Without Flyers, No Tannenberg: Aviation on the Eastern Front of 1914?Evolution of a Critical Role for Modern Warfare

Contemporary full color visuals, detailed maps and fact-filled text combine to tell the amazing story of aviation’s impact in the early years of WWI and beyond.

Stories of bravery of early aviators add a compelling human element to the vast amount of newly tapped data on tactics, battles and sorties of the catastrophic annihilation of Russia’s invading army in 1914. Germany relied heavily on information acquired from aviators in aeroplanes and airships tracking Russia’s armies throughout the campaign.

The Annihilation of Russian Forces

Current events will come to mind when reading about Russia’s invasion of Germany in the opening days of the Great War. Despite having two major armies equipped with Russia’s state-of-the-art weapons, to include a fleet of aeroplanes, their invasion went sour from the beginning. The defending Germans aggressively flew sorties and reported on the Russians’ location and activities. Germany’s intelligence collection and dissemination became the mainstay of aerial reconnaissance. The Russian failure to support their aviation fleet as they crossed the border combined with commanders’ inability to employ state-of-the-art technology made a major difference in the early part of the war. The annihilation of the Russian forces spurred the German nation on and contributed to the rise of National Socialism in the following decades.

Without Flyers, No Tannenberg goes beyond anything written to date on the history of aviation in the Great War with amazing detail that will contribute to greater understanding of aviation’s contribution to the history of warfare.