Many Russians are still immersed in the inexplicable illusion of invincibility in the world, that they are the gendarmes of Europe, that they are Napoleonic terminators, that they are countries that cannot be defeated. The force of Yanov also thinks so - when he is in real power, he will take back everything he has lost, no matter what method is used.

It's just that this European power has long since faded from its invincible aura, and even Japan has the courage to go up and take a bite, although it did not succeed with the participation of China, but it makes people see the strength of Russia clearly.

This was all the more evidenced by the crushing defeat on the Eastern Front in Europe. The Second Army in the hands of the commander of the Eastern Front of the Russian army, Gilinsky, was almost completely wiped out, and even the commander of the army, Samsonov, committed suicide.

On the Western Front, France was under tremendous pressure, and the main forces of the Germans on the right flank were attacking rapidly in Belgium and the border areas, and the German troops were large and well prepared, and the fortresses in Belgium could not stop the German tanks. In order to relieve the pressure on the French border area, the French sent their envoy Maurice Paleolog, urging the Russians to attack East Prussia, which was very enthusiastic.

Two weeks after the start of the war, Russia was initially ready for mobilization, and by mid-March 1910 650,000 Russian soldiers were ready for battle. General Ivan Gilinsky, who was the chief of staff of the Russian army and would take command of the fighting army, assured the French that in two weeks there would be 800,000 Russian troops ready for battle.

The Tsar's uncle, the commander-in-chief, Grand Duke Nicholas, was a dedicated Francophile, and he assured the ambassador: "I can not even wait for all my armies to be assembled." As soon as I feel strong enough, I attack. "Russia is one of the largest armies in Europe, with nearly a million troops in Europe to meet the German challenge, and nearly 600,000 troops in the Far East and Central Asia to defend against the threat of the Chinese. Chief of the General Staff Gilinsky estimated that Russia would send three million troops to the war after half a year of mobilization, and five million troops to the war within a year.

If it weren't for the heavy troops stationed in the border areas by China, the European part could have been strengthened, but for Gilinsky, the current strength is sufficient.

No one doubts the claims of the Russians that they were ready for battle, and one only saw the sheer strength of the Russian forces while ignoring other factors that influenced the outcome of the battle.

Russia had a common border with Germany and Austria-Hungary, which stretched for more than 1,100 miles. Poland, then a Russian province, formed a 250-mile-wide salient that jutted 200 miles to the west, bordering Germany to the west and northwest, and Austria-Hungary to the south. Its western border is only one hundred and eighty miles from Berlin. To the north is East Prussia, an eighty-mile-wide piece of German territory sandwiched between Poland and the Baltic Sea.

East Prussia was defended by a fortress strip that was intended to prevent the Russian army from advancing across the Polish border. Strong strongholds were built along the upper reaches of the Vistula River and around the provincial capital Königsberg. Across the eastern border is the 50-mile-wide Masurian Lake, which became a natural obstacle to the severe restriction of the Russian invasion. Austria took advantage of the Carpathian Mountains and set up fortifications from Krakow through Lemberg (now Lviv) to the Romanian border. Between Russia and its Polish province, and around the center of Pinsk, is the Pripyat Marsh, with 38,000 square miles of marshland, overgrowth, and several dirt roads.

Germany's railway system consisted of seventeen routes to East Prussia, which could run five hundred trains per day; Such a system can transport a large army in a short period of time. A number of feeder lines branched off from the main line to many border areas to quickly mobilize troops to deal with contingencies. Austria built seven railway lines to Galicia via the Carpathians, with a daily traffic of 250 trains. Russia has only six railway lines from the main inland cities to Warsaw, and there are too few branch lines to have much military value.

In order to deter invasion from the west, the gauge of the Russian railways was wider than that used by the Germans. The border zone has been deliberately made a semi-barren wasteland cut off by forests and scrubland, and the unpaved roads turn into mud when heavy rains. As a result, as the Russian army approached these border areas, it moved as slowly as a wagon. This transport system puts infinite strain on the already ineffective military machine. Things will be even worse when the unprepared Russian army, at the insistence of France, rashly invades East Prussia in order to reduce German pressure on the Western Front.

Gilinsky's forces consisted of thirty infantry divisions and eight cavalry divisions, divided into two army groups, under the command of Generals Alexander Samsonov and Pavel Lenenkampf. For many years, Kampf commanded the 1st (Werner) Army and Samsonov commanded the 2nd (Warsaw) Army, both named after their city bases.

