Tannenberg: Clash of Empires, 1914

At the October meeting I confidently asserted that Denis Showalter’s Tannenberg: Clash of Empires was the Best Battle History Ever Written. I was, of course, challenged to defend this in a review. Having written the following review I am, if it is possible, even more sure that it is the Best Battle History Ever Written and my opinion, much like the armies of 1914-1915 has become ever deeper entrenched.

There are two types of books about battles. Some books ignore the common man, instead focusing on the movements of corps, divisions, armies and the great clashes that result. Then there are experiential books that focus on the perspective on the ground. Interviews, diaries, and first-hand accounts of the men who were there break down the clinical comforting language where divisions “break through”, or are “rebuffed” into the stark horror and confusion of the battlefield, often told at least partially by paprticipants. Both types of book have their strengths and weaknesses. The former offers a huge wealth of information, breaking down the exact movements of formations and their implications, but they can be clinical, staid, and (whisper it) a little bit boring. The latter books on the other hand offer a ‘true’ picture of war at the sharp end. Mud, guts and blood abound, but they can also be a little light on detail. This isn’t helped by angling towards more ‘popular’ audiences shall we say who, quite possibly, might not care about the intricacies of command and control or operational manoeuvres. The great genius of Denis Showalter’s Tannenberg: Clash of Empires is that it unites both types in a thoroughly insightful analysis of one of the great, and most consequential, battles of modern European history.

This is at the core of what makes Tannenberg the best battle history ever written. It marries the confusing heart of combat, with cogent analysis not just of the movements of armies in a campaign, but of the perspectives of the commanders ordering these moves. Showalter describes troops panicking, running away, and directly references this marriage when he describes the unfortunate German 3^rd Brigade’s breaking: ‘German histories describe an “orderly retrograde movement.” In fact the 4^th Grenadiers and the 44^th Infantry fled for their lives to the woods north and east of Heinrichsdorf’. (p. 253). Throughout the book, both the German and Russian armies become as much flesh and blood as they are icons on a map. Yet, at the same time, the dynamics of their commanders leap equally to the fore. The ‘Russian command at all levels was guilty of misunderstanding the essential nature of its tool. The Russian army was a broadsword. It could not be used like a rapier.’ (p. 328) This quote speaks to another strength of Showalter’s prose: an extraordinary ability to boil down complex ideas and interactions on the battlefield into pithy one-liners.

This prose would be nothing without Showalter’s analysis. This frequently subverts expectations, pointing out startling truths jumbled up within the melee of combat. German regular troops, for example, were far more likely to do the ‘serious running’ than their reservist counterparts, drawing the comparison out even further with the Tyneside Irish Brigade on 1 July 1916.  He similarly inverts a traditional view of pre-war planning when he points out that ‘Military planners prior to 1914 are often described as underestimating the resilience of their war machines and the societies sustaining them. What they actually did was to overestimate the rates at which men would be killed and machines destroyed. They saw vulnerabilities more clearly than durabilities and it was the latter that gave Europe time to adjust to the initial casualty rates of 1914-15.’ This, again, demonstrates Showalter’s gift in the analysis to take an accepted viewpoint and to flip it onto its head, in the process, demonstrating both some fascinating insights and a firm grip of the subject.

This is what makes Tannenberg the best battle history ever written. Showalter offers insight, analysis and explanation in equal measure at almost every level of the eponymous battle this book is concerned with. Many of these insights flip established assumptions on their heads, while every single one of them is expressed in pithy prose that communicates far more ideas than the sum of characters which it takes up. However, the true heart of the book is a simple truth: war is confusing, illogical and even established ‘truths’ might yet conceal another.