Guard Reserve Corps

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The Guards Reserve Corps was a major unit of the Prussian army as part of the German army in the First World War .

Outline 1914

The Corps was when the war began the 2nd Army subordinated and structured as follows:

  • 3rd Guard Division
    • 5th Guard Infantry Brigade
    • 6th Guard Infantry Brigade
    • Guard Reserve Uhlan Regiment
    • 3rd Guard Field Artillery Brigade
    • 1st Company / Engineer Battalion No. 28
  • 1st Guard Reserve Division
    • 1st Guard Reserve Infantry Brigade
    • 15th Reserve Infantry Brigade
    • Guard Reserve Dragoon Regiment
    • Guard Reserve Field Artillery Brigade
    • 2nd and 3rd Company / Engineer Battalion No. 28
  • Corps troops:
    • II. Division / Guards Foot Artillery Regiment
    • Field Aviator Division No. 45

history

Max von Gallwitz

During the mobilization at the beginning of the First World War , the Guard Reserve Corps was set up on August 2, 1914. The corps was subordinate to the commanding general of the artillery, Max von Gallwitz, and was followed by the 2nd Army to the western front . Colonel Paul von Bartenwerffer acted as chief of staff , the assigned 3rd Guard Division led Lieutenant General Henning von Bonin (1856–1923), and the 1st Guard Reserve Division was commanded by Lieutenant General Viktor Albrecht . While the Guard Corps marched in the Malmedy area until August 12th, the Guard Reserve Corps behind it deployed between August 11th and 14th near Blankenheim , Stadtkyll and Hillesheim in the Eifel . After crossing the border at Stavelot , the corps reached the Ourthe at Bomal and Durbuy by August 16 . Following the previous guard corps, it reached Andenne on August 20 on its march through the Belgian province of Wallonia , where the 1st Guard Reserve Division crossed the Meuse immediately behind the withdrawing Belgians . After alleged fire attacks by Belgian civilians, one of the most serious massacres of this phase of the war against the civilian population took place there. In the Leipzig trials in 1920, the perpetrators referred to the express order of General von Gallwitz, who had ordered the formation of court courts if weapons were found. The 3rd Guards Division fought from August 20th to 24th against the retreating Belgian troops in the battle near Hingeon, where a Belgian counterattack was stopping the advance, and at Fort de Cognelée. With this the corps reached Namur and began to enclose the fortress, the long siege of which it was feared. The Guards Reserve Corps zernierte with the 1st Guards Reserve Division on the north bank of the Maas from the north, the following XI. Corps took over the attack south of the Meuse with the 22nd Division . Between August 22nd and 24th, the actual attack on the fortress began with the bombardment. The Germans invaded the forts Lognelee, Marchovelette and de Cognelée. The occupation (Belgian 4th Division) decided to break out in a south-westerly direction via the only free road to Mariembourg . On August 24, other forts fell: Maizeret, d'Emines, d'Andoy, Malonne, d'Héribert; on August 25, the Belgians also handed over the forts de Dave and Suarlée. After the unexpectedly quick end of the siege of Namur, the two corps that had become free were transported to East Prussia to reinforce the 8th Army , where the Battle of Tannenberg was underway, in which the reinforcements withdrawn from the west were no longer used.

On September 5, 1914, the Guard Reserve Corps marched on the left wing of the 8th Army in the Preussisch Eylau area and advanced to Dommau the following day and to Friedland on September 7 . During the battle of the Masurian Lakes , the corps secured together with the fortress division of Königsberg in the north of the battle front on the Allee and advanced via Allenburg to the Ilme .

To relieve the Austrians, the Guard Reserve Corps was relocated to the Silesian border on September 20 in association with the newly established 9th Army . The corps was unloaded west of Katowice ; at the same time the XX. Army Corps arrived in Czestochowa with its advance guard ; behind it followed the troops of the XVII. Army Corps . At the end of September, the Battle of the Vistula opened under Colonel General von Hindenburg . From the Czestochowa area, General von Gallwitz advanced north of the Łysa Góra to the east towards the Vistula . The Guard Reserve Corps turned on September 30th with the 3rd Guard and the 1st Guard Reserve Divisions via Kielce to Ostrowiec to the southeast. On October 4th, the southern Gallwitz group (XX Army Corps and Guard Reserve Corps) supported the XI with their relief attack near Radom . Army Corps ( Plüskow ) and the Austro-Hungarian 1st Army ( Dankl ) in their defensive battles against the Russian attacks at Opatow . On October 8, General Gallwitz opened the attack on the Ivangorod fortress . From October 13th, the Russian 5th Army went over to the western bank of the Vistula near Góra Kalwaria and marched on the southwestern apron of Warsaw . Because of the threat in the rear, the German forces had to move north and leave the hard-pressed front at Ivangorod to the Austrians. Between October 22 and 28, 1914, the Gallwitz group fought on the Pilica and was forced to retreat there by Russian reinforcements.

