Paul Georg Edler von Rennenkampf (; – 1 April 1918) was a Baltic German nobleman, statesman and general of the Imperial Russian Army who commanded the 1st Army in the invasion of East Prussia during the initial stage of the Eastern front of World War I. He also served as the last commander of the Vilna Military District.
Rennenkampf gained a reputation as an effective cavalry commander during the Boxer Rebellion and the Russo-Japanese War. Following service in the latter, he led the detachment that suppressed the Chita Republic during the 1905 Russian Revolution. This earned him further promotion, and by the outbreak of World War I Rennenkampf was commander of the Vilna Military District, whose forces were used to form the 1st Army under his command.
He led the 1st Army in the invasion of East Prussia and won an early victory at Gumbinnen in late August 1914, but was relieved of command after defeats at Tannenberg, the Masurian Lakes and Łódź, although he was later proved innocent for the mistakes made in the Battle at Łódź by an official inquiry into his actions. Rennenkampf was shot by the Bolsheviks in Taganrog during the Red Terror in 1918.
Biography Origin
Paul Georg Edler von Rennenkampff was born on 29 April 1854 in the manor of Konofer (now Konuvere, Märjamaa parish, Estonia) in the then Governorate of Estonia, one of eight children of Captain Karl Gustav Edler von Rennenkampff and Anna Gabriele Ingeborg Freiin von Stackelberg, he came from the Konofer–Tuttomäggi–Sastama branch of the Baltic German Rennenkampff family and was of Lutheran faith. His paternal ancestors were of Westphalian origin, originating in Osnabrück. On his mother's side was the Stackelberg family, whose common ancestor was Carl Adam von Stackelberg, a Swedish cavalry officer and participant in The Great Northern War.Carl Adam Freiherr von Stackelberg/ Genealogy on the Internet by Stackelberg
Early career As a youth, Rennenkampf was educated in the Tallinn Knight and Cathedral School (; ), a German-speaking school established especially for local Baltic German aristocrats. Upon graduation, he joined the military as a non-commissioned officer in the 89th Infantry Regiment. He graduated the in Helsinki and began his military career with the Lithuanian 5th Lancers Regiment. He graduated at the top of his class from the Nicholas General Staff Academy in St. Petersburg (or at the first category) in 1881.
From late August to late November 1884, he was an over-officer of the 14th Army Corps, specialising in instruction. In late September 1886, he was the chief of staff of the Warsaw Military District, serving under General and later Field Marshal Count Gurko.
In early 1888, he was appointed to the Kazan Military District. Rennenkampf subsequently became the senior adjutant to the headquarters of the Don Cossacks. In late October 1889, he was appointed headquarters officer for special assignment at the 2nd Army Corps headquarters. In late March 1890, he was appointed the chief of staff of the Osowiec Fortress in Russian Poland. The same year he was promoted to colonel, after which he served in several different regiments until late November 1899, when he was appointed chief of staff of the Transbaikal region, and was promoted to major general.
Boxer Rebellion From 1900 to 1901, Rennenkampf participated in the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion in China. He distinguished himself with extreme success during the campaign, receiving both the 4th and 3rd classes of the Order of St. George for military distinction. Recipients of the Order of St. George, 4th degree Recipients of the Order of St George, 3rd degree
In mid-September, Rennenkampf left for Dagushan, leaving hundreds of troops to protect the mint and arsenal. After several days of resetting, he attacked and occupied Tieling and Mukden with his detachment attacked, maintaining control until October. Within this time, the general survived numerous assassination attempts; during one encounter, when he and his troops entered a manor, three Chinese men with spears charged toward the general, with a Cossack, Fyodor Antipyev, saving the general and being stabbed himself. For military distinction, he was awarded the Order of St. George of the 3rd degree.
The raid of the cavalry detachment of Rennenkampf was one of the most successful and decisive military operations in the Boxer Rebellion. In just three months of actions, Russian troops had taken over 2,500m2 of land, the best trained Chinese troops stationed at Heilongjiang were defeated and pushed out of Manchuria, and rebel detachments were dispersed, leading to the cessation of the Chinese resistance movement against their Russian occupiers.
Russo-Japanese War
In February 1904, after the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, Rennenkampf was appointed commander of the Trans-Baikal Cossack Division. In June, he was promoted to lieutenant-general in recognition of his military distinction.
In late June 1904, while scouting the Japanese positions at Liaoyang, he was shot in the leg, shattering the shin. After less than two months he returned to active service, without fully recovering from his wounds. In the Battle of Mukden, Rennenkampf again distinguished himself commanding the Tsinghechensky detachment, which was stationed at the left flank of the 1st Manchurian Army led by General Nikolai Linevich. During the battle, he showed great persistence, which, combined with other reinforcements, was able to repulse Field Marshal Kawamura's offensive.
According to some historians and writers, after the Battle of Mukden, a personal conflict occurred between Rennenkampf and General Samsonov and it came to an exchange of blows, which made the two of them lifelong foes; some other historians argue that there could be no clashes between the generals. The main source of this rumor is the memoirs of the German general Max Hoffmann, who was an observer with the Imperial Japanese Army during the war; capable of personally observing relations among Russian generals, he would subsequently become one of Rennenkampf's enemies in the First World War. In his memoirs, which refer again to rumors, Hoffmann mentioned that both generals quarrelled in Liaoyang after the battle; however, this claimed argument remains physically impossible, as Rennenkampf was seriously injured at this time.
