Royal Bavarian 23rd Infantry Regiment "King Ferdinand of the Bulgarians"

The 23rd Infantry Regiment "King Ferdinand of Bulgaria" was an infantry joined the Bavarian army .

history

Positioning and development

Gatehouse, tower and main portal of the "23er Kaserne" (today "Kleber-Kaserne") in Kaiserslautern. Architect: Rudolf Ritter von Perignon

The association was formed on April 1, 1897 from the 4th (half) battalions of the 4th , 8th , 17th and 18th infantry regiments in Landau in der Pfalz (staff, 1st battalion) and Saargemünd (2nd battalion) set up. Together with the 22nd Infantry Regiment , it formed the 5th Infantry Brigade , which was subordinate to the 3rd Division of the II Army Corps .

The first in command was Joseph Pfeffer, who handed over command to Hermann Gemmingen Freiherr von Massenbach on August 24, 1898. Members of the regiment participated as volunteers in the China expedition (1900) and the suppression of the Herero uprising (1905) in German South West Africa . In 1911, the regiment took up the MG company of the 18th Infantry Regiment. In 1913 the III. Battalion, previously the III. Battalion of the 21st Infantry Regiment , set up in the Lechfeld camp and the 2nd Battalion moved into Germersheim as a new garrison. On October 22, 1913, Colonel Rudolf Dänner was appointed regimental commander. In 1914 a replacement battalion was set up in Kaiserslautern . This was stationed in the so-called "23 Barracks", built in 1913 in the neo-baroque style. This barracks, now called "Kleber Barracks", is still used by the US Army today.

The regiment owner Ferdinand I of Bulgaria, 1915

The first and only regiment owner became the Bulgarian King Ferdinand I on June 15, 1917 , whose name the association had as an addition from that point on.

First World War

Gravestone of a officer and regimental member of the Jewish faith who died in 1915 on the clay hill near St. Eloi; Jewish cemetery (Kaiserslautern)

1914

At the beginning of the First World War , the regiment entered on August 2, 1914, as part of the 6th Army , with a combat strength of 70 officers and 3,200 NCOs and men and 230 horses and remained on the Western Front until the armistice on November 11, 1918. Am On August 19, 1914, the 2nd Battalion near Liedersingen succeeded in pushing into the rear of the French forces. 400 French were captured. On August 20, 1914, the 1st Battalion near Mörchingen suffered losses from a French machine gun camouflaged with a Red Cross flag. It reached Maixe on August 22, 1914, but remained in the fire of the French counterattack before Franconville and Fraimbois. On August 25, 1914, the 12th Company captured a French flag , on the same day the regimental music in Remenoville lost all its instruments. During the Battle of the Somme near Péronne at the end of September 1914, it was ordered from there to Herbécourt to cover the left flank of the 3rd Infantry Division to the west. It was then used at Maricourt for three weeks. On October 30, 1914, the regiment was ready at Comines to advance on Ypres . On the evening of the 30th it reached Hollebeke with an area gain of approx. 6 km. Until November 10, 1914, it was due to the increasing resistance of the British and French as well as a lack of ammunition 2 km from the village of St. Eloi.

1915

On March 14, 1915, the regiment succeeded in taking possession of the so-called clay hill near St. Eloi . On April 23, 1915, Lieutenant Colonel Ludwig Friedmann took over the leadership of the regiment. In June / July 1915 the mission followed on the Vimy height. In mid-October 1915, the regiment took over the Hohenzollern factory , where 280 people died on October 15 alone. The Hohenzollern plant was at the center of a grueling mine war, where the regiment was in constant combat for months.

1916

On August 26, 1916, the regiment arrived west of Martinpuich and took up position there. On September 3, 1916, after violent hostile barrages and mine explosions, the regiment started a counterattack on Englishmen who had broken into the Foureaux Forest and was able to restore the initial position. After the forest had been lost, it competed again on September 8, 1916 with a similar result. On September 15, 1916, the English attacked with tanks supported over a width of 5 km and threw the regiment from its positions. The 1st Battalion was taken out the same day because of excessive losses. The next day the regiment was broken up. In the winter of 1916/17 the regiment was at Armentières.

