#BATTLE OF TANNENBERG SIGNIFICANCE HOW TO#

It was seen as the greatest victory of the war and certainly generated one of the biggest propaganda myths (Stone 1998:66). Tannenberg was one of the most decisive battles in history, yet it did not determine who would win the war. Then, more importantly, we can use the fictitious interpretation of the battle to learn something about victory myths in general. We can see how this particular myth was created because we can now detail the ways in which the official explanations were mythical. As we can prove that this rivalry never existed, and because we also know that the German leadership had its own share of disunity and insubordination, we can see that the official explanations of the battle were more mythical and factual. The German generals propagated legends about their leadership and unity and about how the two Russian generals, Rennenkampf and Samsonov, had allowed their personal rivalry to sabotage their professionalism. German propagandists claimed that the German people were superior in terms of race and culture to the Asiatics and Slavs. The German generals who commanded the 8th Army went on to glory and gained an aura of prestige they never lost. The commander of the 1st Army, General Paul Rennenkampf, was accused of cowardice, sloth, and even treason (Evans 1970:171). The commander of the 2nd Army, General Alexander Samsonov, shot himself. The nearby Russian Ist Army had tried only belatedly to come to the aid of the 2nd Army. The German 8th Army encircled and then destroyed the Russian 2nd Army. The Battle of Tannenberg was fought approximately over a five day period at the end of August 1914.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE BATTLE AND THE LEGEND If the beliefs of the combatants were neither changed nor challenged, then there would have been no reason to build monuments and to create explanations for the battle that included elements of fiction or wishful thinking. When the combatants’ view of the world and themselves is challenged, the need to make a myth or legend arises and the function of the myth is to put an end to the uncertainty and sometimes, in fact, to deny that it ever occurred. The political and cultural influence of a battle like Tannenberg, Kosovo, or Pearl Harbor is felt generations later long after its military significance becomes no longer relevant. Only battles that were thought to have been able to go either way and that shook up established preconceptions become mythologized and become the subject of plays, operas, ballads, movies, books, and historical monuments. Richard Hamilton (1996) expounded how the explanations for victory (victory myths) sometimes had little to do with the actual chain of events, but Hamilton limited himself to showing that the two phenomena were different, rather than seeking to find the causes behind the nature of military mythmaking. Many military historians have discussed the causes for the outcomes of wars and battles, but few historians and sociologists have studied the popular explanations for military outcomes as a phenomena in themselves. Also, sometimes the defeated also build myths about battles in order to give themselves some solace and to find meaning and unity in defeat.

#BATTLE OF TANNENBERG SIGNIFICANCE HOW TO#

Just as military leaders will not want to say that they do not know how to fight a battle, victors will not want to say that they do not know how they won, or to otherwise attribute the outcome to chance and other circumstances beyond their control. Sometimes there are mistakes in the explanations for military victories. The need to mythologize the explanation for victory reflects the nature of the challenge to the preconceptions and cognitive assumptions of the participants during the course of the battle. The legend of the Battle of Tannenberg incorporated several falsehoods including an anecdote by Colonel Hoffmann. The study of the difference between the alleged explanations for victory and the real causes can yield insight into the mindset of the combatants. Journal of Political and Military Sociology 2001, Vol. Victory myths and the battle of Tannenberg

Battle of tannenberg significance