This Week in History

August 26-30, 1914:

The Russian Army Destroyed

   

This week, we continue to commemorate the centenary of the beginning of World War I, with the German invasion of Belgium and the defeat of the Russians at Tannenberg. The following comes from our book, Light to the Nations II: The Making of the Modern World. For ordering information on this text and our other books, please click here.

  

The day after Great Britain's declaration of war, the German army began bombarding the fortresses surrounding the Belgian town of Liège. For two days, German artillery battered these fortresses until at last, on August 7, their defenders surrendered. Following the capture of Liège, the German army, like a relentless flood, rushed westward until it reached the Belgian city of Namur. Like Liège, Namur was surrounded by a ring of fortresses and was said to be impregnable. But, training its heavy howitzers on the fortresses, the German army forced Namur to surrender on August 23 after a three-day siege. 

A 1914 cartoon from the British periodical
,Punch, depicting Belgium as a boy farmer
  defying a cudgel-wielding Germany

Eighteen days after crossing the border, Germany controlled nearly all of Belgium. Her armies were now prepared for the invasion of France.

But while she was victorious in the West, Germany faced grave dangers in the East. Russia had mobilized more swiftly than the German generals had thought she would, and while the German army was still fighting in Belgium, Russian troops were pouring into East Prussia and threatening the important city of Königsberg. On August 20, General Maximilian von Prittwitz led the German Eighth Army in an attack on the Russian First Army, commanded by General Paul von Rennenkampf. Prittwitz was defeated and began retreating to the Vistula River-a move that would have left all of East Prussia under Russian control.

When Moltke heard of Prittwitz's defeat, he called the 66-year-old General Paul von Hindenburg from retirement and appointed him commander of the Eighth Army. Hindenburg appointed General Erich Ludendorff, who had become famous at Liège, as his chief of staff and immediately ordered the Eighth Army to advance against the Russians. From August 26 through 30, the German army surrounded and destroyed the Russian Second Army in what has been called the Battle of Tannenberg. So complete was the German victory at Tannenberg that it ended the Russian invasion of Germany.

A Russian Triumph

In 1914, the Russian composer, Sergei Prokofiev, having finished his studies at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, engaged in a "battle of the pianos." He played his own Piano Concerto No. 1 in D-Flat Major, which he had composed two years previous. Prokofiev won the competition. This video features a 2005 performance of Prokofiev's concerto.

Prokofiev, Piano Concerto No 1, Martha Argerich & Alexandre Rabinovitch (complete)