Battle of Kissingen

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Battle of Kissingen
Area map of the Battle of Kissingen
Area map of the Battle of Kissingen
date July 10, 1866
place Kissingen , Hammelburg
output Victory of the Prussians
Parties to the conflict

Prussia KingdomKingdom of Prussia Prussia

Kingdom of BavariaKingdom of Bavaria Bavaria

Commander

Prussia KingdomKingdom of Prussia Eduard von Falckenstein August von Goeben Edwin von Manteuffel Gustav von Beyer
Prussia KingdomKingdom of Prussia
Prussia KingdomKingdom of Prussia
Prussia KingdomKingdom of Prussia

Kingdom of BavariaKingdom of BavariaPrince Karl of Bavaria Oskar von Zoller
Kingdom of BavariaKingdom of Bavaria

Troop strength
16 battalions, 9 squadrons and 31 artillery pieces, about 18,000 men 14th battalions, 28 squadrons and 36 guns, about 15,000 men
losses

153 dead; 770 wounded; 38 Missing people and prisoners

111 dead; 659 wounded; 587 missing persons and prisoners

Chronological sequence of the battles in the
Main Campaign in 1866

The Battle of Kissingen (also skirmishes near Kissingen and Hammelburg ) took place during the German War on July 10, 1866 between Prussia and the VII Army Corps of the German Federal Army , which consisted of Bavarian troops .

prehistory

After the Prussian Western Army ( VII. Corps from Westphalia) under the command of General Eduard Vogel von Falckenstein surrounded the army of the Kingdom of Hanover after the battle of Langensalza and forced its surrender on June 29, 1866, these Prussian associations were renamed Main Army grouped together.

The remaining 43,000-strong main army should be in the Main campaign defeat the military forces of the South German ally Austria. Vogel von Falckenstein had united his divisions near Eisenach and on July 2nd began the march on the great road from Eisenach via Fulda to Frankfurt. Vogel von Falckenstein gave his 13th Division the order to push back the enemy. The VII Federal Corps of Bavaria under Prince Karl of Bavaria had marched north via Schweinfurt and originally wanted to unite in joint operations with the Hanoverian troops. When he withdrew, the skirmishes at Zella, Neidhartshausen and Wiesenthal developed . The battles at Dermbach and Immelborn on July 4th formed the first clashes between Prussian and Bavarian troops in Thuringia. The new goal of the Federal Army, the union of the VIII Federal Corps with the VII Federal Corps of Bavaria, had not been achieved. The Bavarian cuirassiers were supposed to establish a connection with the VIII Federal Corps, but the Prussian Beyer division thwarted the plan and intervened with their troops. After the battle near Dermbach , the Bavarians were pushed to the southeast and retreated to Kissingen (today Bad Kissingen). On July 3, the defeat of the Austrians at Königgrätz became known, so the VIII. Bundescorps saw its main task in covering the Main line at Frankfurt. The states of the German Confederation were still unable to agree on uniform warfare with a common battle plan. Their armies were therefore individually defeated by Prussia, just like the Bavarians are now in Kissingen.

The Prussian deployment

The pursuit of Bavaria was carried out by the 13th division under Goeben . On the morning of July 4th, the latter had his 25th Brigade (Major General von Kummer ) proceed from Dermbach in the valley of the Felda against Neidhardshausen and the 26th Brigade (Major General von Wrangel ) against Wiesenthal. On July 9, the Main Army continued its movement across the Hohe Rhön : the Goeben division reached Geroda , the Beyer Brückenau division, and the von Manteuffel division reached Römershag with their advance guard . For July 10th the further advance on the Saale crossings was ordered. On the left wing of the Main Army, the Manteuffel division was supposed to advance to Waldaschach (today Aschach), a few kilometers north of Kissingen. In the center, Goeben's brigades were ordered directly to Kissingen and Euerdorf , and the Beyer division on Hammelburg on the right. During a skirmish near Waldfenster , prisoners revealed that the Bavarian corps was still in Kissingen, so Manteuffel's division was sent after the Goeben's as reinforcements.

