That's an easy one:
After that they march to Paris and finish the job started a century ago
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That's an easy one:
After that they march to Paris and finish the job started a century ago
Lets see who carries more weight, half a dozen world leaders from Axis and Allies and Commintern stating that the Greeks were the best fighters of the war, or a couple of angry guys on this forum.
I understand that it greatly angers you that Germany would have been destroyed in this very possible scenario. Hindenburg pulled a miracle, and he deserves credit, but Germany victory in this battle, when outnumbered more than 3 to 1, was not the likely outcome and never was, which is why the previous commander insisted on abandoning Eastern Prussia.
The Russians dont need a guards tank army to reach Berlin in 1914.That's an easy one:
After that they march to Paris and finish the job started a century ago
I know but this gives them a reason to fight, not weep in the trench.
Also the possible loss of East Prussia was a part of the Schliefen plan and would not happen out of the blue.
The loss of food might be an issue long term but not in 1914.
Oh my, this fabricated nonsense again
When the thread title reads 'what if', can you really expect anything else?
'What If" the Russian army leadership was not totally incompetent? What if Moscow bothered to feed its troops, send ammunition and supplies to their forces, and monitored it's communications network through the use of basic codes? Could they have won?
To an educated person, the answer is still 'no'.
To the speculative historian, Berlin just fell and the Ruhr is now in Russian hands permanently because that is the way the graphic novel they read told the story. And Paris better watch its mouth or it will be next!
Question, would BMW still be the ultimate driving machine if Bavarian Motor Works produced the Trabant under Russian management?
The key issue for Russian Empire in 1914-1915 was not about lack of officers or soldiers. It was about supplies and weak industry.
So even if Russian Army would be near Berlin (a very poor target btw, Silesia is a far more crucial target), it would be catastrophically defeated in 1915 due to the lack of supplies, ammo and equipment - just like it lost all gains in Carpathia in 1915.
In fact, if Russian army suffered bigger losses in 1915 due to not performing The Great Retreat, Russian Empire could be even knocked out of war sooner due to the more rapid loss of army. Or worse, actually lose more people in Poland and be worse off.
The only hypothetical way for Russia to win war is if it lead key offensive on Silesian industrial region from Poland and added 2 more armies, commiting more troops there. It could strategically end German war effort early, but alas Russia focused on taking Galicia for pretty selfish reasons.
So even if Russian Army would be near Berlin (a very poor target btw, Silesia is a far more crucial target), it would be catastrophically defeated in 1915 due to the lack of supplies, ammo and equipment - just like it lost all gains in Carpathia in 1915.
In fact, if Russian army suffered bigger losses in 1915 due to not performing The Great Retreat, Russian Empire could be even knocked out of war sooner due to the more rapid loss of army. Or worse, actually lose more people in Poland and be worse off.
The only hypothetical way for Russia to win war is if it lead key offensive on Silesian industrial region from Poland and added 2 more armies, commiting more troops there. It could strategically end German war effort early, but alas Russia focused on taking Galicia for pretty selfish reasons.
BMW would retool to this prototype Sdkfz Isetta. Optionally with rocket launcher
BMW would retool to this prototype Sdkfz Isetta. Optionally with rocket launcher
that is awesome!
Tortilowicz von Batocki-Friebe said:
"The soil is ruined, the livestock exterminated, the equipment destroyed, the people killed and driven away, the buildings shot to pieces, detonated and burnt out. [...]"
That's how the highest civil administrator in East Prussia described the situation after the Russians were driven out of East Prussia in OTL. Dozens of towns and hundreds of villages were devastated. East Prussia depended through the rest of the war on food import and disaster relief from the rest of the Empire. Which continued well into the twenties of the twentieth century.
If anything losing East Prussia increases food stability in the Empire.
Two of many postcards issued by the Ostpreussenhilfe, an umbrella organization founded to channel aide to East Prussia, during the war.
Also, though this is a secondary tangent that has no bearing on the issue at hand; East Prussia was never great agricultural estate. The relevant food production came through relatively early technical mechanisation and the advantage of having on average bigger farms than elsewhere and the cost advantage through that. The soil on the other hand was mostly average down to outright horrible. Lot of sandy ground, marshes, bogs. Not exactly the land of milk and honey agricultural wise.
The Russian defeat at Tannenberg was anything other than inevitable. The Russian generals only needed to be slightly less miserably incompetent and stupid and the Russians would have suffered a far smaller defeat or even a victory. Tannenberg was singular in the whole of the war, there was no other encirclement of a large formation for the rest of the entire war, including of Russian forces that were far weaker than those at Tannenberg.
Tannenberg required the Russians to both attack recklessly, with open gaps between their armies and hanging flanks but also very, very slowly all the while carefully letting the Germans know where they were located and where they were going. The Germans also managed to assemble the 'A' team to oppose the Russian attack (Ludendorff, Hindenburg, Francois and Mackensen). Tannenberg would not have happened (in the sense that the entire army is surrounded) if:
1. The Russians had advanced faster - the timeframe for the German attack was marginal, too early and the Reserve corps was not in place and too late and the southern attack turns the German flank. A faster Russian attack leads to the narrow window closing.
