Battle near Helmstadt
| date | July 25, 1866 |
|---|---|
| place | Helmstadt , Bavaria |
| output | Victory of Prussia |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
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|
|
| Troop strength | |
| 15,000 men | 24,000 men |
| losses | |
|
13 officers and 340 men (dead, wounded and missing) |
36 officers and 694 men (dead, wounded and missing) |
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Main Campaign in 1866
The battle near Helmstadt was a battle in the Main Campaign of the German War on July 25, 1866, between the Prussian Main Army and the VII. Corps of the German Federal Army , d. H. of the Bavarian Army .
On the plateau between Tauber and Main , the federal troops were pushed back again on the 25th near Helmstadt and Uettingen as well as near Gerchsheim . In the fighting, the later Bavarian King Ludwig III. wounded. After the Prussian bombardment of the Bavarian troops in the Marienberg fortress near Würzburg on July 27, a local ceasefire was concluded, which was followed on August 2 by the general armistice.
prehistory
The Battle of Königgrätz had already been victorious for the Prussians on July 3rd, and Austria was already in negotiations with Prussia. However, these negotiations initially only concerned Austria and Prussia. An offensive by the southern German states opened up a better starting position for future negotiations. In addition, there was still the possibility that France would intervene actively on the side of the South Germans in the conflict in order to preserve its claims to Veneto.
The VIII Corps of the German Federal Army united on July 20 with the VII Corps, consisting of four Bavarian divisions, on the Tauber. With almost 100,000 men, the Federal Army was clearly superior to the Prussian Main Army with around 60,000 men. On July 21st, a joint action by the Federal Army against Aschaffenburg was decided in the headquarters of Prince Karl of Bavaria , as the Prussians were still suspected to be near Frankfurt. July 24th was set as the date for the departure from the Tauber. The Bavarians were supposed to march over the Mainknie, the VIII. Corps along the Tauber.
After a successful campaign in the west, the Prussian Main Army marched into the federal capital Frankfurt on July 16. The Prussians gathered here and marched on July 21st from Frankfurt in the direction of Würzburg in order, if possible, to prevent the unification of the Federal Army, to defeat it or at least to further threaten the borders of the southern Germans. On the advance, the Prussians advanced to three places on the Tauber: the Göben division on the right wing to Tauberbischofsheim, the Beyer division in the center to Werbach and the Flies division on the left wing to Wertheim.
On the Tauber, the Prussians first met the VIII. Corps, which was there ready to march towards Aschaffenburg. On July 23, there was a first battle near Hundheim , but the commander of the VIII. Corps, Prince Alexander of Hesse , only recognized that he was facing the entire Main Army the next day after the lost battles in Tauberbischofsheim and Werbach . He then took the VIII. Corps back to Groß-Rinderfeld. Because of the numerical inferiority of the Prussians, it was assumed that the Main Army would advance from Tauberbischofsheim and Werbach directly to Würzburg. Prince Alexander therefore asked for support from the Bavarians, who had already been marching north. The Bavarians were supposed to cover the right wing of the VIII. Corps after the Baden division, which stood there, broke off the fight the day before, gave up the wing without reporting and withdrew to Altertheim. This was to prevent the Prussians from getting between the two halves of the armed forces. In addition, the Bavarian army was to be immediately concentrated in the area of Roßbrunn. The 3rd Division, Prince Luitpold , advanced there from Hettstadt on July 24th, the reserves gathered between Greußenheim and Waldbüttelbrunn. The 1st Division, Stephan , stood around Uettingen, Helmstadt and Holzkirchen, with the advance troops at Neubrunn, Kembach and Dertingen. In the evening the VIII. Corps received news of their locations and instructions to keep in touch with the closest division, Stephan.
output
Measured against the number of soldiers deployed, the losses on both sides were rather small. The Bavarians had 43 dead, the Prussians lost 31 men. Comparable battles at the beginning of the war in Austria resulted in significantly more losses. In the ultimately decisive battle on the Lerchenberg, however, the fighting was fierce. The Bavarians had the heaviest casualties of the day with around 400 men. Likewise, the Prussian Regiment 32 deployed there had the most losses on the Prussian side.
The battle itself was a tactical success for the Prussians. The Bavarian units had to leave the battlefield, but were still ready to fight. The 3rd Division gathered in Waldbrunn and marched to Waldbüttelbrunn and set up camp there. The 1st Division gathered near Uettingen and took up positions in Waldbrunn. Together with the other two divisions, which had meanwhile been brought in, the VII Corps was now assembled and ready for the offensive against the Army of the Main.
The fact that the Bavarians were unable to assist the VIII. Corps in the battle near Gerchsheim due to the fighting near Helmstadt and this then retreated against Würzburg made it a strategic success. A joint approach was no longer possible for the armed forces for the rest of the war.
The Beyer division had meanwhile made contact with the Flies division, which had advanced to Uettingen. The Prussians involved in the battle set up their outposts in the direction of Uettingen and made their night camp near Helmstadt. The Flies division was supposed to take action against Bayern in Uettingen the next day, and Beyer was supposed to support them.
