Carl Auler

General Carl Lorenz Auler and his signature

Carl Lorenz Auler (born May 8, 1854 in Simmern / Hunsrück , † November 2, 1930 in Ulm ) was a Prussian infantry general , military advisor in the Ottoman Empire and travel writer.

Between 1901 and 1908 he was one of the German military advisors in the Ottoman Empire. Due to his technical training as an engineer, he accompanied the construction of the famous Hejaz Railway from Damascus to Medina . He published two extensive monographic reports about the railway project, but also about the country and people on the Arabian Peninsula, which identify him as one of the last great travel writers .

Life

Origin and school

Auler was the son of a wealthy Protestant merchant from the Hunsrück and was sent to secondary schools in Neuwied and Cologne after elementary school. Here he made his Abitur at the Gymnasium on Kreuzgasse in autumn 1871.

education

Immediately after the Franco-Prussian War , Auler reported on October 14, 1871, as a one-year volunteer with the Pioneer Battalion No. 11 of the Prussian Army in Kastel near Mainz. Until mid-July 1873 he attended the war school in Metz . On October 16, 1873, he was promoted to second lieutenant . From the beginning of October 1874 to July 1876 he was posted to the United Artillery and Engineering School in Charlottenburg . Then he found employment in various positions in the engineering and pioneer corps, among others. a. from June 1876 in the 2nd Company of the Badischer Pioneer Battalion No. 14 in Strasbourg . In March 1881, Auler was promoted to prime lieutenant.

From autumn 1882 Auler was assigned to the fortress authorities in Ulm . Here he married Marie Fanny Charlotte Wieland (* 1866) from Ulm on May 8, 1884; her parents were the manufacturer Philipp Jakob (bell founder and founder of Wieland-Werke AG) and Mathilde Wieland. The couple had four sons between 1885 and 1894. In October 1887 he was promoted to captain and transferred to the fourth engineer inspection; there he served u. a. as a management officer at the artillery and engineering school.

From September 1890, Auler served as a company commander in Pioneer Battalion No. 7 in Cologne-Deutz . Auler served in Deutz, among other things, under Commander Bruno Julius von Mudra (1893–1898). Three years later he was released from this task and moved up to the battalion headquarters. In the autumn of 1896 he was promoted to major and in mid-April 1898, Auler was reassigned from the site to the third engineer inspection department, being appointed engineer officer.

Military advisor in Turkey

On October 18, 1901, through the mediation of the German government, Auler joined the Turkish military as a member of the German Military Missions in the Ottoman Empire . He received through Sultan Abdülhamid II the rank of major general for a time and in addition the honorary title of pasha, which is due to this rank . Until 1908 Auler Pascha worked as a military advisor and general inspector of pioneering and engineering in Turkey. It was about modernizing the Turkish army and the fortifications of the country's external borders. Due to foreign policy interventions and adverse internal political currents, he - like the other German reformers - did not get a chance in these projects. Instead, the Sultan entrusted them with more harmless tasks.

At the end of October 1903, Auler was appointed to a commission that was supposed to "control the discipline of all troops [...]" as Auler later wrote, as part of a tour through the regions of Macedonia and Thrace, which belonged to the Islamic-dominated Ottoman Empire. Specifically, it was about examining arbitrary acts and attacks by the Turkish military on the civilian population in the context of the Ilinden uprising, a religiously and ethnically based popular revolt.

In the following year, Auler was charged with reporting on the progress made in the construction of the Hejaz Railway. Its route, which is currently under construction, runs over 1,300 km from Syria to Medina in what is now Saudi Arabia. As a trained pioneer engineer, Auler was predestined for this technical assessment. He drove several times on the completed sections of the railway line, sometimes in areas that were not allowed for Christians at the time. Quickly after the tours, he published two monographs richly illustrated with his own photos and color topographies in 1906 and 1908. In addition to the technical aspects in accordance with the order, he also reports again and again about the country and its people, about ruins and adventurous incidents. For example, as the Sultan's guest of honor, he took part in celebrations to mark the opening of sections of the railway.

In 1908 Auler returned to Germany disillusioned and at his own request. As a colonel , he became the inspector of the first fortress inspection in Königsberg . Promoted to major general on March 22, 1910, he was now active in the fortress of Strasbourg , then appointed in the same capacity to head the 1st Engineer Inspection in Berlin. On November 19, 1912, he was promoted to lieutenant general and on March 3, 1914, in approval of his resignation request, he was put up for disposition with the statutory pension . He spent his retirement in Ulm.

First World War

When the First World War broke out , Auler was re-used as a ZD officer and used as commander of the 5th Landwehr Division from January 16, 1915 to March 14, 1916 and from April 18, 1916 to August 14, 1918. In this capacity he received on January 27, 1918 the character of General of the Infantry. In addition, Auler was awarded the swords for the Red Eagle Order II. Class with oak leaves and star and the Crown Order I Class with swords during the war .

"The 5th Landwehr Division [...] held power in front of Verdun throughout the war and took part in all battles [...]" Auler wrote later in the foreword to his book from 1923. Ill he survived the war years. However, Auler could not be won over for an ennoblement such as that brought to him at the suggestion of the German emperor. The military spent his old age in Ulm; u. a. he wrote down his memories of the war. He died in early November 1930. The Kölnische Zeitung praised him as “the last of the old 'reformers' of the Turkish army”.

estate

The estate of Carl L. Auler is u. a. stored in the Ulm City Archives and in the Baden-Württemberg State Archives in Stuttgart.

Fonts

• History of the Hessian Pioneer Battalion No. 11. Berlin 1895.
• The 5th Prussian Landwehr Division in World War I 1914-1918. Chr.Belser AG, Stuttgart 1923.
• The Hejaz Railway. On the basis of an inspection trip and according to official sources. Supplementary booklet 154 to A. Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen from Justus Perthes' Geographischer Anstalt, Gotha 1906.
• The Hejaz Railway II. From Ma: ´ận to El´ Ula. On the basis of a second inspection trip and according to official sources. Supplementary booklet 161 to A. Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen from Justus Perthes' Geographischer Anstalt, Gotha 1908.

literature

• Jost Auler : Karl Lorenz Auler Pascha (* 1854, † 1930). Prussian officer, military advisor in the Ottoman Empire, travel writer and World War II general. A short biography, archaeotopos-Buchverlag, Dormagen 2018.
• Jost Auler: On a narrow track through the Arabian Peninsula. The adventures of the Prussian officer Karl Lorenz Auler in Inner Arabia around 1900. Rhine-Hunsrück calendar. Heimatjahrbuch 2020, pp. 123–131.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Military weekly paper . No. 32 of March 5, 1914, p. 661.
2. ^ Military weekly paper. No. 88/89 of January 27, 1918, p. 2195.