BATTLE MAPS

The Battle of Stallupönen took place in a village called Lesterov, Lithuania (Fig 1.1 shows an overall map of Lithuania) in what used to be part of the Prussian Empire. This battle was part of an offensive launcheed by the Russian army in an attempt to flank the Germans but failed. This plan was called Plan 19 (Fig 2.2), which was a two-pronged campaign which seeked territorial gain and worked as a temporary fight.

It is incredible to think how wars in a sense act like chess. Commanders are always seeking to attack the enemies´s flanks or weakest points. Strategy which is used even to this day but at a more complex level. It is interesting how from this war on out, no country which participated has as many troops as it had during the Great War.

Fig 1.2

Fig 1.1

As seen in the image above, the Russian "Plan 19" consisted of a two phase invasion. The first invasion through the center would allow a path for the rest of the movilizing forces to continue with the invasion. The top two arrows closes to the right indicate Samsonov´s army and Rennenkampf´s army and what should have been phase 1 in plan 19.