Arthur Bopp

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bopp's grave at the Prague cemetery in Stuttgart

Arthur Bopp (born December 12, 1860 in Stuttgart , † October 30, 1928 in Mühlhausen an der Enz ) was a major general in Württemberg .

Life

His father was an officer in the 2nd and 3rd Cavalry Regiment. Bopp first attended school in Stuttgart, Ulm and Cannstatt, then the Oranienstein cadet institute and later the main Prussian cadet institute in Groß-Lichterfelde . On April 19, 1880 he joined the Uhlan Regiment "King Wilhelm I." (2nd Württembergisches) No. 20 as a second lieutenant . In 1888 he was promoted to first lieutenant , in 1895 to Rittmeister and in 1902 to major .

During the First World War , Bopp was first in command of the Landwehr Infantry Regiment No. 78 and later of the Landwehr Infantry Regiment No. 30. From October 1915, Bopp was on the staff of Field Marshal Colmar von der Goltz , who was sent to Constantinople in Turkey to lead the German military mission in the Ottoman Empire . After Otto Liman von Sanders received supreme command of the 5th Army, which was newly formed to defend the Dardanelles, at the end of March 1915 , Goltz took over from him supreme command of the 1st Army in Constantinople. Since October 1915, Goltz was also in command of the 6th Ottoman Army in order to coordinate the Turkish and German operations in Persia . Goltz gave Bopp the independent management of operations in Persia. His task was to “exploit the forces of Persia in the interests of the central powers and Turkey and to ensure the freedom and independence of Persia. ... to prepare a Persian insurrection and to initiate the formation of a Persian army ... ”.

After the total failure of the German operations in Persia, Bopp became the commander of the 52nd Württemberg Landwehr Infantry Brigade in 1918, which was deployed to support the White Army in the fighting against the Bolsheviks in Ukraine in the course of the Russian Civil War. From February 18, 1918, German and Austrian troops marched into Ukraine and occupied it. In this way the government of the Ukrainian People's Republic , which had previously had to flee from the advancing Bolshevik troops, was able to return to Kiev. From the beginning, the bourgeois Ukrainian People's Republic was in a power struggle with the pro-Soviet government in Kharkiv , which had formed in December 1917. After the Bolsheviks failed to land in the back of the Germans on the Mius Bay next to Taganrog , Bopp, as the local commander, shot all the prisoners, around 3,000 people, which was discussed in the Reichstag but had no consequences. It can be assumed that this massacre on Lake Mius was an exception in its dimensions during the occupation.

After the withdrawal of the Austro-Hungarian and most of the German troops, the hetmanate could no longer hold up; it was replaced by the Directory of the Ukrainian People's Republic . In the course of the Russian Civil War, the Bolsheviks took Kiev again.

On November 8, 1918, Bopp left the army and moved to his castle in Mühlhausen. He found his final resting place in the Pragfriedhof in Stuttgart.

literature

  • Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz: Memories. Edited and edited by Friedrich Freiherr von der Goltz and Wolfgang Foerster, Berlin 1929.
  • Peter Lieb : Guide to the War of Extermination? In: Military History. Historical Education Journal. Published by the Military History Research Office , issue 4/2008. P. 10, 12.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Otto Liman von Sanders: Five years of Turkey. Scherl. Berlin 1920. p. 77.
  2. ↑ Joseph Pomiankowski : The collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Memories of Turkey from the time of the world war. Amalthea. Vienna 1928. p. 152.
  3. ^ Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz: Memories. edited and edited by Friedrich von der Goltz and Wolfgang Foerster, Berlin 1929, p. 418f.
  4. ↑ Krasnyj Desant: The battle on the Mius Bay. An unnoticed chapter of the German occupation of southern Russia in 1918 in Yearbooks for the History of Eastern Europe. ISSN  0021-4019 , 2005. vol. 53, no 2, pp. 221-246.
  5. ↑ Peter Lieb: Guide to the War of Extermination? S.?
personal data
SURNAME Bopp, Arthur
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Württemberg major general
DATE OF BIRTH December 12, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart
DATE OF DEATH October 30, 1928
Place of death Mühlhausen on the Enz