1917

On April 10, 1917, it was thrown in front of Monchy le Preux, withstood three attacks carried out by the English with heavy losses and also took 350 English prisoners. English pioneers undermined the positions of the 1st battalion deployed in front and wiped out the 1st, 2nd and 3rd companies of the regiment with demolition on June 7, 1917. After the enemy attacks, the remainder of the broken regiment was transferred to French Lorraine to refresh . Nevertheless, it was there from July 16, 1917, later at Chemin des Dames , until November again in combat. About the turn of the year 1917/18 the regiment in Sons and Chatillon was able to recover.

1918

From the beginning of February 1918, the association between Aisne and Ailette was in formation. On March 23, 1918, the regiment was deployed as a reserve at La Fère and replaced parts of the exhausted 1st Infantry Division at Lassigny and Thiescourt on March 30, 1918 . On March 31, the regiment set up there for defense. On April 15, 1918, Major Karl Clingenstein replaced Lieutenant Colonel Friedmann and remained in command of the regiment until the end of the war. In the course of the fighting near Noyon it was involved in the attack over the Matz (June 8 to 12, 1918), where it was still in constant combat with the newly thrown French troops south of the Matz for weeks afterwards. The regiment was hit with full force by the French attack formations on August 13, 1918. On August 20, 1918, the remnants of the regiment reached Belval, holding back and fighting, and on the following day they withdrew from Noyon as ordered. From August 29, 1918, the worn out regiment was in despair near Chauny and from September 18, 1918 near Mörchingen , where it had bad experiences as early as 1914. From September 27 to November 11, 1918 it covered the retreat against American forces at Étain near Verdun with losses.

The regiment could no longer provide precise information on losses, replacements and awards. It had more than 5,000 deaths and was at the head of all regiments of the Bavarian Army.

Whereabouts

After the armistice in Compiègne , the remnants of the regiment reached the Würzburg area via Worms in early December 1918 . From December 15, 1918, the regiment in Neustadt an der Saale was demobilized and finally dissolved. On April 11, 1919, the formation of a volunteer battalion was started from parts of the regiment, which transferred to the volunteer detachment "Probstmayr" and in June 1919 was added to the II battalion of the Reichswehr Infantry Regiment 45.

The tradition took over in the Reichswehr by decree of the Chief of the Army Command General of the Infantry Hans von Seeckt from August 24th 1921 the 3rd and 4th companies of the 20th (Bavarian) Infantry Regiment in Regensburg . In the Wehrmacht , the 118th Infantry Regiment in Kaiserslautern continued the tradition.

Commanders

Rank	Surname	date
Lieutenant colonel	Joseph Pepper	0April 1, 1897 to August 23, 1898
Colonel	Hermann Gemmingen von Massenbach	August 24, 1898 to June 7, 1902
Colonel	Georg Schmetzer	0June 8, 1902 to March 8, 1903
Colonel	Jakob Hitzler	0March 9, 1903 to May 9, 1904
Colonel	Fedor Grosch	May 10, 1904 to October 11, 1906
Colonel	Gottfried Krieger	October 12, 1906 to May 7, 1909
Colonel	Leonhard Mark	0May 8, 1909 to October 22, 1910
Colonel	Hugo Keim	October 23, 1910 to October 21, 1913
Colonel	Rudolf Danner	October 22, 1913 to February 18, 1915
Colonel	Anton von Staubwasser	February 19 to March 24, 1915
Major general	Rudolf Danner	March 25 to April 22, 1915
Lieutenant colonel	Ludwig Friedmann	April 23, 1915 to April 14, 1918
major	Karl Clingestein	April 15, 1918 until dissolution

literature

• Konrad Krafft von Dellmensingen , Friedrichfranz Feeser : The Bavaria book of the world wars 1914-1918. Volume I. Chr. Belser AG. Publishing bookstore. Stuttgart 1930.
• Günter Wegner: Germany's armies until 1918. Volume 10 Bavaria. Biblio Publishing House. Osnabrück 1984.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Jürgen Kraus : Handbook of the units and troops of the German army 1914-1918. Part 6: Infantry. Volume 1: Infantry Regiments. Publishing house Militaria. Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-902526-14-4 . P. 460.
2. ^ Günter Wegmann (Ed.), Günter Wegner: Formation history and staffing of the German armed forces 1815-1990. Part 1: Occupation of the German armies 1815–1939. Volume 2: The staffing of the active infantry regiments as well as the hunter and machine gun battalions, military district commands and training managers from the foundation or list until 1939. Biblio Verlag. Osnabrück 1992, ISBN 3-7648-1782-8 . P. 485.