2.The Russian flank defences had done their job - the flanking cavalry forces moved even more slowly and in the wrong direction, leaving the Russian commanders in the dark as to the threat to their flanks/rear. With a better flank screen the Russians would have had both more time to counter the attack, and/or withdraw. Either way capturing the entire army becomes less likely.
3. The Russians had actually communicated with each other - in any other army, or even with any other commanders the Russian forces would have been in a better position to support each other. It required commanders who wouldn't support each other combined with an overall commander who was grossly negligent in managing his subordinates and finally a supreme commander who lacked the ability to control/discipline his subordinates. There is no way, in any other army, in the entire war, that such a critical invasion would be left to the commanders on the ground to run with effectively no oversight from the next two levels of command.
If any of these issues had been fixed the Russian army would have likely survived Tannenberg, leaving the Germans outnumbered when they attempt to attack at the Masurian Lakes with a vulnerable flank still exposed. Anything other than a total victory in the Battle of Tannenberg leaves the German defences in a dangerous position, most likely forcing a retreat. Will this destroy the Germans in 1914 with the Russians in Berlin by Christmas? No. But it will change the balance of forces in the Eastern Front, leading to a different outcome.
You make a much more credible argument than the OP, but it still hinges on the word IF.
Everything you just said suggests, as von Schlieffen mapped out years ago, the plan went exactly as Germany foresaw 30 years when they exhaustively mapped out on the gaming table the individual optimum responses to the (three?) realistic logistical routes through Poland capable of sustaining a Russian army in the field.
As Eisenhower famously said: no plan survives first contact with the enemy, but the process of planning is indespensible. It forces you to think through all the possible issues in advance, and you have that wealth of knowledge to fall back on. Primary plan fails, contingency plans have already been thought through and the commander can pivot far more easily.
Russia attacks, and the first army flees. The second, better, German army encircles and destroys one Russian army inside East Prussia in detail. Precisely as played out 30 years previously on the game table using one possible variant response.
IF is a dangerous word, and clouds the waters.
Much better to deal with the situation as it actually happened rather than 'pretend' what might have happened IF.
Now, Mder points out the most salient point that the people of East Prussia took a crushing blow to their homes and livelihoods and the actual devestation leveled on the terrain. But that is not the same as marching on the Ruhr, is it?
i agree with the above in all major points. but let's just say that Russia's Army wasn't as bizarrely incompetent as it was. And it really was little operational things, like the wireless.
I would argue that the historic German victory in the battle wasn't a foregone conclusion. This was not Britons mowing down Hottentots.
Let's say that the initial battle was won by the Russians.
What then?
They are far beyond their extended lines of communication. And the Germans are closer to their heartland. I would argue that the inevitable German counterattack would have been devastating, and might have ruined the Russian army far more than the original defeat might have. The German response in real life was pretty tepid, considering. It was mostly mopping up the empty space after the Russians ran away. The Russians, at best, could have advanced a small few miles - they were never going to take Berlin - before the Germans re-organized and beat the tar out of them.
It might have been a 'better' alternative to lose right away; the Russians certainly learned their lessons of defeat. With victory they would have continued in their willful idiocy. And repeated the same mistakes.
You are correct that no battle is a foregone conclusion, this axiom is carved in stone. But there are ways to stack the deck, and the Germans are better than most at counting cards. Schwartzkopf v. Iraq is a lovely example of command and control, deception, and the victory of the operational art of war when pitted against vastly larger numbers.
Leadership shows you all you want to know. Germany played this out in (1884?) and rolled in an elite leadership team familiar with the plans of how to respond to a tactical setback. Germany is brilliantly led and much more able to receive a blow and respond in kind.
Russia, as you observe, is made up of good men and terrible leaders short on every item necessary to make war (except a lot of MGs, seemingly). They might have as many cannon, but a fraction of the shells required to use them. Russia made it up as she went along using commanders who refused to help one another and expressed open contempt for one another over open wireless communications for all to hear. Oh, and my favorite, reconnaissance units are unknown to the Russian OOB.
As usual, the professionals who think through options years in advance and plan accordingly win the day.
IF!
IF Russia had won and dug in using the superior leadership and basic common sense you suggest above, the Tzar might still be sitting in the Kremlin. That one I can live with.
Russia knocking Germany out of the war because the General Staff forgot to defend Berlin, not so much. It opens the very real possibility that the next History Forum thread is:
What if Russia won World War I and occupied Germany. The Communist Party rises from the shadows of the University of Ingolstodt by a doctor of law named Adam Weis who uses the weapons of Marxist-Wies Ideology to move his pawns while hiding in the shadows to form Communist Germany which overthrows and occupies all of corrupt Tzarist Russia! Forever!
Comrade in the High Castle - coming soon to a forum near you.
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not to disagree with your points, but the point i was trying to make was that Russia actually did adopt pretty well to losing all the time. They kept losing, but they lost less badly.
On the other hand, imagine that they had won a big battle in the beginning. There would have been a mixed message for the commanders, once they began losing, and kept losing all the time. They might have kept doing stupid stuff, instead of just losing manageably, like they did.
IRL, the Russians actually did pretty well considering how far behind they were at the start of the contest.
Fair enough. But the end result of all that incessant losing is their entire country melted and a farm run by animals took its place.
And, Yes, you are absolutely correct. One battle, full ammo, maximum Urra! - they forced a German army to retreat. To the OP's point, Germany didn't auto-surrender based on one battle.