Oldenburg-Hanseatic Brigade
The Oldenburg-Hanseatic Brigade was a major unit of the Army of the German Confederation . It consisted of contingents from the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg and the Free Cities of Bremen , Hamburg and Lübeck .
Emergence
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In the Federal War Constitution of 1820/21 it was provided that the Federal Army should be composed of contingents from all 35 member states. The troop strength was based on the population of the member state and was one percent for the main contingent and one third percent for the reserve troops. The relationship between the branches of arms was also fixed, but each member state could avoid this by exchanging, for example, an expensive cavalryman for a multiple number of infantrymen . According to the structure in force from 1821, the federal states of Oldenburg, Hanover , Braunschweig , Holstein - Lauenburg , Mecklenburg-Schwerin , Mecklenburg-Strelitz and the free imperial cities of Hamburg, Bremen and Lübeck with their contingents formed the Xth Army Corps of the Federal Army. The Oldenburg contingent formed the Oldenburg half-brigade consisting of the Oldenburg artillery founded in 1820 with a total of 15 cannons in 1821 - eight of them modern 6-pounders (→ origin of the Oldenburg artillery ) and the Oldenburg infantry with initially a regiment with 4 battalions , after the reorganization in 1829 / 30 with two regiments with two battalions each (→ origin of the Oldenburg Infantry ).
The brigade completed the Hanseatic Half-Brigade of the imperial cities of Hamburg, Bremen and Lübeck. 1848 passed the Luebeck and Bremen contingent composed of one battalion of infantry and a half squadron of cavalry. Hamburg will have deployed troops of similar strength.
Insinuation
The brigade was 1821 first part of the second division of the Tenth Army Corps. In 1848 the brigade came under Thuringian command . In 1866 the Oldenburg-Hanseatic Brigade was assigned to the 13th Division of the Prussian Main Army.
The Brigade Convention of 1834
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The design of uniform equipment, armament and training for the various federal contingents was hardly feasible due to the regional and, for the most part, historical differences. In order to achieve this, at least in part, the militarily interested regent of Oldenburg , August I , managed to commit Hamburg, Bremen and Lübeck to a joint Oldenburg-Hanseatic brigade with the same armament and training under Oldenburg supreme command by means of the brigade convention . From a military point of view, the convention meant a gain in prestige for the Grand Duchy, and Oldenburg also assumed the obligation under the Federal War Regulations to provide artillery (1 gun per 1,000 infantry) for the imperial cities, whose contingents consisted only of infantry and cavalry. The first commander of this unit was Major General Wilhelm Gustav Friedrich Wardenburg , who had proven himself in building the Oldenburg Infantry. The convention was ratified in 1835.
In order to standardize the armament of the infantry, Oldenburg had already procured 2,800 new flintlock rifles from the Württembergische Gewehrfabrik in 1830 . The Oldenburg military school (from 1838 housed in a school building on the horse market) was reorganized as a military brigade school in 1836 to train the next generation of management staff . Under her commander, Johann Ludwig Mosle , she trained the officer cadets and portepee ensigns of the brigade in two classes.
In 1837 the brigade held its first maneuver . In order to be able to meet the demands on artillery according to the Federal War Constitution, the Brigade Convention was expanded to include an additional agreement in 1842. This stipulated that the Oldenburg artillery, which previously consisted of a battery with 8 cannons, should be reinforced with two batteries with 6 cannons each. The additional agreement came into force in 1843 - the Oldenburg batteries, however, were run as companies . The Oldenburg artillery got its own barracks on Ofener Strasse and a firing range on the parade ground on Donnerschwee . From September 24 to October 8, 1843, the brigade met for the only time as part of a major maneuver with the entire Xth Army Corps. The maneuver took place in Lüneburg - a total of 25,000 soldiers were involved.
Special features of the Oldenburg Half-Brigade
In 1848 the Oldenburg Half-Brigade was regrouped in accordance with the Federal War Constitution. This was caused by the Oldenburg state parliament , which dealt with the Oldenburg federal contingent and came to the conclusion that Oldenburg would have to provide four independent battalions of line infantry, another battalion of light infantry and a cavalry regiment in addition to the artillery corps.
In order to fulfill this, the Oldenburg Infantry was reformed in 1848. The two regiments were disbanded and the 4 battalions became independent. In 1849 the Oldenburg cavalry regiment and the light battalion, which were stationed in the Oldenburg exclave of Birkenfeld , in which only reserve units were stationed until then , followed. In the artillery, various reorganizations and the acquisition of new guns (also from stocks of the Reichsflotte, which was disbanded in 1851/52 ) were undertaken from 1848/49 .
In 1850 the Oldenburg State Parliament refused to subsequently approve the reorganization and the 4th Line Infantry Battalion was disbanded and the 3rd Battalion was assigned to the reserve. In 1855 the number of line battalions was reduced to two and the 5th (light) battalion was disbanded. Although the number of units decreased, the manpower remained almost unchanged and was increased in 1857 with the creation of a pioneer platoon.
Special features of the Hanseatic Half-Brigade
The federal contingents of the imperial cities were in competition with the respective citizen military units of the imperial cities. As a rule, they were inferior to these in terms of equipment, training and reputation among the population.
