In the late summer of 1914, the ancient monarchies of Austria, Russia and Germany plunged their countries into a world war which engulfed Europe in one of the bloodiest conflicts in history. The Eastern Front of that great war had a profound impact on the remainder of the 20th century, even though the Western Front with its British, French and American combatants achieved somewhat greater fame. The statistics for the Eastern war are grim. More than three-million men died in the fighting, more than nine-million men were wounded, and every major country which participated lost its form of government. One of them, Russia, collapsed so completely and catastrophically that the ensuing consequences still resonate in today's world. It was into this conflict that the soldiers of 1914 marched, with an eagerness and confidence which has not since been repeated. http://www.richthofen.com/ww1sum2/ http://www.firstworldwar.com/battles/ef.htm
The Battle of Tannenberg, 1914 On the outbreak of the First World War General Alexander Samsonov was given command of the Russian Second Army for the invasion of East Prussia. He advanced slowly into the south western corner of the province with the intention of linking up with General Paul von Rennenkampf advancing from the north east. The commander of the German Eighth Army, General Maximilian Prittwitz, was dismissed for ordering the retreat when faced with the Russian Second Army. General Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff were sent forward to meet Samsonov's advancing troops. They made contact on 22nd August, 1914, and for six days the Russians, with their superior numbers, had a few successes. However, by 29th August, Samsanov's Second Army was surrounded. General Alexander Samsonov attempted to retreat but now in a German cordon, most of his troops were slaughtered or captured. Only 10,000 of the 150,000 Russian soldiers managed to escape. Shocked by the disastrous outcome of the battle, Samsanov committed suicide. The Germans, who lost 20,000 men in the battle, were able to take over 92,000 Russian prisoners. In Britain, all news of the Russian defeat at Tannenberg was kept from the public. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWtannenberg.htm http://www.greatwardifferent.com/Great_War/Russia/Tannenberg_01.htm
Some of these articles are a little dry for the beginner but they hold a lot of information ... when you've refined your skills or areas of interest .... come back to them and re - digest !! Hujcze - September 6 - 7 1914 The following article is the description of a relatively unknown action fought by the 2nd Tyrolean Kaiserjäger regiment in the late Summer of 1914 on the sandy plains of Northern Galicia in what is the present day Ukraine. In early September 1914,the best part of two battalions of the regiment, commanded by the youthful c were engaged by a six fold superior enemy force and were decimated in the ensuing action. In the epic that followed, the colonel was killed alongside many of his men and the regimental colour was captured by the Russians. The sacrifice of the regiment enabled the XVII.Korps and rest of the 3rd infantry division to successfully withdraw and evade capture and to build up a new defensive front. Following further withdrawals to the line of the River Dunajec the line was eventually stabilised. This article attempts to inform the reader in English of a much under reported theatre of operations in the Great War and in particular the capacity of the Austrian infantrymen so often maligned by contemporary authors. Holger Herwig in his "The First World War - Austria and Germany 1914-1918" rather unfairly describes the affair in a couple of lines as a senseless bayonet charge, which cost 2000 men which it did not and was not. Much of the specific action on the 6th and 7th of September 1914 is recounted from Ernst Wißhaupt's "Die Tiroler Kaiserjäger im Weltkriege" and the maps are also reproduced from that source and Österreich-Ungarns Letzter Krieg. The 2nd Tyrolean Kaiserjäger regiment was one of four regiments on the Tyrolean Kaiserjäger establishment. As its name suggests, the regiment was recruited primarily from the population of the Austrian Tyrol and also the Italian speaking part of the South Tyrol known as the Trentino. Originally the Tyrolean Kaiserjäger regiment had been an extremely large single regiment composed of sixteen battalions which was reorganised in 1895 into four separate four battalion regiments. Just prior to mobilisation, the 2nd regiment with it's regimental staff and 1st and 2nd battalions was garrisoned in Bozen (Bolzano), the 3rd battalion in Meran-Untermais (Merano) and the 4th battalion in Brixen (Bressanone). The ethnic composition of the personnel of the 2nd regiment was as follows: 55% German, 41% Italian and 4% of other nationalities. The commander since 1911 had been the 44 year old Oberst Alexander Brosch Edler von Aarenau, a gifted young colonel and general staff officer who had previously been the head of Archduke Franz Ferdinand's military chancery http://www.austro-hungarian-army.co.uk/battles/hujcze.htm The body of Oberst von Brosch was found in 1915 when Galicia was liberated by the Austro-Hungarian and German forces. Barely covered with earth, the skeleton of the colonel was found in the arms of his dead comrade, the un-named Unterjäger. Oberst Alexander Edler von Brosch was posthumously awarded the Golden Bravery Medal for officers in 1926.
While the Western Front had reached stalemate, the war continued in East Europe. Initial Russian plans called for simultaneous invasions of Austrian Galicia and German East Prussia. Although Russia's initial advance into Galicia was largely successful, they were driven back from East Prussia by Hindenburg and Ludendorff at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes in August and September 1914. Russia's less developed industrial base and ineffective military leadership was instrumental in the events that unfolded. By the spring of 1915, the Russians had retreated into Galicia, and in May the Central Powers achieved a remarkable breakthrough on Poland's southern frontiers. On 5 August they captured Warsaw and forced the Russians to withdraw from Poland.
While the aerial fighting on the Eastern Front was not as intense or on as large a scale as it was over the Western Front, it was equally as deadly. The flights of aircraft used by each side were smaller, primarily because they had fewer aircraft with which to operate. http://www.wwiaviation.com/eastern.html
