8th Army (German Empire)

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The 8th Army / Army High Command 8 (AOK 8) was a large unit and the associated command authority of the German army during the First World War (1914-1918). It was deployed on the Eastern Front and comprised several army or reserve corps as well as numerous special troops. At times it was also referred to as the "Nyemen Army" after the river Nyemen .

history

Commander in chief
Chief of Staff

As on August 2, 1914, the German mobilization started off, was in Poznan , the Army High Command 8 installed. This moved to Marienburg on August 8th . The army's task was to defend the province of East Prussia against an expected attack by the Russian army . The following forces were available for this purpose:

As planned in the pre-war plans, after the declaration of war on Russia (August 1st) in the east, the 8th Army assembled a large unit with 10½ infantry divisions and 1 cavalry division.

After the Battle of Gumbinnen (August 19/20, 1914) had not been successful and most of East Prussia had fallen into the hands of the vastly outnumbered Russian troops, the Commander-in-Chief, Colonel-General Maximilian von Prittwitz , considered retreating behind the Vistula . He was therefore replaced. His successor General of the Infantry Paul von Hindenburg and his chief of staff Erich Ludendorff won the Battle of Tannenberg (August 26-30, 1914) and the Battle of the Masurian Lakes (September 6-14, 1914). After these battles, the bulk of the units subordinate to the army were temporarily transferred to southern Poland to the newly established 9th Army , for which the largest part of the staff was used. Richard von Schubert temporarily became the new commander in chief of the 8th Army . Hindenburg, who took over the 9th Army, was already entrusted by the Kaiser with "overall management of all operations in the east".

After the 10th Army was set up in East Prussia in early 1915, both armies were involved in the winter battle in Masuria from February 7 to 22, 1915 .

In the course of the successful offensives of the Central Powers on the Eastern Front , some reorganizations took place in the spring of 1915, which should take account of the new course of the front. In Courland , initially only the XXXIX operated in a diversionary attack for the Gorlice-Tarnów offensive . Reserve Corps . After a larger increase, this was expanded to the Lauenstein Army Department on April 22, 1915 and placed directly under the command of the East Commander. When more troops arrived and the offensive took on larger proportions on the northern section of the Eastern Front, the leadership of the attack group had to be reformed. Army High Command 8 in Tilsit was withdrawn from the front and on May 26, 1915 entrusted with the command of the German armed forces in Courland. At the same time it was renamed the Nyemen Army . Schaulen became the new headquarters of the Army High Command on July 28, 1915 .

The name 8th Army carried the General Command of the XX. Army corps of the general of the artillery Friedrich von Scholtz and his chief of staff, Lieutenant Colonel Adolf von Schwerin . The headquarters was almost all the time in Elk before this army was disbanded on 29 September 1915th

It was not until December 30, 1915 that the Nyemen Army was renamed the 8th Army , with which the Army High Command received its original name. From October 4, 1916, the Army High Command received a new order. The Commander-in-Chief Otto von Below was to command the German troops in Macedonia . The Army High Command now followed him to form Army Group Below . The previous Army High Command 12 took over at the head of the 8th Army . The headquarters remained in Schaulen for the time being, but was relocated to Mitau on April 1, 1916 . After the capture of Riga in early September 1917, it was in Riga from September 15, 1917 to December 31, 1918 .

The 8th Army in the occupied Baltic States (summer 1918)
The staff of the 8th Army under Hindenburg

In March 1918, the 8th Army crossed to Enforce Peace with the Soviets (→  companies punch ) the Daugava River and occupied the entire Baltic region to about the line Isthmus of Narva - Peipsi - Tartu . By the end of the war in November 1918, the following commands were established:

The headquarters of the 8th Army had to be moved back to Königsberg on January 12, 1919 after the withdrawal .

See also

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).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Hermann Cron: History of the German Army in World Wars 1914–1918 , Berlin 1937, p. 398
  2. ↑ Walther Grosse: The Battle of Gumbinnen , Tilsit 1939, p. 13f
  3. ↑ Reichsarchiv (Ed.): The World War 1914-1918 , Volume 5, p. 409.
  4. ↑ Hermann Cron: History of the German Army in World Wars 1914–1918 , Berlin 1937, p. 83
  5. ^ Hermann Cron: History of the German Army in World Wars 1914–1918 , Berlin 1937, p. 80
  6. ↑ Hermann Cron: History of the German Army in World Wars 1914–1918 , Berlin 1937, p. 77
  7. ^ Hermann Cron: History of the German Army in World Wars 1914-1918 , Berlin 1937, p. 77f