II Army Corps (German Empire)

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The II. Army Corps was a large unit of the Prussian Army .

structure

In 1914 with the last state of peace, the following were subordinate to the corps:

history

The association was established on April 3, 1820 by the division of the Army Corps in Brandenburg and Pomerania as the II Army Corps. The location of the General Command was initially Berlin , from 1837 Szczecin , then again Berlin until 1870 and finally Szczecin again until it was dissolved in 1919.

Franco-German War

Eduard von Fransecky

At the beginning of the war against France in 1870, General von Fransecky was entrusted with the command of the corps on July 11, 1870. Colonel von Wichmann acted as chief of the general staff , the subordinate 3rd division was headed by Major General von Hartmann and the 4th Division was under the leadership of Major General Hann von Weyhern . The corps gathered in the Berlin area and was initially held back as a reserve until the position of the Austrian Empire was clarified. On August 15, the corps stood at Herny on the French theater of war and, on the afternoon of the 18th, intervened in the battle of Gravelotte as part of the 1st Army . The attack was carried out that evening in support of the 8th Army Corps , which had got stuck in front of the St. Hubert lease, against the heights of Point du Jour.

The ensuing siege of Metz did not give the corps the opportunity to engage in major fighting, as the French did not attack the assigned section on the left bank of the Moselle . After the fall of the fortress Metz at the end of October, the corps of the 3rd Army of Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia was transferred and took part in the siege of Paris . On November 9, 1870, the corps moved into the position it had to occupy in the east of the city between the Marne and Seine . When, on November 29th, a strong French sortie under General Ducrot was directed between those two rivers, General of the Infantry von Fransecky were given the command of Abwehr on December 1st; Besides his corps, Saxony and the Württemberg division also came under his command. The attacked Wuerttembergians received reinforcements, albeit late, by the II Army Corps at Moltke's order. On December 2, the battle of Villiers-Champigny took place , in which the French were again confiscated from the French who had won the previous days, namely the villages of Bry and Champigny. The French units withdrew to inner Paris after ten hours of struggle. The French cleared the left bank of the Marne on December 3 and broke the bridges behind them.

On January 2, 1871, the corps left the Paris siege front and entered General von Manteuffel under the supreme command of the southern army . In association with the VII. And XIV. Army Corps , the II. Army Corps had the task of countering the French Army Bourbaki through the Jura Mountains . On January 17th Fransecky's troops reached the heights of the Côte d'Or, on the 19th the corps crossed the Saone at Gray . Manteuffel had ordered an advance on Pontarlier , where Bourbaki's army, which now led General Clinchant , was suspected. After winning the battle at Frasnes, Fransecky's troops pushed into Pontarlier on February 1. On the 31st, the VII Army Corps, operating in parallel, occupied Chantrans and blocked the road from Ontrans to Pontarlier for the French. In Pontarlier the corps played a considerable part in the containment of the enemy, who could only escape destruction by crossing over to Switzerland .

First World War

Alexander von Linsingen

Before the First World War , the corps was subordinate to the VIII Army Inspection . It first came to the Western Front at the beginning of August 1914 and was subordinated to the 1st Army while marching through neutral Belgium .