Mission history
In addition to the first maneuver in 1837 and the major maneuver of the X Army Corps in Lüneburg in 1843, the Oldenburg-Hanseatic Brigade was also involved in the campaign of the federal troops during the war for Schleswig-Holstein in 1848/49 . From the Oldenburg half-brigade, the 1st regiment and the 2nd battalion of the 2nd regiment took part in the battles at Sundewitt , Rübel and Stenderup. The brigade's artillery came on 27/28. May 1848 in the Flensburg Fjord against Danish naval units and during the 1849 campaign on June 8th at Arnkiels-Oere against Danish gunboats . The contingents of the imperial cities were not involved in combat, but rather deployed as occupation troops in Kiel , Rendsburg and southern Schleswig.
At the German-Danish War , the Oldenburg and Hanseatic Brigade did not take part. Only part of the artillery was kept ready around Heppens against the Danish fleet and held some exercises for this purpose.
To mobilize for the German War in 1866, the Oldenburg-Hanseatic Brigade came to the Prussian 13th Division under August Karl von Goeben of the VIII Army Corps and thus became part of the Main Army under Lieutenant General von Manteuffel . The Oldenburg troops were adopted by Grand Duke Peter II on July 16, 1866 in the presence of the entire Grand Ducal family. The brigade was used in the skirmishes near Hochhausen and Werbach on July 24th. On July 27, two batteries of the brigade artillery took part in the battle of Würzburg and bombarded the Marienberg fortress in the presence of the Oldenburg Grand Duke , but also hit parts of the city center.
Dissolution of the brigade in 1867
After the dissolution of the German Confederation and the establishment of the North German Confederation in 1866/67, the member states surrendered their military sovereignty to Prussia by means of military conventions - their federal contingents became part of the Prussian Army . With the entry into force of the Prussian-Oldenburg Military Convention of July 15, 1867, the Oldenburg-Hanseatic Brigade was dissolved accordingly. The Oldenburg infantry, as they were sufficiently large in number, were converted into a Prussian regiment without any reorganization and incorporated into the Prussian army.
The artillery was assigned to the Prussian Field Artillery Regiment No. 10 .
On June 27, 1867, Prussia concluded its own military convention with Lübeck and Bremen. The convention with Hamburg followed on July 23. The contingents of the imperial cities were numerically too weak to be able to form their own regiments, so they were reinforced by Prussian troops. Subsequently, a regular Prussian regiment was formed per imperial city, taking in the former federal contingents.
Commanders
| Rank | Surname | date |
|---|---|---|
| Major general | Wilhelm Gustav Friedrich Wardenburg | October 30, 1821 to May 29, 1838 |
| - | vacant | May 29, 1838 to May 1, 1839 |
| Major general | Ludwig Dietrich Eugen von Gayl | May 1, 1839 to July 13, 1848 |
| Major general | Wilhelm von Ranzow | July 13, 1848 to January 27, 1860 |
| Major general | Ludwig von Weltzien | January 27, 1860 to July 15, 1867 (dissolution) |
literature
- Ludolph Spilhaus: The exercise of the infantry of the Oldenburg-Hanseatic Brigade . Lübeck. 1840.
- Wilhelm Gilly de Montaut: Fortress and garrison Oldenburg . Heinz Holzberg Publishing House. Oldenburg. 1980. ISBN 3-87358-132-9 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Originally colored lithographs from Heinrich Ambros Eckert and Dietrich Monten "The German Armed Forces in characteristic groups". 1838
- ^ Andreas Lombard: House and Land. The Duchy and Grand Duchy of Oldenburg from 1773 to 1918. Published in: History of the Oldenburger Land - Duchy, Grand Duchy of the Free State . Edited by Jörg Michael Henneberg and Horst-Günther Lucke. Aschendorff publishing house. Muenster. 2014. ISBN 978-3-402-12942-5 . Page 95.
- ↑ a b Wilhelm Sager: Armies between the seas - Army and war history of Schleswig-Holstein. Husum printing and publishing company. Husum. 2003. ISBN 3-89876-113-4 . Page 98.
- ^ Andreas Lombard: House and Land. The Duchy and Grand Duchy of Oldenburg from 1773 to 1918. Published in: History of the Oldenburger Land - Duchy, Grand Duchy of the Free State . Edited by Jörg Michael Henneberg and Horst-Günther Lucke. Aschendorff publishing house. Muenster. 2014. ISBN 978-3-402-12942-5 . Page 94.
- ↑ (Eduard) von Finckh: History of the Oldenburg Infantry Regiment No. 91, formerly the Grand Ducal Oldenburg Infantry Regiment from its establishment to the present (1813-1880) . Mittler, Berlin 1881, p. 54; Digitalisat the State Library Oldenburg , 2013
- ↑ (Eduard) von Finckh: History of the Oldenburg Infantry Regiment No. 91, formerly the Grand Ducal Oldenburg Infantry Regiment from its establishment to the present (1813-1880) . Mittler, Berlin 1881, pp. 98-99; Digitalisat the State Library Oldenburg , 2013