Henry Tureman Allen

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Henry T. Allen

Henry Tureman Allen (born April 13, 1859 in Sharpsburg , Bath County , Kentucky , † August 30, 1930 in Buena Vista , Pennsylvania ) was a senior officer in the Army of the United States of America , most recently major general . As commanding general of the American troops in Germany from 1919 to 1923, he made services to the preservation of the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress .

Life path

Allen grew up in the state of Kentucky, where he worked in the Military School Peeksville and at the College of Georgetown was raised. He also attended the US military academy . From 1885 to 1886 he led an expedition to Alaska , where he explored the region around the Copper , Tanana and Koyukuk rivers . In 1882 Allen became a lieutenant in the cavalry , in 1889 he became a first lieutenant . As a major of the volunteers, he took part in the Cuban and Philippines campaign in 1898 . In 1898 he was a regular Captain of Cavalry, 1899 Major of Infantry . In 1901 he was lieutenant colonel , again major in the cavalry in 1907, and then finally lieutenant colonel in 1912.

Allen has served in numerous uses. From 1888–90 he was an instructor at the US Military Academy, 1890–95 military attaché in Russia and 1897/98 in the German Empire . In 1899 he went to the Philippines , where from 1901 he was governor of the island of Leyte and organizer of the Philippine police forces. On September 1, 1914, he joined the 11th Cavalry Regiment. On July 1, 1916, he became a colonel and commander of the 17th Brigade and took part in the Mexican punitive expedition. On August 5, 1917, he was appointed major general and from September 1917, Allen commanded the 90th Division of the American Expeditionary Forces in northern France. He took part in the fighting on the Moselle section and in the Meuse-Argonne offensive . From November 4, 1918 he was appointed commander of the VIII Army Corps. From March 6, 1921, Major General Allen was commander of the American troops on the Rhine, from July 2, 1919, commander of the American occupation in Germany and, from May 19, 1920, also a member of the Rhineland Higher Commission. On February 19, 1923 he returned to the USA.

General Allen in Koblenz

Henry T. Allen and Paul Tirard during the flag change at the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress , January 24, 1923

From 1919 General Allen's official seat was the Hotel Coblenzer Hof on the banks of the Rhine in Koblenz , which was relatively centrally located in the American occupation zone. Koblenz was also the reference point for an American bridgehead on the right bank of the Rhine. Allen described his time in the Rhineland from 1919 to 1923 in his Rhineland Diary, first published in 1923 . He tried hard to get on well with the German population, and several times slowed down the sometimes harsher French approach in the occupation zone.

Allen earned his best-known merit in 1922 when he campaigned with the French Marshal Ferdinand Foch for the preservation of the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress, which, as a result of the Versailles Treaty , was to be razed together with the other works of the Koblenz Fortress . Several applications for preservation of the Ehrenbreitstein have come down to us, including from the provincial curator of the Rhine Province, Renard, and the Rhenish Association for the Preservation of Monuments and Homeland Security , but apparently the head of the Koblenz Entfestungsamt Eduard Hüger, the British Major O'Connor and Allen deserve special credit . Everyone makes this clear in his Rhineland diary (p. 203, entry for February 9, 1922):

In a letter, Marshal Foch acknowledges my objection to the destruction of the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress; it is to be preserved as a famous Rhine monument. Before that, my proposal to keep it had been opposed by the Military High Command and the Control Commission. I was determined not to let them be destroyed while my power in the zone lasted. It is only valuable as a historical monument.

On February 25, 1922, the IMKK officially ordered the preservation of Ehrenbreitstein Fortress.

Humanitarian aid for German children

After returning to the United States, Allen campaigned for food aid for German children. In 1923 he was a co-founder and chairman of the American Committee for Relief of German Children. The aim of the humanitarian campaign was to distribute additional meals of at least 500 calories to starving children. Allen's campaign was particularly successful with German-Americans. She worked closely with the umbrella organization of American churches, the Federal Council of Churches. The relief committee raised approximately $ 4.3 million in donations. At its peak, the campaign cared for a million German children. It ended in the summer of 1924.

Honors

A troop transport of the US Navy built in 1920 was called USS Henry T. Allen from 1940 . It was decommissioned in 1946 and scrapped in 1948.

In Koblenz , General-Allen-Strasse in the area of ​​the former Fritsch barracks in Niederberg has been commemorating the American general since 2001.

literature

  • Henry T. Allen: My Rhineland Diary. Authorized German edition, abridged and provided with an introduction. 2., through Ed., 6-10. Th. - Berlin: Hobbing 1923 ( digitized version )
  • Wolfgang Schütz: Koblenz heads. People from the city's history - namesake for streets and squares. Verlag für Werbung Blätter GmbH Mülheim-Kärlich, Ed .: Bernd Weber, 2005 (2nd revised and expanded edition).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Merle Curti: American Philanthropy Abroad. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick and Oxford 1988, ISBN 0-88738-711-X , pp. 276-277.
personal data
SURNAME Allen, Henry Tureman
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American general in World War I.
DATE OF BIRTH April 13, 1859
PLACE OF BIRTH Sharpsburg , Kentucky
DATE OF DEATH August 30, 1930
Place of death Buena Vista , Pennsylvania