The Battle of Tannenberg was an engagement between the Russian and the German Empires in the first days of World War I. It was fought by the Russian Second Army against the German Eighth Army between 26 August and 30 August 1914.[8] The battle resulted in the almost complete destruction of the Russian Second Army, and the suicide of its commanding general, Alexander Samsonov. A series of follow-up battles (the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes) destroyed the majority of the First Army as well, and kept the Russians off-balance until the spring of 1915. The battle is notable particularly for a number of rapid movements of complete German corps by train, allowing a single German army to concentrate its forces against each Russian army in turn.
Although the battle actually took place close to Allenstein (Olsztyn), General Erich Ludendorff's aide, Colonel Max Hoffmann, suggested naming it after Tannenberg, in the interest of German nationalist ideology, to counter the defeat of the Teutonic Knights at the Battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg) in 1410 by Poles and Lithuanians.[9][10] As pointed out by the Australian historian Christopher Clark, the actual Tannenberg is some 30 km (19 mi) to the west, and there was no intrinsic reason—other than the historical battle and its emotive resonance in the narrative of German, Polish and Lithuanian nationalism—to give its name to the 1914 battle