After the christening Hindenburg felt cheerful enough to propose an excursion to the front lines, to the Mühlen sector. He wanted to thank and congratulate Scholtz’s men in person. But the headquarters cavalcade had driven scarcely three kilometers when it encountered a roadblock of ambulances and wagons, their drivers shouting that the Russians were coming. The staff officers quickly solved the problem; the teamsters had been frightened by the sight of Russian prisoners moving to the rear under escort. Ludendorff, never remarkable for his equaminity, grumbled at the unpleasant impression made by the spectacle of German soldiers in flight from rumors and shadows. By the time the panic had been explained and its victims turned back towards the front it was too dark to risk the drive to Mühlen. The staff returned to Osterode for dinner in high spirits, its mood almost certainly improved by the ephemeral nature of their earlier fright. For the first time in a week, and however temporarily, Rennenkampf was not an invisible guest at the meal.14
Whatever the Russians’ next moves, 8th Army would have additional troops to meet them. Reinforcements from the west were on the way. Prewar German planning had stressed the necessity for East Prussia to defend itself with its own resources. Gumbinnen, however, convinced Moltke that the Russian army had been badly, if not fatally, underestimated. A German force of seven divisions had apparently been so mauled in a single day of fighting that the commander, with as was naturally assumed the agreement of his principal staff officers, thought it necessary to retreat behind the Vistula. This suggested a need for complete revision of all calculations of the strength required to defend East Prussia. The effect of defeat on Austria also had to be considered. Given the delay of Conrad’s offensive, when the Austrians did attack it might be to relieve pressure on the Germans—a shift in roles likely to have uncomfortable postwar consequences.
Events in the west, on the other hand, were apparently proceeding better than expected. The attack through Belgium was proceeding on schedule. A French offensive on the other flank, in Lorraine, initially generated anxiety at OHL, but by August 23 the situation there had changed as well. Not only did the advance on Paris appear to be in full swing, the 6th and 7th German Armies on the German left had checked the French in a murderous three-day battle and were in hot pursuit of their beaten foe. For Moltke and his staff the war seemed over. The victory in Lorraine opened the door to the kind of decisive battle German officers had been for forty years conditioned to seek—a double envelopment instead of Schlieffen’s now apparently modest single version, a Cannae on a continental scale.
Moltke, not previously remarkable for optimism, began developing his own version of “victory disease.” Already some of his critics were suggesting that formations initially left behind in Germany to guard against a British amphibious attack would have been more useful in the east than brought forward to support the drive on Paris. According to Groener the kaiser received at least one message from a senior civil servant requesting help for beleaguered East Prussia. Moltke’s decision, however, was his own: to reinforce to the eastern front and seek a decision there corresponding to the one expected daily in the west.15
From what part of the front could troops best be spared? Groener favored drawing them from the German left wing. His often-expressed postwar fears for the consequences of diluting Schlieffen’s planned concentration by weakening the right were exaggerated by hindsight. Arguably at least as important to this railway expert in August, 1914, was the relative ease of moving troops eastward across Germany from Lorraine, instead of additionally straining the already crowded lines and junctions further north. But his recommendation to transfer XXI Corps and I Bavarian Corps found little echo at OHL. Both of these formations, Groener was told, had suffered heavy casualties in the recent fighting. Political considerations also made undesirable the drawing off of a Bavarian corps for service in a secondary theater. The tendency of Prussian officers to treat Bavarians as inferior troops in 1870/71 still rankled south of the Main. In operational terms, moreover, Moltke’s emerging hopes for a double envelopment could hardly have been fulfilled by a left wing deprived of two of its best fighting units.16
The chief of staff seems still to have been in the process of deciding whom to send when on August 25 the Belgian fortress of Namur surrendered, releasing the besieging force. Second Army Commander Colonel-General Karl von Bülow duly reported XI Corps and the Guard Reserve Corps available for other duties. OHL initially considered sending one corps to reinforce the right wing of the 3rd Army, the other to the left flank of the 2nd. But with the German envelopment growing tighter as it swung east of Paris, the front had contracted to the point where fresh corps-sized units could not be immediately deployed. Retaining them in local reserve was an obvious possibility, but for twenty years German doctrine had emphasized the necessity of shifting forces eastward after the initial, decisive victories in the west. Bülow expressed no sense of urgently requiring the services of the corps in question. At 3:10 a.m. on August 26, they were instructed to prepare for transport to the Eastern Front. The V Corps of the 5th Army was initially ordered to concentrate at Thionville for the same reasons. Moltke, however, subsequently decided against including a formation that had to be withdrawn from the fighting line. Instead he added to the troop list the 8th Cavalry Division from the 3rd Army.17
Whatever might be said about Moltke’s decision to relieve Prittwitz, his reinforcement of the eastern front was not a hasty measure. The chief of staff had a week to consider the possibilities and to change his mind. There is no evidence that he was under pressure from the kaiser or anyone else to save the property of East Elbian aristocrats. Indeed, according to one account, the kaiser found himself in the unexpected role of calming Moltke’s initial excitement at the news of civilian requests for help.18
Nor was supreme headquarters responding to appeals from the 8th Army. Moltke’s decision came as a complete surprise to that formation. On the night of August 26, Ludendorff received a call from OHL. He asked Max Hoffmann to listen in on another phone, and for the first time the two officers learned of the proposed transfer of three corps and a cavalry division to East Prussia. Ludendorff said they were not essential and would arrive too late for the battle now in progress. He asked that they be sent only if they could easily be spared. If they were at all needed to gain a victory in the west, the 8th Army could manage easily on its own.
Two nights later Hoffmann was once more asked to monitor a phone call from OHL. This one confirmed the dispatch of reinforcements: two corps and a cavalry division, with V Corps now remaining in the west. Again Ludendorff said that they were not necessary and should be kept on the western front if needed there. Providing detraining areas for such a large force would be a particular problem. The only double-track lines into 8th Army’s zone of operations ended at Elbing and Allenstein-Osterode. No more than a few detachments of Landwehr were available to cover this area against Russian cavalry, which might well be tempted out of its inactivity if offered such a vulnerable target.19
Moltke’s determination to send troops eastward in the face of these conversations remains unexplained. Partly it reflected a negative: the 2nd and 3rd Armies’ commanders and staffs did not protest that they needed additional strength to accomplish their respective missions. On the other hand an intelligence report submitted to OHL on August 28 described a growing body of Russian military opinion as favoring maintaining the offensive against Germany, even at the price of going over to the defensive against Austria. To implement this strategy the Russians could concentrate in East Prussia up to thirteen corps, supported by eight reserve divisions. However, weaknesses in the Russian command should enable the 8th Army, once reinforced by the two corps from the west, to hold its ground until the Austrian offensive’s effect became noticeable.20