Tannenberg

A detailed Summary of Tannenberg

Geoffrey Evans. Tannenberg 1410/1914. London: Hamish Hamilton. 1970. Pp. 182.

Can two events that took place over five hundred years apart from each other have a connection? Geoffrey Evans, a former Lieutenant General in the British Army, says that they can. In Tannenberg 1410/1914 Evans attempts to link the Tannenberg battle of 1410 between the Knights of the Teutonic Order and the combined Slavic forces of Poland and Lithuania and the Tannenberg battle of 1914 between Germany and Russia.

Though the two battles differ greatly Evans loosely links them to the ancestry of the Prussian commander of the German Eighth Army, Marshal von Hindenburg, and his suggestion of naming the 1914 battle after that of the 1410 battle. That, however, is where the similarities end. Although Evans analyzes these two connections in the opening pages of the book he does not try to give any more solid links between the battles and instead uses the rest of the book discuss in detail the actual confrontations themselves.

In the first quarter of the book Evans explicitly describes the events leading up to the battle of 1410 and the actual battle itself. In these chapters Evans smoothly integrates an amalgamation of research done by mostly Polish h

istorians to creatively describe the tense situation between the Teutons and the Slavs in 1410. Evans goes into great detail to describe how the crusading Teutons threats to Polish and Lithuanian sovereignty led to the battle.

Evans takes an extremely in depth assessment of both the Russian and German military situation. Evans gives the reader a valuation of the size of both militaries to include the number of men, weapons, and other equipment. He then goes into further detail to describe the morale and leadership capabilities of the two armies.

Evans is very detail orientated when it comes to explaining the battle but in his quest to describe the events as they unfolded he tends, once again, to sound like an admirer of the German leadership. The reason for this may come either from his own personal biases or may be due to the fact that the majority of the resources that Evans uses comes mostly from the memoirs of the German leaders in the battle and less from Russian officers.

In evaluating the German military Evans is in total praise of Generals Hindenburg, Prittwitz, and Francois. Evans is so unwavering in his praise of General von Francois that he borders on sounding like an admirer. Continuously Evans likens the German leaders to geniuses and states that had it not been for their great leadership it is possible that the battle may have been lost due to the fact that Russia dominated Germany

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Approximate Word count = 951
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History