With Allenstein out of the question as a destination for the Landwehr, Stephani, once he recovered from his shock, arranged for the division to be diverted to the nearest station with a network of sidings. Within two hours, the first trains from Schleswig began disembarking their cargoes of leg-stiffened reservists at Biessellen.20
The Russian occupation of Allenstein confirmed Scholtz’s belief that XX Corps faced a major Russian threat to its left flank. He decided to respond by pulling the entire 37th Division out of the line and sending it north, to deploy behind the left flank of the 3rd Reserve Division. This was a risk on two accounts. It would diminish by half the ability of XX Corps to attack eastward as Hindenburg and Ludendorff had ordered. Given the day’s heat, the dust, and the disorganization still plaguing Staabs’s formations, the 37th Division also might reach its new positions too exhausted or too demoralized to fight. Some of Staabs’s battalions had to countermarch to pick up knapsacks temporarily abandoned. Others barely settled into their bivouac areas when they were awakened for still another night march. Rumors of a new disaster, of a German retreat across the Vistula, began passing through the stumbling ranks despite all efforts of the officers. They were not the best omens for the new mission.21
II
Army headquarters had its own problems with erratic troop movements. Ostgruppe’s victory on the 26th had raised hopes at headquarters that XVII Corps and I Reserve Corps could march undisturbed against the Russian 2nd Army’s flank and rear. At 7:30 a.m. on August 27, Below and Mackensen were told to advance south with every available man as soon as the enemy at Bischofsburg was disposed of.22 These orders, transmitted by messenger rather than telephone for security reasons, reached Below’s headquarters at 12:30 p.m. Fifteen minutes later the army liaison officer with Below responded. Below’s cavalry patrols had found that the Russians had abandoned their positions south of Bischofsburg without a fight, and I Reserve Corps was moving south as ordered. But Below wanted to know how the fighting was going on Scholtz’s front. He also wanted to know the exact whereabouts of Rennenkampf’s army. An excited telephone call from Allenstein had said Russians were in the town. A staff officer sent to investigate confirmed the report by backing his car down the road into Allenstein until he saw Russian sentries. Before the surprised soldiers could react, he changed gears and vanished towards his own lines in a cloud of dust and exhaust fumes.23
But where had this new enemy come from? Were they Rennenkampf’s men or part of the 2nd Army? Hindenburg and Ludendorff as yet did not know themselves. They responded by ordering Below to send only a detachment south, to Passenheim. The bulk of his corps was now to face west, ready either to advance on Allenstein should the Russians be there in force or to turn southward as originally ordered.24
No matter which Russian army was mounting it, the possibility of a concrete threat from the north led Hindenburg and Ludendorff to leave their command post during the afternoon of the 27th and drive to Scholtz’s headquarters at Frögenau. Their announced intention was to discuss plans for the next day’s operations. Almost certainly they also hoped to put some vigor into a headquarters apparently more concerned with holding positions than with driving forward. They were especially disturbed at the way the 41st Division’s attack had been allowed to fade away. Hindenburg and Ludendorff reasoned that both flanks of the 2nd Army, at Bischofsburg and Usdau, had been driven back. According to the best available reports on the main enemy forces, the Russian 2nd Division was broken and in retreat. The XV Corps was in position along the Drewenz. On the immediate Russian right, if Scholtz’s and Below’s intelligence was correct, XIII Corps had turned west to support XV Corps and was somewhere around Allenstein.
In a war game, 8th Army might have been willing enough to let the two latter corps concentrate. The more deeply the Russians committed themselves against Scholtz the less chance they would have of retreating successfully—if all went well in the field. In fact, the situation as perceived at 8th army headquarters by late afternoon of the 27th bore an uncanny resemblance to that existing around noon on July 3, 1866. At Königgrätz the 1st Prussian Army held its ground all morning against superior Austrian numbers. Its left flank, however, was in serious jeopardy until relieved by the 2nd Army, which emerged from the north to crush the Austrian right at the same time the Elbe Army’s three divisions drove in the enemy’s left. Though no memoirs mention the similarities, perhaps they crossed a few minds as the army staff prepared orders for the 28th. In the German center, the Goltz Landwehr Division, which had been detraining during the day, the 3rd Reserve Division, and XX Corps would attack the Russian XIII and XV Corps, pinning them in position. On the left I Reserve Corps would move against the Russian flank and rear, while XVII Corps pushed south and cut their line of retreat. François’ corps would close the ring from the south.
But Königgrätz had been near run. Had the 1st Army broken under the Austrian attacks, the 2nd Army might well have arrived only in time to cover a Prussian retreat. Should Scholtz be right about the extent of the Russian threat from the north, the 8th Army might find itself facing an analogous situation, with its fate depending heavily on the fighting power and the military know-how of the uniformed civilians under Goltz, Morgen, and Below.25
Ludendorff was anything but complacent as the army staff drove back to Löbau in the late afternoon. When the officers reached the town they found the streets blocked by a disorderly stream of army wagons headed north. They were from the supply train of I Corps, and their senior officer knew no more than that he had been ordered to prepare for a general retreat. Wild rumors were circulating that I Corps had been routed and overrun, that its remnants had withdrawn to Montowo in the army’s rear. In light of the day’s events as reported the stories made no sense. Max Hoffmann promptly made a phone call to the railway station commandant at Montowo. That officer declared that earlier in the afternoon a badly disorganized battalion of the 2nd Division, the II/4th Grenadiers, had arrived in the town. The major in command said that the entire I Corps had been completely defeated; his battalion had only been saved by a rapid retreat. He then ordered the supply troops in Montowo to prepare to evacuate to the north. Some units had already started without orders, and their wagons were those blocking the road.
Hoffmann was unwilling to believe that this was anything but a manifestation of the fog of war. Still, it was just possible that the Russians around Soldau had given François more than he had been able to handle. Hoffmann, never a man to minimize his own exploits or abandon a good story, described calling the errant battalion commander to the phone and peremptorily ordering him to turn his men around and advance until he found an enemy to engage. Then he instructed an aide to take a staff car, drive towards Montowo until he found either Russians or Germans, and report the actual situation.26