After the 9th Army was transferred to Thorn, the Guard Reserve Corps had to stay behind on the Warta to secure the Silesian industrial area in the Czestochowa area, which was threatened by the Russians. The corps was now subordinate to the newly established Woyrsch Army Detachment , the Landwehr Corps secured the front as its northern neighbor, the southern neighbor was the kuk II Corps under General Johann von Kirchbach , which adjoined Zarki to the south . As a result of the relocation of the Austro-Hungarian 2nd Army in the space Novo-Radomsk and the General Command of the Corps in mid-December 1914, the 1st Guards Reserve Division in defensive battles in the room was Petrikau and below trench warfare on the Rawka and Bzura used.

After the 3rd Guard Division was transported to the German Southern Army in the Carpathian Mountains , the General Command of the Guard Reserve Corps was practically dissolved. On February 9, 1915, the "Army Group Gallwitz" established itself on the Rawka-Bzura line instead; it was directly subordinate to the Commander-in-Chief East and was renamed the 12th Army in the summer of 1915 during the Narew offensive .

Wolf Rudolf Freiherr Marshal von Altengottern

A new Guard Reserve Corps under Cavalry General Wolf Marschall von Altengottern was newly formed on the Western Front in April 1916 from the "Corps Marschall" which had previously been disbanded on the Eastern Front. This first took over command in the Arras area north of the Scarpe in the section of the 6th Army and at the end of July 1916 intervened in the Battle of the Somme in the Barleux area . Later positioned on the left wing of the XIV Reserve Corps ( Stein group ) south of the Ancre in the Thiepval area , the Marschall group was subordinated to the 4th Guard Division and the 1st Guard Reserve Division . The task of the General Command, which was deployed in the fall of 1916 under the designation Group Section B in the section of the 1st Army , was to prevent the British breakthrough on Bapaume .

At the beginning of May 1917 the Guard Reserve Corps took over the beleaguered section of the Queant group during the Battle of Arras , replacing the XIV Reserve Corps, which took over the leadership of the Arras group further north . The 3rd Guard Division , the 2nd Guard Reserve Division and the 9th Reserve Division were subordinate to the corps during these battles . The attack on May 3rd escalated into what is known as a “ major battle day ”, during which the British and Australians were able to penetrate the German positions at Riencourt and Bullecourt.

In the summer of 1917 the Guard Reserve Corps took part in the fighting in the Wytschaete-Bogen and in the autumn in the Third Battle of Flanders . After the XIV. Army Corps was briefly replaced in the command of the "Gruppe Dixmuide", the Corps Marschall established itself as the "Gruppe Staden" between Houthulster Wald and Passchendaele on October 13, 1917 and organized together with the "Gruppe Ypres" (Gen. Kdo. Guard Corps ) the defense of the important position in Flanders.

In April 1918 the corps was used in the German spring offensive and was part of the 6th Army in the battle of the Lys .

Commanding general

Rank Surname date
General of the artillery Max von Gallwitz August 2, 1914 to February 9, 1915
General of the cavalry Wolf Rudolf Freiherr Marshal von Altengottern April 18, 1916 to November 23, 1918
Lieutenant General Rudolf Rusche November 24 to December 21, 1918 (in charge of the tour)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Reichsarchiv: Volume I The border battles in the west, Mittler and Son, Berlin 1925, p. 670
  2. ^ Reichsarchiv: Volume I The border battles in the west, Mittler and Son, Berlin 1925, p. 128 f.
  3. ^ Gerd Hankel: The Leipzig trials. German war crimes and their prosecution after the First World War. Hamburg 2003, p. 214.
  4. ^ Reichsarchiv: Volume II. The liberation of East Prussia, ES Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1925, page 273 f.
  5. ^ Reichsarchiv: Volume V. The autumn campaign 1914, Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1929, pp. 414–500
  6. ↑ a b Dermot Bradley (ed.), Günter Wegner: Occupation of the German Army 1815-1939 Volume 1: The higher command posts 1815-1939 , Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1990, ISBN 3-7648-1780-1 , p. 626