Albano by Jacobi

Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Albano von Jacobi (born October 16, 1854 in Cologne , † May 23, 1919 in Stralsund ) was a Prussian infantry general . Among other things, he held positions as military attaché and adjutant general of Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Life

Albano was the son of the later Prussian general of the infantry Georg Albano von Jacobi (1805-1874) and his wife Ernestine Karoline Elisabeth, born von Bohlen (born May 8, 1820 in Bohlendorf; † January 30, 1899 in Berlin).

Military career

Jacobi attended high schools in Berlin, Breslau and Posen and first studied a few semesters at the Kaiser-Wilhelms-Universität , where he was active in the Corps Palatia Strasbourg . The corps later made him an honorary member.

On April 2, 1874, he joined as a cadet in the 1st Guards regiment of foot in Potsdam , where he on March 11, 1875 to second lieutenant was promoted. In 1877 Jacobi was appointed personal adjutant to Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, who later became Kaiser Wilhelm II. When the prince went to Bonn to study , he and Jacobi moved into a household in the Villa Frank. In the years that followed, Jacobi stayed close to the prince, whose inseparable companion he was and with whom he was equally at student pubs and at state receptions at the Berlin court and at the court of Queen Victoria , the prince's grandmother , participated in London . Testimonies for this time describe Jacobi as humorous and always in a good mood, even if mentally "a bit plain".

In 1879 Jacobi was one of the four officers alongside the Crown Prince who stood guard of honor at the coffin of Prince Waldemar , the Emperor's younger brother. Due to his unfavorable appearance and his pronounced lankiness, Jacobi was referred to as "Jakobi longshanks" by the English-born mother of the prince, Princess Viktoria, the wife of Crown Prince Friedrich .

On February 17, 1885, Jacobi was promoted to prime lieutenant. After Wilhelm ascended to the throne in the summer of 1888, the new emperor sent Jacobi together with Hugo von Winterfeld as emissary to London to bring Queen Victoria the official announcement of his accession to power. In 1888/89 he was assigned to the Great General Staff . In 1889 he was commanded as an adjutant to the 21st Infantry Brigade and promoted to captain on September 2, 1889 . In 1892 he was serving as the Kaiser's wing adjutant and promoted to major on September 14, 1893 .

On October 24, 1895, he was sent to the German embassy in Rome as a military attaché , where Jacobi took over the maintenance of military relations between the German Empire and the Kingdom of Italy in the following years . There he was promoted to lieutenant colonel on January 27, 1899 . In November 1899 he returned to Germany as the Kaiser’s wing adjutant. With effect from June 25, 1900, he was transferred to the General Staff as head of department. On May 18, 1901 he became colonel and commander of the fusilier regiment "von Gersdorff" (Kurhessisches) No. 80 in Wiesbaden . This command led Jacobi until he was transferred to Frankfurt (Oder) as commander of the 9th Infantry Brigade on April 22, 1905. At the same time as his promotion to major general on December 19, 1905, he was appointed general à la suite of the emperor and to the Appointed military plenipotentiary of the empire at the court of the Russian tsar in Saint Petersburg . There he became lieutenant general on May 2, 1908 . After his dismissal he was appointed President of the General Order Commission on September 10, 1908 . In this function Jacobi was promoted to General of the Infantry on September 13, 1912.

First World War

With the mobilization at the outbreak of the First World War, Jacobi initially received no active command, as he had not led a troop command for many years. Only on October 14, 1914, Wilhelm II appointed him commander of the 33rd Landwehr Infantry Brigade on the Eastern Front . With this he took part in the fighting at Grajewo -Wizajny with the 8th Army . On December 17, 1914, he was given command of the 1st Landwehr Division . During the winter battle in Masuria , he was able to distinguish himself particularly and then went into the trench warfare. During the Narew - Bobr battle, after eight days of fighting, the division forced the passage over the Narew and then captured Lomza . After the fighting near Bialystok at the end of August, Fort IV and Grodno could be captured and the Russian armed forces pushed back to the Berezina . With the 12th Army , the division then took part in the trench warfare in the Pripet swamps . While Jacobi was in the field, he was appointed adjutant general to the emperor on January 27, 1916.

The division transferred to Army Group Linsingen in February 1916 , where it fended off heavy Russian attacks on the Stochod in the summer of that year . On April 3, 1917, Jacobi, with his division and the support of other associations, succeeded in conquering the Toboly bridgehead . 10,000 prisoners of war were brought in and the Russians lost their last position on the left bank of the Stochod. For this achievement Jacobi was awarded the highest Prussian bravery award on April 12, 1917, the Order Pour le Mérite .

After the armistice in the east, the division was relocated to the western front in mid-February 1918 and participated in the trench warfare in Flanders with the 4th Army . Most recently, the division under the leadership of Jacobi was involved in the 5th Army in the defensive battles between the Maas and Beaumont. After the end of the war, he led his division back home and, after demobilization , submitted his departure, which he was granted on January 2, 1919.

Awards

• Order of the Red Eagle 1st class with oak leaves and crown
• Order of the Crown, 1st class
• Commander of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern
• Prussian service award cross
• Cross of Honor III. Class of the Princely House Order of Hohenzollern
• Commander II. Class of the order of the Zähringer lion
• Commander first class of the Grand Ducal Hessian Order of Philip
• Knight's Cross of the Order of the Wendish Crown
• Officer of the Order of Albrecht
• Commander II class of the Duke of Saxony-Ernestine House Order
• Cross of Honor from Schwarzburg II class
• Cross of Honor of the Order of the Württemberg Crown
• Officer of the Belgian Order of the Leopold
• Grand Cross of the Order of Dannebrog
• Commander of the Royal Victorian Order
• Grand Cross of the Order of Saints Mauritius and Lazarus
• Grand Officer of the Order of the Crown of Italy
• Grand Cross of the Order of the Oak Crown
• Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau
• Commander of the OK Leopold Order
• Order of the Iron Crown II class
• Commander of the Franz Joseph Order
• Knight's Cross of the Star of Romania
• Russian Order of Saint Anne I. Class
• Order of Saint Stanislaus 1st class
• Grand Cross of the Order of the Sword
• Commander of the Takovo Order
• Commander of the Order of the Siamese Crown
• Iron Cross (1914) 2nd and 1st class

literature

• Academic monthly books. 25 (1908/09), p. 70.
• Karl-Friedrich Hildebrand, Christian Zweng: The knights of the order Pour le Mérite of the First World War. Volume 2: HO. Biblio Verlag, Bissendorf 2003, ISBN 3-7648-2516-2 , pp. 150-151.
• Hanns Möller: History of the knights of the order pour le mérite in the world war. Volume I: AL. Bernard & Graefe publishing house, Berlin 1935, pp. 532-533.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ List of the dead 1919 . In: German Biographical Yearbook . Transition Volume 2: 1917-1920 . DVA, Stuttgart 1928, p. 7222.
2. ^ Kurt von Priesdorff : Soldatisches Führertum . Volume 7, Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt Hamburg, undated [Hamburg], undated [1939], DNB 367632829 , pp. 305-306, no. 2309.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Kösener Corpslisten 1930, 34/7
4. ^ John CG Röhl: Wilhelm II. The Kaiser's Personal Monarchy, 1888-1900. , 2004, p. 70.
5. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab} Prussian War Ministry (ed.): Ranking list of the Royal Prussian Army and the XIII. (Royal Württemberg) Army Corps for 1914. ES Mittler & Sohn , Berlin 1914, p. 6.