Counter offensive in East Prussia

Much more quickly than the German Supreme Military Command (OHL) expects, Russia mobilises its troops and encroaches on East Prussia and Galicia with vastly superior forces. Soon German troops are compelled to withdraw behind the Vistula and abandon East Prussia. At that point the OHL reactivates the already retired General Paul von Hindenburg and assigns him command of the 8th army, which has been fighting in the East. With numerically inferior forces, he and his chief of staff, Erich von Ludendorff, achieve in the battle near Tannenberg (26 to 30 August 1914) a decisive victory against Russia’s second army.

© Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin Russian prisoners of war, photograph from 1915

A few weeks later the first Russian army also suffers a crushing defeat in the Battle of the Mazurian Lakes. On 7 February 1915, German troops begin a major offensive against remaining Russian forces in eastern East Prussia. Eleven Russian divisions face 15 German divisions. Within two weeks of fighting, Russian forces are completely driven out of East Prussia and four Russian divisions are totally annihilated. Approximately 100,000 soldiers are taken prisoners by the Germans. The „liberation of East Prussia“ is celebrated by the German public as a great triumph. However, von Hindenburg is denied a decisive victory to end the war: Extreme winter weather impedes any further advance by his troops. A major portion of the Russian units are therefore able to withdraw to the East and establish a new front line.