Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
First Battle of the Masurian Lakes
Summary
The First Battle of the Masurian Lakes was a German offensive in the Eastern Front 2–16 September 1914, during the second month of World War I. It took place only days after the Battle of Tannenberg where the German Eighth Army encircled and destroyed the Russian Second Army. Using the rapid movements aided by the East Prussian railway network, the Eighth Army reformed in front of the spread-out Russian First Army and pushed them back across their entire front, eventually ejecting it from Germany. Further progress was hampered by the arrival of the Russian Tenth Army on the Germans' right flank.
By the conclusion of the battle, the Imperial German Army had destroyed the Second Army and shattered the First in a series of actions over only a few weeks. However, Russia had the largest army in the world, so the Russian army very quickly restored its losses in manpower, and after a couple of weeks the Russians launched a new offensive in East Prussia.
The Russian offensive in East Prussia had started well enough, with General Paul von Rennenkampf's First Army (Army of the Neman) forcing the Eighth Army westward from the border towards Königsberg. Meanwhile, the Russian Second Army invaded from the south, hoping to cut the Germans off in the area around the city. The lack of railways and logistical problems meant they made slow progress even though they faced only a single German army corps.
During their advance Yakov Zhilinsky, Chief of Staff of the Imperial Russian Army, made a strategic mistake by separating two large Russian armies and urging them to move rapidly over a marginally trafficable terrain in response to the requests of the French for an early offensive. As a result, the armies approached in a poorly coordinated manner, being isolated from each other by terrain obstacles, and before the logistical base could be established, the troops were worn down by a rapid march and had to face fresh German troops.
The Germans developed a plan to rapidly move their forces to surround the Second Army as it moved northward over some particularly hilly terrain.
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.