9th Army (German Empire)

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

As 9th Armies / Army High Command 9 (AOK 9) , some large formations and the associated command authorities of the German Army during the First World War (1914-1918) were designated. They each comprised several army or reserve corps as well as numerous special troops.

history

First lineup

Commander in chief
Chief of Staff

The 9th Army was set up in September 1914 from charges from the 8th Army , the Western Front and reserve units in the Upper Silesia area and initially stood on the left wing of the Southern Front in the area east of Czestochowa . The army high command 9 was on September 19, 1914 Breslau compiled. The following formations were subordinate to him:

In September / October 1914, the army was deployed as part of the Battle of the Vistula , a failed attempt to defeat the Russian armies in southern Poland in a frontal attack. When the newly appointed commander in chief of the entire German armed forces in the east ( Ober Ost ), Colonel General Paul von Hindenburg, planned an offensive against the Russian lines in central Poland to relieve the Austrian troops, the bulk of the army went unnoticed by the Russians from November 3, 1914 in relocated the area eastwards from Posen to Thorn . The attack began on November 11th, but came to a halt after the Battle of Lodz. The encirclement of the Russian troops failed, but the city was occupied in December after their withdrawal. After that, the front froze temporarily in trench warfare . In 1915 the army took Warsaw during the Russian Great Retreat .

The headquarters of the Army High Command was in Łódź from January 2 to July 21, 1915 and in Slonim from September 22, 1915 . From August 1915 it also functioned as Army Group Command for Prince Leopold of Bavaria's Army Group . On July 30, 1916, the army itself was disbanded, but the Army High Command remained as Army Group Command until August 29, 1916.

Second lineup

Commander in chief
Chief of Staff

After Romania declared war on the Central Powers on August 27, 1916, it became necessary to gather troops against this new enemy . For this purpose, Army High Command 9 was reassembled on September 6, 1916 and relocated to Transylvania . However, in General of the Infantry Erich von Falkenhayn , the former Minister of War and Chief of the General Staff of the Field Army, it had a new commander in chief and also a new chief of staff.

The army was deployed in the Romanian theater of war from 1916/17 . The army was supposed to hold up the enemy, who had advanced quickly as far as Kronstadt and Sibiu from the end of August , and then strike back. From November 1916 the 9th Army attacked, conquered Bucharest together with the Danube Army of Army Group Mackensen and reached the lower reaches of the Sereth in January 1917 . From January 11, 1917, their headquarters were in Rimnicul Sarat .

Postage stamp for the zone of the 9th Army

In the spring of 1918, the 9th Army was in northeast Romania. For the stage area assigned to her, she set up a postal service that was also open to the civilian population. For this purpose, four different Germania stamps with the imprint Valid / 9. Army circulated in February / March 1918.

On June 19, 1918, Army High Command 9 was transferred to the Western Front. There it was already used on July 5, 1918 on the western section of the Marne arc. General Fritz von Below, who had been in charge of leadership since June 18, 1918, was terminally ill, so the previous Commander-in-Chief, General of the Infantry Johannes von Eben, continued to represent the command until the beginning of August. The new headquarters was set up in Crépy and moved to Marle on August 27, 1918 . The AOK 9 was at the Second Battle of the Marne near Soissons involved and more later in the Siegfried Line from. On September 18, 1918, however, it was dissolved and converted into the high command of Army Group Gallwitz .

See also

Web links

literature

  • Hermann Cron: History of the German Army in the World War 1914–1918 , Military Publishing House Karl Siegismund, Berlin 1937 ( History of the Royal Prussian Army and the German Imperial Army 5).
  • Erich von Falkenhayn : The campaign of the 9th Army against the Romanians and Russians 1916/17 . ES Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1921 ( online version ).
  • Gerhard P. Groß (Ed.): The forgotten front. The East 1914/15. Event, effect, aftermath . 2nd Edition. Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2009, ( ISBN 978-3-506-75655-8 ( Age of World Wars 1).

Remarks

  1. The 9th Army was replaced by the 2nd Austro-Hungarian Army Böhm-Ermolli , which could be moved almost 300 km from the Carpathian Mountains by rail without being noticed .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Hermann Cron: History of the German Army in World Wars 1914–1918 , Berlin 1937, p. 397
  2. a b c d e f Hermann Cron: History of the German Army in the World War 1914–1918 , Berlin 1937, p. 78
  3. Reichsarchiv (Ed.): The World War 1914-1918 , Volume 5, p. 410.
  4. ^ A b Hermann Cron: History of the German Army in World Wars 1914–1918 , Berlin 1937, p. 398
  5. ^ Homepage of the Working Group on German Occupation in World War I , accessed on August 21