After the mobilization, the corps marched under its commanding general , General of the Infantry von Linsingen , as the right wing of the 1st Army in the Gladbach- Herzogenrath area north of Aachen and first advanced over the Belgian border to Hasselt . In the second line followed the III. Reserve Corps , which later stopped on the northern Meuse front at Diest and secured the Dyle Canal towards Antwerp from August 20 . The left neighbor was the IV Army Corps , which reached Brussels on August 20 after the parallel crossing over the Gete . Without contact with the enemy, the intended rapid advance to Herssellt and Montaigu - the corps marched an average of 35 km a day - to surround the Belgians in the direction of Aarschot turned out to be a blast of air. On August 20, before the 3rd Division (Lieutenant General von Trossel ) and the accompanying 2nd Cavalry Division, there was the first strong resistance of the Belgians between Werchter and Rotselaer. On August 22 the corps, which is now the right wing of the army reached Kluck made, Ninove and on August 23, Lessines . While the HHK 2 under General von der Marwitz reached Ath and then covered the further action to the west in the direction of Tournai , Linsingen's troops reached the Condé - St. Amand line on August 24 and formed the right wing opposite to the during the battle of Mons British. In the further advance to the Scheldt Denain was reached on August 25th , the infantry of the corps, which advanced furthest to the right, was required to do the greatest marching efforts of the 1st Army, which was now penetrating northern France. While the IV Army Corps was once again involved in heavy fighting with the English on August 26 at the Battle of Le Cateau , the right wing of the 1st Army, the Corps and the IV Reserve Corps under General von pushed forward Gronau opposing French territorial troops back towards Cambrai . The 3rd Division occupied Cambrai, the 4th Division marched on August 27 on the far right wing via Marcoing and Gouzeaucourt on Épehy . On August 29, there was a first French counterattack from the Amiens area in the right flank of Kluck near Combles . General of the Infantry von Linsingen had his corps immediately take the front to the northwest and threw the enemy back over the Somme onto the Mericourt-Framerville-Harboniers line.

On September 1, the corps in the wooded area between Compiègne and Villers-Cotterêts encountered renewed resistance from the rear guards of the British, who were returning to the south bank of the Marne , and was held up for a day. On September 5th the 1st Army had crossed the Marne with three corps. Kluck's main thrust was no longer aimed directly at Paris via Senlis , but instead directed the corps east of it via La Ferté-Milon to the Marne at La Ferté-sous-Jouarre . The corps covered the right flank against Paris and was on the line La Celle-St. Augustine proceeded. The IV Reserve Corps , which had been left behind to the north of Meaux , unexpectedly encountered strong French forces near St. Souppletz. The corps had to stop the further advance to the south and intervened in support of the 3rd Division in the area southeast of Meaux in the battle of the Ourcq (September 5-9 ). By the evening of September 6th the corps had crossed the Grand Morin again to the north, had reached the Ourcq and there formed a new front to the west. The 3rd Division advanced through the forest of Meaux on Varreddes and reinforced the left wing of the beleaguered IV Reserve Corps. The 4th Division under Lieutenant General von Pannewitz was separated from the corps and marched via Lizy on to Etavigny on the right flank of Gronau in the Mareuil area . On September 6th, the left wing of Kluck, which was already weakened by the withdrawal of the IV Army Corps to Ourcq, was captured in the Battle of the Marne by French counter-attacks, which the following days a front gap to Château-Thierry to the east 2nd Army ripped up. On September 9, after the general withdrawal of the 1st Army, the corps was also withdrawn via Villers-Cotterêts in the direction of Soissons and the Aisne.

During the Battle of the Aisne , the corps was able to repel all attacks by General Lamaze's French reserve group and was withdrawn from the front on September 20, as the race to the sea began, and the 4th Division marched west towards Cuts. On September 22nd, the corps began to build up a new front to the west at Noyon . The 3rd Division was loaded into Tergnier at the end of October and transported to Lille . At the beginning of November 1914, the General Command was used as the "Linsingen" group in the first battle for Ypres . The 4th Division was pushed in in the area east of Zillebeke , the 3rd Division assigned to the “ Fabeck ” group reinforced the Duke of Urach's corps during the attack on Wytschaete.

At the end of November 1914, the corps moved to the Eastern Front . The 3rd and 4th Divisions were subordinate to the 9th Army , which was operating in the Lodz area , and went into positional warfare at the Rawka-Bzura from mid-December, during which time the general command was transferred to the Austrians, who were hard pressed in the Carpathian Battle, to command new German units. On January 9, 1915, the corps was formally dissolved, the staff used to form the German southern army , which was formed under Linsingen's command in the area south of Stryj . Rebuilt after the war in December 1918, the corps then existed beyond the end of the war until it was dissolved at the end of September 1919.

Commanding general

The command authority of the army corps was the general command under the leadership of the commanding general .

