Battle of Tannenberg

The Battle of Tannenberg was fought between Russia and Germany from 26 August to 30 August 1914, during the first month of World War I. The battle resulted in the almost complete destruction of the Russian Second Army and the suicide of its commanding general, Alexander Samsonov. A series of follow-up battles (First Masurian Lakes) destroyed most of the First Army as well and kept the Russians off balance until the spring of 1915. The battle is particularly notable for fast rail movements by the Germans, enabling them to concentrate against each of the two Russian armies in turn, and also for the failure of the Russians to encode their radio messages. It brought high prestige to Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and his rising staff-officer Erich Ludendorff.

Although the battle actually took place near Allenstein (Olsztyn), Hindenburg named it after Tannenberg, 30 km to the west, to avenge the defeat of the Teutonic Knights at the earlier battle of that name in 1410.

Background

Battle of Tannenberg Line

This is a sub-article to Battle of Narva (1944).

The Battle of Tannenberg Line (German: Die Schlacht um die Tannenbergstellung; Estonian: Sinimägede lahing; Russian: Битва за линию «Танненберг») was a military engagement between the German Army Detachment "Narwa" and the Soviet Leningrad Front. They fought for the strategically important Narva Isthmus from 25 July to 10 August 1944. The battle was fought on the Eastern Front during World War II. The strategic aim of the Soviet Estonian Operation was to reoccupy Estonia as a favourable base for the invasions of Finland and East Prussia. Several Western scholars refer to it as the Battle of the European SS for the 24 volunteer infantry battalions from Denmark, East Prussia, Flanders, Holland, Norway, and Wallonia within the Waffen-SS. Roughly half of the infantry consisted of local Estonian conscripts motivated to regain Estonian independence rather than support Nazi power. The German force of 22,250 men held off 136,830 Soviet troops. As the Soviet forces were constantly reinforced, the casualties of the battle were 150,000–200,000 dead and wounded Soviet troops and 157–164 tanks.

1944

1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (dominical letter BA) of the Gregorian calendar, the 1944th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 944th year of the 2nd millennium, the 44th year of the 20th century, and the 5th year of the 1940s decade.

Events

Below, events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix.

January

Battle (disambiguation)

Generally, a battle is a combat in warfare between two or more parties.

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