In order to invade East Prussia, both armies had to follow a fixed route on both sides of the Masurian Lake area, with Kampf advancing along the northern border for several years and crossing the border on 17 March, while Samsonov was scheduled to follow two days later via the southern periphery.

In the early years, Schlieffen spent a lot of time at Lake Masurian thinking about the most effective measures to deal with this type of transfer. He ordered to concentrate sufficient forces against the Russian army that appeared first, and then attack the other army. This tactic was brilliantly simple, and General Hindenburg, commander of the Eighth Army, who was in charge of the German Eastern Front, and Ludendorff, chief of staff, firmly implemented Schlieffen's tactical idea.

History has also changed here at the instigation of China, in the original history, Russia attacked East Prussia after the end of the French border battle, and the coalition forces in this time and space showed their decline in the border battle early, and they couldn't wait for the Russian army to enter the war. The commander of the German Eighth Army in the original time and space was General Max von Prittwitz, the "fat guy" who deceived Wilhelm II's trust with his rhetoric and **** jokes, but he was a palace favorite and did not have the talent to command the army group at all.

The German army generals, including Schlieffen and Moltke the Younger, wanted to kick Plitwitz out, and it just so happened that this court favorite had a heart attack while having fun with his lover, which did the German army generals a great favor. Of course, the general's death is inextricably linked to the Huaguo Investigation Bureau.

As a result, the elderly General Hindenburg had to sit on the Eastern Front, and the young Ludendorff became Chief of Staff of the Eighth Army because of his outstanding performance as an observer in the Sino-Japanese War and his insightful thinking in the summary report. The two cooperated tacitly and strictly implemented the combat policy proposed by Schlieffen to attack his way.

In addition, there was another key officer in the development of the battle plan for the Eastern Front, that is, Colonel Max von Hofmann. The Russian expert arrived on the Eastern Front a week before the outbreak of the war, and after becoming an operational officer of the Eighth Army, he presented General Hindenburg with a plan of operation, which was to concentrate on Samsorov's Second Army and then turn around and attack another Russian army.

Hoffman's battle plan was not unfounded, but based on knowledge of his opponent. He was an expert on Russia in the General Staff and was fluent in Russian. Over the years he has accumulated a wealth of knowledge about his enemies, especially the confrontation between Kampf and Samsonov. During the Russo-Japanese War, Hoffman was present as an official observer, when he inadvertently witnessed an unforgettable quarrel. On the platform of the Shenyang railway station in Manchuria, two Russian commanders with angry eyes were scolding each other. Suddenly, they threw punches and fought until one knocked the other to the ground. (Samsonov, the victor, caused the fight.) When his exhausted Siberian Cossacks were forced to abandon a valuable coal mine to the Japanese army, Kampf repeatedly ignored orders for him to be supported by cavalry divisions. Hoffman speculated that Kampf would refuse to aid Samsonov for years to come, and that the personal contradictions between the two generals would affect the situation of the war -- they would not let go of their prejudices for the sake of the bigger picture.

Another reason is that the Russian army is scattered, and the Russo-Japanese War does not seem to have taught the Russians how to fight, but they have increased the army's procurement of advanced equipment, such as tanks, aircraft, mortars, machine guns, and radios, but these new equipment has not been transformed into combat effectiveness at all.

The Germans intercepted quite a few Russian telegrams, which, strangely enough, did not encrypt them. Reports that the Russians were transmitting non-coded telecommunications were deeply suspicious of high-ranking German officers. Only Hoffman believed that this was not a strategy - he had seen enough of the Russian laxity in Manchuria. The designed routes and deployments revealed in documents found on the body of a deceased Gilinsky staff officer were consistent with intercepted telecommunications of the type, that the Russian field army had no ciphers or cipher personnel, and that the Russian High Command did not seem to have thought of the need to train telegraphers for such tasks.

In addition, the backward railway transportation system, the chaotic logistics and supply system, and the jealous generals were the reasons why Hoffmann was firm in his battle plan, but fortunately both General Hindenburg and Ludendorff agreed with Hoffmann's plan, and the unification of the upper echelons was carried out to the bottom, and the first great victory on the Eastern Front was achieved for Germany. (To be continued.) )