After the war, Rennenkampf commanded numerous army corps, including the 7th Siberian Army Corps, the 3rd Siberian Army Corps and the 3rd Army Corps.
1905 Russian Revolution
After the war, Rennenkampf commanded an infantry battalion with several machine guns which followed a train in Harbin, restoring communications between the Manchurian Army and Western Siberia. Within this time, the Revolution broke out; this task remained interrupted via a revolutionary movement in Eastern Siberia, the Chita Republic. Rennenkampf and his forces were sent to suppress the movement, successfully restoring order in Chita.
After this campaign, he remained a target for assassination by numerous rebel groups and several plots to assassinate him were planned. In late October 1906, he faced an assassination attempt while walking along the street with two of his adjutants; a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, who was sitting on a bench, threw a bomb onto the general's feet. However, rather than destroying Rennenkampf and his adjutants, the explosion merely stunned them. The attempted assassin was later arrested and tried.
The decisive actions of Rennenkampf in the course of a war and in the suppression of rebellion led to further advancements in his career. In late December 1910, he was promoted to General of the Cavalry, then promoted to General-Adjutant in 1912. A further promotion to commander-in-chief of all troops within the Vilna Military District followed in mid-January 1913.
World War I
In the beginning of the First World War, Rennenkampf was appointed commander of the 1st Army of the Northwestern Front, under commander-in-chief General Yakov Zhilinsky; his rival Samsonov was the commander of the 2nd Army invading East Prussia from the south. On 7 August 1914, Rennenkampf and his troops entered East Prussia from the east. While retreating upon orders from the defending 8th Army commander, General Maximilian von Prittwitz, a gap formed between the Russian armies; exploiting this, the Imperial German 1st Division, commanded by General Hermann von François, counterattacked at the Battle of Stallupönen, initiating the Eastern Front of the war. Although it was a victory for the Germans, Russian artillery bombardment halted the German offensive, causing François to withdraw to the town of Gumbinnen.
Rennenkampf continued his advance, defeating the 8th Army under the Prittwitz's command at the Battle of Gumbinnen. But due to a later incorrect assessment made by Zhilinsky, the victory at Gumbinnen did not develop. After the battle, Rennenkampf was ordered by Zhilinsky to launch an offensive against the heart of East Prussia, Königsberg, but his army did not link up with Samsonov's 2nd Army due to a mistake made by Zhilinsky. As a result, the German 8th Army under the new commander, General (later field marshal) Paul von Hindenburg, charged through the gap, then encircled and nearly wiped out the 2nd Army near Allenstein (the Battle of Tannenberg). When the desperate Samsonov sent his appeals for help, instead of immediately replying and heading south to aid Samsonov, Rennenkampf almost completely ignored the appeal. When he finally began to head south, he and his men started too late and proceeded more slowly than they should have, contributing to the defeat of the 2nd Army. After the battle, Samsonov, fearing being held responsible for the defeat, committed suicide.
After the 2nd Army's annihilation at the Battle of Tannenberg, Rennenkampf's army took over all the defenses along the Deyma, Lava and the Masurian Lakeland. On 7 September, the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes began, as the Germans attacked the left flank of the 1st Army with a powerful detachment. Zhilinsky broke his promise to provide Rennenkampf with reinforcements from other formations; as a result, the 1st Army had to retreat hurriedly. The 2nd Army Corps, led by General Vladimir Slyusarenko, resisted desperately, as did Rennenkampf himself, who transferred all the cavalrymen, reserves, and troops from the right to left flank of the 20th Army Corps in order to avoid encirclement by Hindenburg. By 15 September, he skillfully withdrew his men from encirclement and withdrew behind the Neman, saving all the remaining troops he had. After this failure, despite his best efforts to blame Rennenkampf for the defeat, Zhilinsky was dismissed and was replaced by the General Nikolai Ruzsky.
In mid-November at Łódź, due to the indecisiveness and mistakes made by Ruzsky, the 1st Army was unable to prevent the XXV Reserve Corps of General Reinhard von Scheffer-Boyadel from escaping out of the encircling movement, causing the front to retreat. A sharp conflict then broke out between the two men. After the incident, Rennenkampf was relieved from his position. His acts during the battle became the subject of a special commission under General Peter von Baranoff; he was even considered being tried for treason, due to his ethnic background. He was then dismissed in early October 1915 "for domestic reasons with a uniform and pension".
After that, he stayed in Petrograd, living in retirement with his wife Vera until the Bolshevik coup. However, his retirement was extremely unsettling, as he was falsely accused of being a traitor, and all across Russia, on streets and in public places, people insulted him for his actions. Even Baltic Germans accused him, as Vera recalled, as being a "terrible Russophile". All these events plunged Rennenkampf into deep moral suffering.Rennenkampf Pavel Karlovich: last paragraph of the passage