Wireless Wins Wars 30 August

Regular readers of these articles will recall an earlier post about the development of the wireless. Many of you, will, like me, feel also that the wireless is probably the greatest boon to civilisation since the invention of the chair. However, it does have it's drawbacks. On this day, 30 August, in 1914, these drawbacks were writ large on the world stage - for the first time.

In the first days of World War I, The Russian 1st and 2nd Armies and the German Eighth Army were limbering up for a major punch-up in the forests around Königsberg, East Prussia. Initially, the Russians did fairly well, and the Russian armies crossed into East Prussia, had at the Germans and the battle went in favour of the Russians. The German commander, General Maximilian von Prittwitz, came up with a cunning plan - run away. However, he was sacked before he abandoned the whole of East Prussia to the Russians.

It was at this point that the German replacement commander, Max Hoffmann, realised that the Russian army, in a revolutionary leap forward in the use of technology in warfare, was using wireless to transmit their attack plans to their forward commanders. Unfortunately, they hadn't completely thought through the idea and had not encrypted the messages. It turned out that the Russians believed that, even if the Germans managed to eavesdrop on their transmissions, the Germans would not have access to Russian translators and therefore would not realise the significance of the message contents. However, the Germans easily intercepted and translated the transmissions and as a consequence were able to anticipate the Russians' every move.

Hoffmann's plan left a screening force to delay the Russian 1st Army led by General Paul von Rennenkampf which was approaching from the east, and set a trap for the Russian 2nd Army led by General Alexander Samsonov which was moving up from the south. Hoffman, allowed the 2nd Army to advance, and then cut them off from their supply route - the old pincer movement much loved by film makers. This produced the almost complete destruction of the 2nd Army near Frogenau.

Rather than report the loss of his army to the Tsar, General Samsonov committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. The German victory compelled the Russians to remain on the defensive along the German front for the rest of the war.

General Erich Ludendorff, the chief of staff, dated the official dispatch reporting the victory from the nearby village of Tannenberg (Stębark), and the battle is thus known to history as the Battle of Tannenberg.

Wireless - what a let down.