PC: Russian Victory at Tannenberg?

Enigmajones

Just wondering, is it plausible for the Russians one of the biggest battles of the war? Could this lead to massive Russian attack on the German East front? As well as ruin Hindenburgs political future?
 

Snake Featherston

Banned
It's plausible for the Jilinsky Offensive to have gone differently, yes. If Rennenkampf had pushed through immediately after Gumbinnen the German troops would have been in a major fix, particularly if they decide as per OTL to bank on him *not* doing this. The whole dickery aspect could easily be changed with Rennenkampf deciding to screw Sazonov by pushing on immediately, making Sasonov look stupid and the Germans find out in the middle of the transfer that the Russian First Army is going hell for leather into East Prussia.

How this'd work out would be a very interesting question. Russia is unlikely to win WWI against the German Empire but an initial victory in East Prussia would give them a psychological advantage akin to the results of the Battles of Gnila Lipa and Rava Russka against Austria-Hungary. Russia'd need all the help it could get anyway.....
 

Snake Featherston

Banned
Enigmajones said:
Would this affect the future of the Civil war in any way?
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It could potentially avert it as the Tsarist army is still going to be taking tremendous casualties but it doing better against the Germans gives those casualties a different overtone, mollifying a lot of the criticisms of the Tsar's way of waging war. Victory in East Prussia + overrunning a lot of Galicia will put the Central Powers in a hell of a fix.

If two Russian armies have overrun the better part of East Prussia even as the French and British are winning the Battle of the Marne and the Tsarist army has won the Battles of Gnila Lipa and Rava Russka the Central Powers have some of the dilemmas they never really resolved staring them blank in the face early on. The Ottomans may well decide to stay neutral here.
 

Enigmajones

And I was thinking, without the success's that the Germans had on the Eastern Front, would they still have a stab in the back legend, or at leads one so adhered to.
 

Snake Featherston

Banned
Enigmajones said:
And I was thinking, without the success's that the Germans had on the Eastern Front, would they still have a stab in the back legend, or at leads one so adhered to.
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Eh, they probably will because the German army was very good at attributing its defeat to anyone but the German army. They did that with Hitler in WWII and with the Social Democrats in WWI. Most likely you'll see a myth of the enormous Russian steamroller more than anything else and regardless of how true that would actually be in the course of the ATL war itself.
 

Enigmajones

Seems fair and accurate enough. But after (potential) victory in WW1, would the tsar even feel the need to push progressive legislation?
 

Snake Featherston

Banned
Enigmajones said:
Seems fair and accurate enough. But after (potential) victory in WW1, would the tsar even feel the need to push progressive legislation?
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No, on the other hand though a victory in WWI would give the Romanov dynasty some sorely needed prestige by virtue of having won a major war for the first time since the Napoleonic Wars.
 

1940LaSalle

Everyone is overlooking one detail: the Russian armies were communicating with each other by wireless, unencrypted. It was a piece of cake for the German armies to intercept the signals. Indeed, one of the German commanders (I forget who, and don't have the book handy) was quoted in The Guns of August as saying (I paraphrase) that they had an ally in the enemy himself since they (the Germans) knew precisely what the Russians were going to try.

So...for a Russian victory at Tannenberg, you'd need them to enact some sort of cryptography (which, when they used it, was entry-level; captured encrypted messages were apparently cracked readily by a German math professor attached to headquarters as a cryptanalyst) with some sophistication and actually used, as well as elimination of the "it's personal" clashes between Rennenkampf and Jilinsky. Short version: not ASB, but it's in the same time zone.
 

Snake Featherston

Banned
1940LaSalle said:
Everyone is overlooking one detail: the Russian armies were communicating with each other by wireless, unencrypted. It was a piece of cake for the German armies to intercept the signals. Indeed, one of the German commanders (I forget who, and don't have the book handy) was quoted in The Guns of August as saying (I paraphrase) that they had an ally in the enemy himself since they (the Germans) knew precisely what the Russians were going to try.

So...for a Russian victory at Tannenberg, you'd need them to enact some sort of cryptography (which, when they used it, was entry-level; captured encrypted messages were apparently cracked readily by a German math professor attached to headquarters as a cryptanalyst) with some sophistication and actually used, as well as elimination of the "it's personal" clashes between Rennenkampf and Jilinsky. Short version: not ASB, but it's in the same time zone.
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Eh, the Germans transmitted in the clear too, particularly later on in the Battle of Verdun, and the German commanders were seriously considering evacuating to the Vistula after Gumbinnen IOTL. If for whatever reason Rennenkampf decides to go hell-for-leather and the German generals find out about this in say, the process of moving their forces south the resulting muddle could allow the Russians to come out on top in a tactical engagement that would be extremely confusing and marked by great generalship on neither side.
 
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