In particular, François remained concerned for his southern exposure. Ever since his corps had turned away from Soldau he had been expecting a Russian counterattack from that direction. After Artamonov’s relief on August 29, General Sirelius of the 3rd Guard Division had assumed tactical command in the Soldau-Mlawa sector. His orders were to concentrate all available forces and attack Neidenburg immediately to relieve the 2nd Army’s center. Rather than lose time collecting I Corps, he started his own division towards the objective, and throughout August 29 François received enough reports of the Russian advance to make him uneasy.52
The commander of I Corps was almost more disturbed by 8th Army’s optimistic orders. They entirely ruled out the possibility of a Russian advance in force from the south. François was supposed to move his whole force north toward Jedwabno, both to complete the circle around the 2nd Army and for possible eventual use against Rennenkampf. François says in his memoirs that it was “lucky” that this document reached him too late to affect the corps orders for the 30th. In reality, it arrived in good time. François, once again going his own way, simply decided he needed more information before taking the risk of leaving his rear wide open.53
In this situation, the corps commander turned to his airmen. He was sufficiently assertive and sufficiently unconventional to feel more affinity for the lieutenants of Air Detachment 14 than was perhaps to be expected from one of his rank and responsibilities. A reconnaissance flight made with the last light of August 29 had reported a Russian brigade at Mlawa, and a regiment only fifteen kilometers from Neidenburg. François ordered his airmen to resume patrols at daybreak. At 6:00 a.m. on the 30th an air crew spotted a Russian column on the road from Mlawa to Neidenburg. The pilot tried to land at corps headquarters, but saw no suitably open ground. Rather than risk a crash the two officers agreed to return to their airfield, then drive to Neidenburg and deliver their information in person. They reached the town shortly after 8:30 a.m.
François had spent an anxious night. In an effort to cheer himself up he was inspecting the captured guns and wagons in the marketplace when at 9:15 a.m. another aircraft circled low and dropped another message. Lieutenants Hesse and Körner reported a Russian column of all arms advancing on Neidenburg from Mlawa—about a corps in strength on the basis of the road space it occupied. This confirmed the earlier sighting. Even worse, when observed at 9:10 a.m. the Russian vanguard had been only six kilometers south of Neidenburg itself.54
The two reports were an unpleasant shock. François had been expecting a Russian counterattack, but was amazed that such a strong force had come so close to his positions unobserved. The enemy was indeed too close for written orders. François sent an officer by auto to summon Major Schlimm, commanding the Neidenburg garrison. Another of I Corps’s staff cars went to the 2nd Division with orders for Falk to turn his men about, advance south, and attack the Russian left. Initially François refused to disturb the 1st Division along the high road. In retrospect, he declared he was never anything but confident that I Corps could check this new attack without abandoning the encirclement. In reality, by the time Conta’s strung-out formations could be concentrated, the fighting was likely to be over one way or another.
Just as François finished issuing his orders, Schlimm reported to the marketplace. The two batteries originally assigned to his force had left during the night. But even without artillery, Schlimm proposed to make a stand with his two infantry battalions along a low range of hills south of the town. François ordered the major to hold at all costs—or at least long enough to force the Russians to deploy from line of march into fighting formation. His promise of immediate reinforcements rang slightly hollow to the men on the spot, particularly when corps headquarters drove out of town as the first Russian shells began falling on the marketplace.
As Schlimm’s men marched south, François halted at the neighboring village of Gregersdorf. His first act was to find a phone and inform both Falk and 8th Army headquarters of the new situation in more detail.55 His superiors were taken by surprise. At 9:00 a.m. army command had once more boasted by telephone to OHL of complete success, with the prospect of an even larger bag of prisoners than originally expected.56 An hour later it learned of Lieutenant Hesse’s sighting of Russians outside Neidenburg. And bad news kept coming. An aircraft of Air Detachment 16 returned from a patrol to report Russians—at least a division of them—advancing on Ortelsburg in Mackensen’s sector.57 Given the time the report took to reach army headquarters, the Russians could easily have overrun Ortelsburg and opened an escape route for Kluyev and Martos before Hindenburg and Ludendorff knew of their presence.
Air reconnaissance in 1914 resembled ULTRA in 1942. It simultaneously generated skepticism and was credited with magical accuracy. Both attitudes could and did exist not only side by side, but in the same officers. To date 8th Army’s airmen had never been proved wrong enough to be summarily dismissed. Instead of ordering a second mission to confirm the advance on Ortelsburg, 8th Army headquarters combined the single report with the information received from François, and concluded that the Russians were advancing in force from the east and the south in order to break the German ring around the 2nd Army. It was what they would have attempted had the situations been reversed.
In focussing its attention on Rennenkampf, the 8th Army staff had neglected 2nd Army’s remaining fighting power. But how best to cope with a threat that seemed all the greater for being unexpected? The I Corps was extended along a day’s march worth of roads from Neidenburg to Willenberg. The XVII Corps was even more widely scattered, its men even more exhausted. Army headquarters saw the attack on Neidenburg as the most immediately dangerous. The concentration against Rennenkampf, so carefully developed the night before, was tossed aside as waste paper. Instead Grünert, the coolest head among the junior staff officers, was sent north to deliver orders for Unger’s troops and the Goltz Division to march south and support François. Scholtz was ordered to turn the 41st Division, which had been moving northeast as originally ordered, southward once more, with the 3rd Reserve Division following it. The 37th Division was ordered east to reinforce XVII Corps.
It was noon by the time the new instructions were on their way to 8th Army’s subordinate commands. In the interval, the phone line to I Corps had been cut by Russian artillery fire. François compensated by sending the airmen who first saw the Russians to Osterode by car, where they reported personally to Hindenburg and Ludendorff. Their intelligence was by then over six hours old. No further information about the Russian advance on Ortelsburg had reached Osterode. Army headquarters was still almost completely in the dark.58