Rank Surname date
general Friedrich von Kleist June 1813 to April 1814
Lieutenant General Ludwig von Borstell April to May 1815
Lieutenant General Georg Dubislav von Pirch 0May 8 to June 30, 1815
General of the Infantry August of Prussia June 30, 1815 to March 29, 1838
Lieutenant General Karl Heinrich Stephan von Block March 30, 1838 to January 18, 1839
General of the cavalry Friedrich zu Dohna-Schlobitten March 30, 1839 to April 6, 1842
Lieutenant General Friedrich von Wrangel 0April 7, 1842 to November 2, 1849
Lieutenant General Friedrich Wilhelm Karl von Grabow 0November 3, 1849 to March 22, 1852 (in charge of the tour)
General of the Infantry Friedrich Wilhelm Karl von Grabow March 23, 1852 to May 4, 1857
General of the Infantry Philipp von Wussow 0May 7, 1857 to January 28, 1863
General of the Infantry Karl Friedrich von Steinmetz January 29, 1863 to May 17, 1864
General of the Infantry Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia May 18, 1864 to May 16, 1866
Lieutenant General Wilhelm von Schmidt May 17 to September 16, 1866 (in charge of the tour)
General of the Infantry Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia September 17, 1866 to July 17, 1870
General of the Infantry Eduard von Fransecky July 18, 1870 to March 19, 1871
General of the cavalry Benno Hann von Weyhern March 20, 1871 to June 13, 1881
General of the Infantry Ferdinand von Dannenberg June 14, 1881 to January 14, 1887
General of the Infantry Ernst von der Burg January 15, 1887 to October 19, 1891
Lieutenant General / General of the Infantry Hermann von Blomberg October 20, 1891 to January 5, 1898
General of the cavalry Arnold von Langenbeck 0January 6, 1898 to September 20, 1906
General of the Infantry Josias of Heeringen September 21, 1906 to August 31, 1909
General of the Infantry Alexander von Linsingen 0September 1, 1909 to January 10, 1915
Lieutenant General Richard von Kraewel December 17, 1918 to June 22, 1919
Lieutenant General Ernst von Oven June 23 to September 30, 1919

Flags / flag decorations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Prussian War Ministry (ed.): Ranking list of the Royal Prussian Army and the XIII. (Royal Württemberg) Army Corps for 1914. ES Mittler & Sohn , Berlin 1914. P. 56ff.
  2. ^ Justus Scheibert : The war between Germany and France 1870/71. after the General Staff Works, Pauli's successor, Berlin 1895, p. 305.
  3. ^ Justus Scheibert: The war between Germany and France 1870/71. after the General Staff Works, Pauli's successor, Berlin 1895, p. 90f.
  4. ^ Justus Scheibert: The war between Germany and France 1870/71. after the General Staff Works, Pauli's successor, Berlin 1895, p. 205.
  5. ^ Justus Scheibert: The war between Germany and France 1870/71. after the General Staff Works, Pauli's successor, Berlin 1895, p. 228f.
  6. ^ Reichsarchiv: The World War 1914–1918, Volume I. Berlin 1925. P. 129.
  7. ^ Reichsarchiv: The World War 1914–1918. Volume I. Berlin 1925. pp. 215-217.
  8. ^ Reichsarchiv: The World War 1914–1918. Volume I. Berlin 1925. p. 364.
  9. ^ Reichsarchiv: The World War 1914–1918. Volume I. Berlin 1925. pp. 420, 423.
  10. ^ Reichsarchiv: The World War 1914–1918. Volume I. Berlin 1925. pp. 515f.
  11. ^ Reichsarchiv: The World War 1914–1918. Volume I. Berlin 1925. pp. 530f.
  12. ^ Reichsarchiv Volume IV: The Marne Campaign. ES Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1926, p. 27.
  13. ^ Reichsarchiv: The World War 1914–1918. Volume IV. Berlin 1926. pp. 37f.
  14. ^ Stegemann's history of the war. Volume I, p. 188.
  15. ^ Reichsarchiv: The World War 1914–1918. Volume V. Berlin 1929. p. 71.
  16. ↑ II.Armeekorps , German military history
  17. ↑ 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. 43f.