Reasons for the exit
The Prussian generals summed up the cause of the two Bavarian defeats as follows: “The two Bavarian divisions had started the short march to their rendezvous late and at different times. So it happened ...... that General v. Beyer was through with one when the other arrived, and that despite their significant superiority they were nevertheless decisively defeated. ”The Prussian successes are only partly due to the higher rate of fire of the needle gun . This was at least partially offset by the accuracy, range and reliability of the Podewils rifle used by Bayern . Rather, the leadership of the Prussians contributed significantly to the success.
The principle of “march separately, strike together” was also applied on July 25th. The Prussians led the fight much more agile than the federal troops, which had not yet formed to repel the attack because of the originally planned offensive against Aschaffenburg.
The Main Army split up in front of the numerically superior federal troops and defeated the superior units of the federal army, whereby the divisions remained in constant contact. In Gerchsheim, Goeben's division defeated the entire VII Corps. In Helmstadt the regiments maneuvered the Bavarians out again and again and pulled together again at the right moment, as with Frohnberg. On the evening of the 25th, all the divisions had contact in the event that a battle with the united federal army had broken out the next day.
The numerical superiority of Bayern is deceptive. It was later claimed that the Beyer division defeated three Bavarian divisions that day. In fact, apart from the 3rd Division, not even half of the 1st Division was in the battle. Only individual battalions of the second division took part in the fighting. All battles took place independently, the actions of the divisions were uncoordinated.
The lack of coordination affected all levels. On the Stuhlberg, due to the different affiliations to divisions, brigades and regiments, it was not possible to agree on a uniform procedure. The Stephan division sent reinforcements too late, while the Baden division simply refused. At corps level, in spite of the short distances between VII and VIII Corps, the movements were reported too late, if at all. In all cases, the Prussians took advantage of this and defeated the scattered units individually.
consequences
The news that the VIII. Corps was withdrawing to Würzburg did not reach Prince Karl until the next morning. Thus the plan to proceed in a coordinated manner with joint forces had to be dropped. Instead, the Bavarians covered the passage of the VII Corps over the Main in the battle of Rossbrunn.
On this day, the people of Baden took part in a battle for the last time in this war. The Baden division was ordered back to its barracks on July 29, before the end of the war. At the beginning of August, Baden left the German Confederation. Their commander, Wilhelm Prince of Baden , was publicly criticized for his behavior in the battles on July 24 at Tauberbischofsheim and on July 25 at Gerchsheim and Helmstadt. Wilhelm was himself a Prussian guard officer and was related to the Prussian ruling house. He then wrote a book that described the course of the war from a Baden perspective.
General Beyer became inspector of the Baden army in the same year and Baden's Minister of War in 1868.
Commemoration
In memory of the battle of Infantry Regiment No. 70, which was victorious for the Prussians, a march was composed by Albert Klaar and included in the army march collection as AM II, 204 Helmstadt March. Several monuments were erected in the area for those who fell in the battle, for example for members of the 3rd Brandenburg Infantry Regiment No. 20, the 2nd Thuringian Infantry Regiment No. 32 , and the Bavarian troops as a whole. The wounding of Prince Ludwig of Bavaria, on the other hand, was later commemorated with the erection of the Prince Ludwig Memorial at the end of Helmstadt in the direction of Würzburg, which was unveiled on October 3, 1909 in the presence of the prince and veteran of the war of 1866 during a ceremony.
literature
- Heinz Helmert, Hans-Jürgen Usczeck: Prussian-German Wars from 1864 to 1871 - Military Course , 6th revised edition, Military Publishing House of the German Democratic Republic , Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-327-00222-3 .
- Austria's fighting in 1866. From the K. and K. General Staff. Bureau for War History, Volume 5, Vienna 1869, pp. 146–155 online in the Google book search
- Fidel von Baur-Breitenfeld: The operations of the eighth German Federal Army Corps in the campaign of 1866 , Darmstadt and Leipzig 1868 online at the Bavarian State Library
- The campaign of 1866 in Germany. War History Department of the Great General Staff, Berlin 1867, pp. 661–669 online in the Google book search
- Part of the royal Bavarian army in the war of 1866 , edited by Generalquartiermeister-Stabe, Munich 1868, pp. 166–177 online in the Google book search
- Theodor Fontane : The German War of 1866 . Volume 2: The Campaign in West and Central Germany. Berlin 1871, pp. 228-234 online in the Google book search
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Prussian General Staff p. 668 online in the Google book search
- ↑ Interesting revelations in the acts of Baden's betrayal of the German federal troops in the just ended Prussian-German war, LC Zamarski, Vienna 1866, p. 20 ff.
- ^ Wilhelm von Baden: To assess the behavior of the Baden field division in the campaign of 1866: according to authentic sources , Darmstadt and Leipzig 1866.
- ↑ Markt Helmstadt (Ed.): Markt Helmstadt. Ortschronik and Heimatbuch . Self-published, Helmstadt 2004, p. 104-135 .