General Command 58

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The General Command 58 (up to 1916 Higher Cavalry Command No. 5 ) was a major unit of the army of the German Empire during the First World War .

structure

The General Command 58 was a General Command z. b. V. ( General Command for Special Use ). These emerged from 1916 and were purely command posts; the military units were assigned to him as required.

history

Lieutenant General Egon von Schmettow

Lieutenant General Egon Graf von Schmettow was appointed Higher Cavalry Commander No. 5 on August 21, 1915 . In this function he was subordinate to the 2nd and 6th Cavalry Divisions , which were then used on the Eastern Front. The staff of his corps was transferred to the General Command z. BV No. 58 and covered the Daugava front between Riga and Jakobstadt together with the Morgen group . On September 21 and 22, 1917, General Command 58 carried out the occupation of Jakobstadt with the subordinate 105th Division and 4th Cavalry Division .

After the ceasefire in the east, the general command that had become vacant was transferred to the western front in the area west of Verdun . In March 1918 it took over after the replacement of the XVI. Army Corps led the Argonne Group. In the Meuse-Argonne offensive , the general command was in the main area of ​​attack of the Allied attacks, while the Americans were to attack east of the Argonne as far as the Meuse, the French 4th Army had deployed 40 kilometers to the north between Suippes and Massiges. From October 5, 1918 until the end of the war, the corps was involved in retreat fighting and the transition to the right bank of the Meuse. The 31st , 52nd and 240th Divisions as well as the 15th Royal Bavarian Division were subordinate to the General Command at this time .

Commanding general

Rank Surname date
Lieutenant General Egon Graf von Schmettow August 21, 1915 to February 6, 1918
Lieutenant General Alfred von Kleist February 6, 1918 until the end of the war

literature

  • Hanns Möller: History of the knights of the order pour le mérite in the world war. Volume II: M – Z, Verlag Bernard & Graefe, Berlin 1935, pp. 270–272.
  • Karl-Friedrich Hildebrand, Christian Zweng: The knights of the order Pour le Mérite of the First World War. Volume 3: P – Z, Biblio Verlag, Bissendorf 2011, ISBN 3-7648-2586-3 , pp. 226–228.