approached Gumbinnen, they found themselves in a position to
cut Rennenkampf off from his only road, the Insterburg-Kovno railway.
Rennenkampf had no men to oppose these troops with, as all his units
were fighting at the front line of Welau-Ingenburg. Rennenkampf was
therefore compelled to retreat in order not to be cut off.]
The 22nd Corps did not even succeed in getting near Rennenkampf, and
was halted by the Germans fifty miles away from the field of battle.
Rennenkampf had, therefore, not 200,000 men to Germany's 300,000, but
only 160,000,--about one-half. The cause of the defeat of Rennenkampf
was that that military operation had been calculated for the combined
armies of Samsonov and Rennenkampf, and was a risky undertaking at
that. When Rennenkampf was left alone, this operation was as a matter
of course doomed to defeat, and it required the tenacity of Rennenkampf
to have offered the obstinate resistance that he did in this battle.
* * * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Obvious punctuation errors were corrected.
Inconsistent hyphenation wss made consistent.
Ludendorff consistently spelled Ludendorf but has not been corrected.
p. 10: Apparent missing line in: "brought about the final defeat of the
Germans in this [newline] sonov."
pp. 45-6: Several misspellings of Rennenkampf corrected.
p. 46: He was atacked frontally -> He was attacked frontally.