31st the Russian forces were almost annihilated. Less than a third
escaped, and the loss of guns was even greater. Over eighty thousand
prisoners were taken, and the Germans who had missed their Sedan in
the West secured a passable imitation in the East. Samsonov perished
in the retreat. The Russian censorship suppressed the news, and what
was allowed to come through from Germany was treated in Entente
countries as a German lie. For more than a fortnight little was known
of a victory which, save for Allenby's four years later, was the
completest in the war. The relief in Berlin was immense; Hindenburg
became the popular idol, Field-Marshal, and Generalissimo of the
Teutonic armies in the East; and a little village, which lay behind
Hindenburg's centre, was selected to give its name to the battle and
to commemorate a national revenge for that defeat at Tannenberg five
centuries before when the Slavonic kingdom of Poland had broken the
power of the Teutonic Order in Prussia.

Russia, however, was a different power from the Teutonic Order, and
Austrian generals were not Hindenburgs; Ruszky and Brussilov, too,
were better leaders than Samsonov, and though Rennenkampf had to
evacuate East Prussia before Hindenburg's advance, the Austrians were
driven like chaff before their enemies in Galicia. The object of
Russian strategy was to straighten the serpentine line of the frontier
for military purposes. Hence, while pushing forward her wings in East
Prussia and Galicia, she would merely stand on guard or withdraw in
the Polish centre, and the Germans encountered little opposition when
they seized Czenstochowa and Kalisch and pushed towards the Warta, or
the Austrians when they advanced by Zamosc towards the Bug. The
advance in East Prussia was also represented as a chivalrous attempt
to reduce the pressure in France by a threat to Berlin, and the real
Russian effort was the sweep westwards from the eastern Galician