Thursday, August 27
The Germans Set Their Trap
German troops pass a burning in in Usdau
27 August began with the Germans making their move towaard the Russian 2nd Army. The attack was to commence across the front, with the hope of isolating and destroying the Russian VI Corps and whatever other 2nd Army units they could ensnare.
On the western flank, the Germans of I Corps reached the Usdau road at 0500, with a report to Francois leading the general to believe the town itself had fallen, a mistake not realized until his staff car came under Russian fire attempting to enter the town. The general was pinned down by the fusillade of rifle fire, and had to be rescued by a nearby German cavalry unit.
Despite this, the attack by the German I Corps had taken the Russian I Corps at Usdau by surprise. By 1115 the German 33rd Fusiliers managed to flank the village and take the highground in the Russian rear, leaving the town itself to fall to the advancing infantry. The town itself was by now a burnt charnel house filled with the bodies of Russian soldiers and abandoned equipment. The situation was a disaster for the Russian I Corps; cut off from 2nd Army command, it was entirely possible that the entire corps could be destroyed in the next 24 hours if the Germans pursued them.
Russian dead at Usdau
To that end, Francois issued new orders in the evening, intended to block the retreat of the 2nd Army into Russian Poland. The 1st Division was to capture and dig in at Fylitz, the 2nd at Gross-Tauersee and the detached XX Corps units at Klentzkau.
Also in the morning of 27 August the 8th Army headquarters had relocated to Osterode, just down the main road from Allenstein. In need of a better station to unload the incoming reinforcements from Schleswig-Holstein, a staff officer hitched a ride on a locomotive to check on the condition of Allenstein proper. As the train entered the town, the engineer reported seeing a column of soldiers on the road. The disbelieving officer came forward to calm the man, only to discover they were indeed surrounded by marching, brown uniformed Russian troops. The train was thus hastily reversed back toward Osterode, as bullets pinged off the machine. Allenstein was under full Russian control by the afternoon, with the occupiers demanding 60,000 loaves of bread from the town’s 6 bakeries within the next ten hours.
Russian cavalry in an East Prussian town
Orders came down at 0900 for the German XX Corps to launch its attack southward. The corps right, held by the 3rd Reserve Division, was to launch a feint while the center of the corps held along the Drewenz River. The corps right was to later launch the real attack. This order was, however, later countermanded with the fall of Allenstein, with 8th Army Headquarters now fearing again they they might have to pull back behind the Vistula. In this state, they ordered XX Corps to hold and redeploy.
Farther east, a courier arried at Mackensen’s headquarters at 1230. The orders he carried designated the combined XVII Corps and I Reserve Corps as “Ostgruppe” (East Group), and ordered them to move a small detachment of reservists south to Passenheim while the main body of the force redeploys to isolate Allenstein. Their positions, emplaced the night before, are a disorganized mess, with trenches facing each other and artillery pre registered on friendly positions. It is thus a welcome tidbit when it is learned the Russians have pulled back in full from the Bischofsburg area, with the Germans ordered to pursue.
XVII Corps quickly organized a flying column to pursue the Russians southward, with such haste that even when the cavalry stops to rest their horses the infantry continues their march. By 1430 the Germans had taken Passenheim, and with it entire Russian ammunition columns and a war chest with 200,000 gold rubles. It has by now become apparent that the Russian XIII Corps is pushing onward to Allenstein, either unaware or ignoring the German trap closing around them.
Meanwhile, Hindenburg and Ludendorff went south to Lobau to find Francois, encountering instead disorganized German wagons and disheveled troops clogging the town’s roads, with claims that the entire German I Corps had been destroyed. As a result, a nervous Ludendorff orders an aid to drive toward Soldau as fast as possible, turning back at the first sign of Russian or German troops to report the real situation. Thus it is revealed the commander of the battallion in Lobau, known even before the war for his poor nerves, had panicked and retreated his men at the first sign of action. The rest of I Corps had accomplished its objectives in the morning.
German soldiers pose with the wreck of a Russian aircraft
In light of the situation, in the evening General von Below, commander of I Reserve Corps, proposed to 8th Army headquarters an attack at dawn the next morning by both Ostgruppe and the German I Corps against Allenstein, where they estimate a full Russian division is positioned. The proposal is accepted, and requisite orders are dispatched, with a courier needed to bring them to Mackensen of XVII Corps, who reluctantly accepts.
Meanwhile on the other side of the line, it was a scene of chaos at the 2nd Army headquarters. The defeat of the Russian I Corps came as a profound shock, as did the report received at 0200 from General Blagoveschevsky of his defeat at Bischofsburg the day before. Thus coming to the conclusion that the main German force is actually located on the right of his army (the east), General Samsonov ordered his forces to consolidate around Allenstien and hold at all costs. At 1700 orders went out to the XV Corps to move toward the town to reinforce it, while XIII Corps is sent south to reinforce Russian troops there for a counterattack.
Russian intelligence and reconnaissance continued to be poor. At 1700 a Russian plane attempted to land alongside a column of friendly troops to get an update for headquarters, only to be shot to pieces by what turned out to be Germans. Another aircraft was fired on by Germans, but written off as friendly fire. The Russians simply do not believe the Germans are as close as they actually are.
Russian troops march through an East Prussian town
In the north, the slowly advancing 1st Army took Rastenburg as well as Friedland and Allenburg. Orders arrived from Zhilinski for Rennenkampf to change his objectives from isolating Konigsberg to an advance southward against the Germans to his south, with the Front Commander seeing a slight danger to the 2nd Army developing. Despite this, he still believes that the bulk of the 8th Army has been destroyed, and that only four badly mauled German corps and a handful of reservists are left in the region, with no prospects of reinforcements.
East Prussia - 27 August, 1914
Fortress City of Konigsberg
Bischofsburg - Ostgruppe northern forces
Passenheim - Ostgruppe southern forces
Osterode - 8th Army HQ
Drewnz River - German XX Corps line
Usdau - German I Corps line
Rastenburg - Russian 1st Army
Allenstein - Russian 2nd Army massing
Soldau - Russian 2nd Army forces routed from Usdau