in the works: Tannenberg 1914

Ludendorff explains the 22.5 Königsberg Corps rules to von Hindenburg.

To kick off my experimental study of the first year of the war, I'll be looking at the battle (camapign, really) of Tannenberg, the first large encounter of Russian and German forces on the war's eastern front. My first effort will be a solo play of GMT Game's Clash of Giants: Tannenberg. I'm looking forward to this, as I've played one of the games in this series before and enjoyed it

As a quick introduction, I can recommend this four minute overview of the events from The Complete Landmark Television Series' World War 1 in Colour. Though the documentary images are indeed colourized in a rather flat, washed out way, the footage is itself still interesting, and the map animations simple but clear.

For a longer description of the battle, I can recommend Wikipedia's article, which covers the operations in quite comprehensive detail (though it curiously fails to mention Russian Northwest Front commander Yakov Zhilinski), while the FirstWorldWar.com website's piece on Tannenberg contains links to biographies of many of the senior commanders, as well as accounts of the engagement by German 8th Army commander Paul von Hindenburg and Russian First Army cavalry corps commander Vasily Iosiforich Gurko.

Russian Bielozerski Regiment relaxing while awaiting the next blog post.

Given that a principal feature of the battle was the failure of the two Russian armies to coordinate effectively (due both to poor technical communications provisions and to major antipathy between the First and Second Army commanders), the Tannenberg campaign seems ripe for a triple-blind kriegsspeil. I've recruited three players who are willing to give it a try, so I hope to be reporting to you, faithful readers, on that project in coming weeks.