Fall of Giants

Walter sympathized. He, too, hated the thought of primitive Russian peasants and their barbaric knout-wielding lords overrunning the well-kept pastures and orchards of the von Ulrich inheritance. Those hardworking German farmers, with their muscular wives and scrubbed children and fat cattle, deserved to be protected. Was that not what the war was about? And he planned to take Maud to Zumwald one day, and show the place off to his wife. “Ludendorff is going to stop the Russian advance, Mother,” he said. He hoped it was true.

Before she could respond the whistle blew, and Walter kissed her and boarded the train.

Walter felt the sting of personal responsibility for the German reverses on the eastern front. He was one of the intelligence experts who had forecast that the Russians could not attack so soon after ordering mobilization. He was mortified with shame whenever he thought of it. But he suspected he had not been entirely wrong, and the Russians were sending ill-prepared troops forward with inadequate supplies.

This suspicion was reinforced, when he arrived in East Prussia later that Sunday with Ludendorff’s entourage, by reports that the Russian First Army, in the north, had halted. They were only a few miles inside German territory, and military logic dictated that they should press forward. What were they waiting for? Walter guessed they were running out of food.

But the southern arm of the pincer was still advancing, and Ludendorff’s priority was to stop it.

The following morning, Monday, August 24, Walter brought Ludendorff two priceless reports. Both were Russian wireless messages, intercepted and translated by German intelligence.

The first, sent at five thirty that morning by General Rennenkampf, gave marching orders for the Russian First Army. At last Rennenkampf was on the move again-but instead of turning south to close the pincers by meeting up with the Second Army, he was inexplicably heading west on a line that did not threaten any German forces.

The second message had been sent half an hour later by General Samsonov, the commander of the Russian Second Army. He ordered his 13 and 15 Corps to go after the German XX Corps, which he believed to be in retreat.

“This is astonishing!” said Ludendorff. “How did we get this information?” He looked suspicious, as if Walter might have been deceiving him. Walter had a feeling Ludendorff mistrusted him as a member of the old military aristocracy. “Do we know their codes?” Ludendorff demanded.

“They don’t use codes,” Walter told him.

“They send orders in clear? For heaven’s sake, why?”

“Russian soldiers aren’t sufficiently educated to deal with codes,” Walter explained. “Our prewar intelligence estimates suggested that there are hardly enough literate men to operate the wireless transmitters.”

“Then why don’t they use field telephones? A phone call can’t be intercepted.”

“I think they have probably run out of telephone wire.”

Ludendorff had a downturned mouth and a thrusting chin, and he always looked as if he were frowning aggressively. “This couldn’t be a trick, could it?”

Walter shook his head. “The idea is inconceivable, sir. The Russians are barely able to organize normal communications. The use of phony wireless signals to deceive the enemy is as far beyond them as flying to the moon.”

Ludendorff bent his balding head over the map on the table in front of him. He was a tireless worker, but he was often afflicted by terrible doubts, and Walter guessed he was driven by fear of failure. Ludendorff put his finger on the map. “Samsonov’s 13 and 15 Corps form the center of the Russian line,” he said. “If they move forward… ”

Walter saw immediately what Ludendorff was thinking: the Russians could be drawn into an envelope trap, surrounded on three sides.

Ludendorff said: “On our right we have von François and his I Corps. At our center, Scholtz and the XX Corps, who have fallen back but are not on the run, contrary to what the Russians seem to think. And on our left, but fifty kilometers to the north, we have Mackensen and the XVII Corps. Mackensen is keeping an eye on the northern arm of the Russian pincer, but if those Russians are heading the wrong way perhaps we can ignore them, for the moment, and turn Mackensen south.”

“A classic maneuver,” Walter said. It was simple, but he himself had not seen it until Ludendorff pointed it out. That, he thought admiringly, was why Ludendorff was the general.

Ludendorff said: “But it will work only if Rennenkampf and the Russian First Army continue in the wrong direction.”

“You saw the intercept, sir. The Russian orders have gone out.”

“Let’s hope Rennenkampf doesn’t change his mind.”

{V}

Grigori’s battalion had no food, but a wagonload of spades had arrived, so they dug a trench. The men dug in shifts, relieving one another after half an hour, so it did not take long. The result was not very neat, but it would serve.