1st Army (German Empire)

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Flag of a staff of an army high command (1871-1918)

As 1. Army / Army High Command 1 (AOK 1) , two large units and the associated command authorities of the German army were designated during the First World War (1914-1918). They each comprised several army or reserve corps as well as numerous special troops.

history

First lineup

Commander in chief
Chief of Staff
Intended thrusts of the 1st – 5th Army according to the Schlieffen Plan 1914
The 1st Army during the Battle of the Marne on September 6, 1914

As on August 2, 1914 German Empire , the mobilization took place, were from the eight existing Army Inspections eight armies formed. From the 8th Army Inspection , the 1st Army arose, which gathered in the Aachen area . Commander in Chief of Army High Command 1 was Colonel General Alexander von Kluck ; Chief of Staff became Major General Hermann von Kuhl . In August 1914, the army comprised the following major units:

The Army High Command 1 was in the German mobilization on August 2, 1914 in Stettin erected and then moved to the western border. The 1st Army formed the northern wing army of the German Western Army and, according to the Schlieffen Plan , should proceed together with the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th Armies for a comprehensive attack against the bulk of the French Army. On August 18, 1914, as part of the general German advance, the army began the attack through Belgium . They pushed the Belgian troops against the fortress of Antwerp until August 20 and took Brussels . On August 21, the III. Reserve Corps under General Max von Boehn left for enclosure in Belgium.

In the following days the 1st Army met the first units of the British Expeditionary Force . These suffered a defeat in the battles at Mons and Le Cateau . In the following Battle of the Marne , the 1st Army fought off attacks by the French 6th Army east of Paris . However, there was a gap of about 40 kilometers to the German 2nd Army , which was exploited by the British troops. The 1st Army therefore began its retreat on September 9th . After the “ race to the sea ” ended, the army's formations found themselves on the Somme , where they froze at the front in trench warfare. The headquarters were in Folembray from September 30, 1914 .

On March 27, 1915, Colonel General von Kluck was wounded by a shrapnel during a front inspection. The new commander-in-chief was General of the Infantry Max von Fabeck , who was originally supposed to take over the newly formed Army High Command 11 . Finally, on September 17, 1915, the German army was restructured. The army high command one was from the western front removed and the Eastern Front moved where it as a new army high command 12 command of the associations of former army group Gallwitz took over. The troops previously subordinate to the west were divided between the two neighboring armies. This meant that there was initially no longer a 1st Army in the German Army.

Second lineup

Commander in chief
Chief of Staff

On July 1, 1916, the British troops began their long-prepared offensive against the German 2nd Army (→ Battle of the Somme ) of General of the Infantry Fritz von Below . After some successes of the British units, the Supreme Army Command decided to restructure this section of the battle. On July 19, 1916, it divided the German troops in the area concerned. All forces north of the Somme were combined as a new 1st Army and remained subordinate to the previous Army High Command 2. This was still under the command of General von Below, but has now been renamed Army High Command 1 . Chief of Staff was Colonel Fritz von Lossberg . The German troops south of the Somme came as 2nd Army under the command of a new Army High Command under General von Gallwitz and his Chief of Staff, Colonel Bernhard Bronsart von Schellendorff .

During the Alberich retreat , the 1st Army cleared the town of Bapaume and gave up all areas north of the Somme as far as the southern apron of Arras. At the end of March 1917, the army stood briefly in the western apron of Cambrai , but already handed over its section to AOK 2 at the beginning of April. The headquarters of the 1st Army were briefly in Bourlon and Solesmes , after being relocated to the Aisnefront it was relocated April 12, 1917 to Rethel .

The 1st Army was pushed in between the 7th and 3rd Army on the Aisne Front on April 16 and was subordinate to the German Crown Prince Army Group from this point on . During the second battle on the Aisne , which began on the same day , the army had four corps groups at its disposal to repel French mass attacks in the northern Reims apron:

General Below carried out supportive attacks north of Reims during the German spring offensive at the end of May 1918 . He had been in command of the army for almost two years before being replaced by General of the Infantry Bruno of Mudra in June 1918 . In the last months of the war, generals Otto von Below and Magnus von Eberhardt finally commanded the army, which was engaged in ongoing retreat battles. On October 8, 1918, the headquarters in Rethel had to be abandoned; after the end of the war, it was still in Neuwied from November 24, 1918 to handle the withdrawal .

References

→ Main article: Army (German Empire)

Web links

literature

  • Hermann Cron: History of the German Army in the World War 1914–1918. Siegismund, Berlin 1937 ( History of the Royal Prussian Army and the German Imperial Army 5).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Hermann Cron: History of the German Army in the World War 1914–1918 , Berlin 1937, p. 394
  2. ^ Hermann Stegemann: History of the war. Volume 1. Stuttgart / Berlin 1917, p. 103.
  3. ↑ a b c Hermann Cron: History of the German Army in World Wars 1914–1918 , Berlin 1937, p. 76
  4. ↑ a b Hermann Cron: History of the German Army in World Wars 1914–1918 , Berlin 1937, p. 394f
  5. ^ Hermann Stegemann: History of the war. Volume 4. Stuttgart / Berlin 1921, p. 129.
  6. ^ Reichsarchiv: The World War 1914-1918, Volume XII. Card insert 18