Border battles

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As Battle of the Frontiers is known in military history , a series of major military combat operations to which it is usually in the first phase of a war is coming. The main armed forces of the warring factions, which had previously deployed, often meet in these. Specifically, the term can be found as an established term in the historiography of the Franco-German War (1870/71), the First World War (1914–1918), the attack on Poland (1939) and the German-Soviet War (1941–1945).

history

Franco-German War

After France declared war on Prussia on July 19, 1870, both sides gathered their forces on the French border. The Prussian troops completed their deployment faster and took the offensive in early August 1870 . This led to a series of skirmishes that the German leadership had not planned and the French had not expected. In retrospect, these were referred to as border battles.

First, the German 3rd Army attacked the French forces in Alsace , which led to the Battle of Weissenburg on August 4, 1870 and the Battle of Wörth on August 6 . The German 1st Army and 2nd Army should actually wait for the 3rd Army to arrive at the Saar in order to then take part in a joint decisive battle. But contrary to the given orders, the local commanders went head-on against the French front. This also led to the bloody battle of Spichern on August 6, 1870 . As a result of these battles, the French troops withdrew from the border and only returned to defense in the Metz area . But the German army command had missed the chance of a comprehensive decisive battle near the border. She now had to advance further into France.

First World War

Deployment in the west 1914

With the mobilization of August 2, 1914, the German Reich found itself in a state of war. According to the basic idea of ​​the " Schlieffen Plan ", seven armies were brought together on the western border in order to defeat the forces of the Entente in a quick campaign. The basic idea of ​​the Schlieffen Plan was an advance through neutral Belgium in order to encompass the French army in a far-reaching movement and to be able to defeat it in a " Super Cannae ". However, the gathering of the troops lasted until mid-August. It was true that even during this time there were major and minor fighting, such as the attack on Liège (August 4-16), the Battle of Mulhouse (August 9), the battle at Lagarde (August 11) and the battle at Haelen (August 12), but these meetings are generally not counted among the border battles. These began only after the start of the offensive of the German armies on August 18, 1914. Encounter battles developed between the opposing armies, since the French army, which had deployed according to Plan XVII , initially from August 14 in the south, later went over to the offensive in the center and north.

Operations in the "border battles"

The German 6th and 7th Armies in the realm of Alsace-Lorraine should initially act defensively. After repulsing the attack by the French 1st and 2nd Armies, they embarked on the counter-offensive (→ Battle of Lorraine ) from August 20-22, 1914  . The French forces evaded behind the Meurthe and Nancy . Further north, the French 3rd and 4th Armies , advancing from the Sedan - Longuyon area to Longwy and Neufchâteau , met the German 4th and 5th Armies . During the fighting (→  Battle of Neufchâteau and Battle of Longwy ) on 22./23. August 1914, the French suffered a loss-making defeat and withdrew behind the Meuse . On the right German wing, the German 1st , 2nd and 3rd Armies met the French 5th Army and the British Expeditionary Force along the Sambre and Maas . During the 22.-24. In August 1914 the British troops were defeated at Mons (→  Battle of Mons ) and the French at Charleroi and south of Namur (→  Battle of the Sambre ). After these defeats the Entente troops were forced to retreat here as well.

Although the German troops had achieved tactical successes in the border battles, they had not succeeded, as intended, in encompassing and wiping out large enemy troops. Rather, these battles resembled head-on clashes that resulted in heavy losses on both sides. The Entente troops withdrew to the Paris - Verdun line , with further pursuit battles (→  Battle of Le Cateau , Battle of St. Quentin ) before the British and French launched a counter-offensive on the Marne (→  Battle of the Marne ) passed over. As a result of the withdrawal of the Allied troops from Belgium and northeastern France, the Germans came into possession of industry, agriculture and the rail and waterway network of both regions until their defeat in 1918.

Second World War

Invasion of Poland (1939)

For the attack on Poland in 1939, the term “border battles” (pl. Bitwa graniczna ) is used more in Polish historiography. He describes here the entirety of the fighting against the troops of the German Wehrmacht since September 1, 1939. Originally, it was part of the Polish strategy to oppose the Germans as long as possible at the state borders and only then to switch to the main line of defense, the one along the Narew river - Vistula - San should get lost. The order for a general retreat was given by the Polish army command on September 6, 1939. Until then, the armed forces had suffered heavy losses in the battle of the Tuchel Heath and the battle of Mława . In the south, German troops had also broken through to the Warta and captured Krakow .

In German historiography, the concept of border battles was rarely applied to these battles. It should be noted, however, that there are generally hardly any German-language monographs on the operational history of the campaign.

German-Soviet War

In contrast, in the historiography of the German-Soviet war there is often talk of border battles (Приграничные сражения), which are understood to mean the main acts of combat between June 22nd and July 1st, 1941. It was here that the majority of the Wehrmacht and Red Army units met .

The front area was divided into several separate sections. In the north, the German Army Group North attacked the Soviet Northwest Front , which led to the Battle of Schaulen (June 22-26, 1941). In this the home side's Panzer Group 4 reamed several Soviet tank corps and to the Daugava boldly go where no beachheads were established. In the central section of the front, Army Group Center succeeded in encircling almost the entire Soviet western front in the Kesselschlacht near Białystok and Minsk (June 22-28, 1941). The "cleaning up" of the two boilers, however, lasted until July 9, 1941. In the south, Army Group South encountered the numerically strong and well-managed south-western front . The latter concentrated five Mechanized Corps against German Panzer Group 1 for a counterattack , which led to the tank battle at Dubno-Brody-Lutsk (June 22 - July 1, 1941). Ultimately, the Red Army was defeated here too and lost its operational reserves. However, she managed to defend Kiev effectively.

The successes of the German troops in the border battles did not prove to be sustainable. The bulk of their units were infantry formations that could only advance slowly and the tank units remained tied to the boiler fronts for a long time. Not least because of the stubborn resistance of the Soviet troops, the Soviet leadership gained time to form reserves and use them to establish new lines of defense on the Daugava and Dnieper Mountains.

References

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heiger Ostertag: Military History in the Age of the German Confederation and the Wars of Unification 1815 to 1871 , in: Karl-Volker Neugebauer (Ed.): Grundzüge der deutschen Militärgeschichte , Freiburg / Breisgau 1993, p. 185
  2. ↑ See Reichsarchiv (Hrsg.): Die Grenzschlachten im Westen , Verlag ES Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1925, pp. XIII-XIV
  3. ↑ Markus Pöhlmann : Grenzschlachten , in: Hirschfeld, Gerhard / Krumeich, Gerd / Renz, Irina (ed.): Encyclopedia First World War , Paderborn 2003, p. 533f
  4. ↑ Barbara Tuchman: August 1914 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 2011, ISBN 978-3-596-15395-4 . P. 279
  5. ^ Marian Małecki: Bitwa graniczna pod Pszczyną - Z dziejów wojny obronnej Polski w 1939 r , Ponidzie Press, 2003.
  6. ^ Cf. Nikolaus von Vormann: The campaign in Poland in 1939 , Weissenburg 1958, p. 73; Basil Spiru (Ed.): September 1939 , Berlin 1959, p. 98
  7. ↑ David M. Glantz (Ed.): The Initial Period of War on the Eastern Front , London 1993, p. XIII
  8. ↑ Cf. the overview in: Kurt von Tippelskirch: History of the Second World War , Bonn 1956, pp. 181–188.

Web links

Commons : Border Battles  - collection of images, videos and audio files