The Bavarian deployment

The Bavarian commander, Prince Karl , had planned to set up his units on the heights near Poppenhausen on the left bank of the Wern and fight the battle against the Prussians there. The rapid advance of the Prussians prevented this. On July 9th, the Bavarian 2nd and 4th Infantry Divisions of Generals von Feder and Hartmann were still near Neustadt , about 30 kilometers from Poppenhausen. In Hammelburg the commander of the Bavarian Reserve Cavalry, General of the Cavalry von Thurn und Taxis , was in command . The Bavarian 3rd Infantry Division under Lieutenant General Oskar von Zoller stood in the Saale Valley between Steinach and Kissingen and bore the brunt of the fighting that followed. General von Zoller had nine battalions, twelve squadrons and sixteen artillery pieces at Kissingen, while Prince von Thurn und Taxis had five battalions, sixteen escadrons and twenty artillery pieces at Hammelburg. The Bavarian 1st Infantry Division under Major General Stephan followed the 2nd Division on the march from Neustadt to Münnerstadt , but initially could not provide any support. The Bavarian 4th Infantry Division under Lieutenant General von Hartmann moved to the reserve artillery between Kissingen and Schweinfurt in the area of Pfersdorf too far deployed position.

course

Battle at the chapel cemetery in Kissingen
“Preußensteg”, crossing point for Prussian troops across the Saale

The division of Manteuffel reached the crossing over the Franconian Saale near Aschach north of Kissingen . There the Prussians met the enemy again. There was a battle between the Bavarian 1st Battalion under Major von Moor and the Fusilier Battalion of the 1st Rhenish Infantry Regiment No. 25 under Lieutenant Colonel von Cranach , who was finally able to report the occupation of Aschach to Colonel von Hanstein. The 1st Westphalian Infantry Regiment No. 13 under Lieutenant Colonel von Borries was detached to Euerdorf in order to establish a connection with the Beyer division near Hammelburg. The Prussians encountered Bavarian cavalry near Euerdorf and drove them out. This crossing of the Saale came into the hands of the Prussians without any loss. Before Kissingen, the Prussians were faced with the bulk of the 3rd and parts of the 4th Bavarian Infantry Division, with a total strength of about 15,000 men. Around nine o'clock the Beyer division began its advance against Hammelburg .

Fight for Kissingen

General von Manteuffel received on the morning of July 10th from Falckenstein the instruction to abandon the march on Waldaschach and instead to follow Goeben to Kissingen in order to attack the northern flank of Bavaria. His division was involved in heavy fighting with Bavarian troops near Hausen and the Friedrichshall saltworks north of Kissingen, who had holed up behind the graduation towers to prevent the Prussians from crossing the Saale.

General von Goeben decided to demonstrate the bulk of his division (Brigades Kummer and Wrangel) on Garitz . The Prussian vanguard under Colonel von Tresckow , commander of the 5th Westphalian Infantry Regiment No. 53 , reported that the town of Kissingen was heavily occupied, the main bridge was barricaded by the Bavarians. A lively cannonade ensued. At first the Prussians did not succeed in penetrating the city via the barricaded main bridge. To the south of the city, however, the Prussians were able to repair a dismantled footbridge near the Lindesmühle and cross the river from Ballinghain despite the Bavarian fire . A Bavarian attack on the Prussians had to be broken off because of Prussian artillery fire from Altenberg. The Prussians could now attack the Bavarian troops in Kissingen from the southern flank. A bitter house-to-house war began, which gradually rolled towards the center of the city. Around 1 p.m. Kissingen had been captured, the Bavarian troops had withdrawn to the eastern exit road with great losses, where the Prussian detachments often pushed in mixed. There the Bavarians tried again to offer resistance at the chapel cemetery. Prince Karl, who was at the front in Kissingen, sent an order to Hartmann to advance with his 4th Infantry Division to reinforce Kissingen. However, this order was not carried out because Hartmann received different instructions from the Bavarian headquarters in Münnerstadt.

Fight for angles and Nüdlingen

Pushed back about 1,500 paces from Kissingen in the area of Winkels by the pursuing 5th Westphalian Infantry Regiment No. 53 , the Bavarians went to the Sinnberg on the right and leaning against the Winterleite on the left, again in position. Hit by a grenade on the arm and side, Lieutenant General von Zoller sank from his horse, he was taken to Münnerstadt, where he succumbed to his serious wounds. The entire range of heights was taken by the Prussians by 3 p.m. and occupied by the 2nd Posenen Infantry Regiment No. 19 on the orders of General von Kummer .

The Bavarians withdrew to Nüdlingen , the Prussians followed suit . In the meantime, after the capture of Kissingen, the Bavarian troops in Friedrichshall and Hausen had received orders to withdraw to Nüdlingen. The Bavarian 1st Infantry Division (Major General Stephan) with the strength of nine battalions, four squadrons and ten guns marched from Münnerstadt to Kissingen and arrived at 4 p.m. behind Nüdlingen. With this reinforcement, the Bavarians surprisingly counterattacked and threw the Prussians back to Winkels. There, however, the Prussians offered fierce resistance, so that the Bavarians finally had to break off the attack when there was no supply of ammunition and retreated again to the east. In the evening, General von Falckenstein ordered the pursuit to Schweinfurt for the next day . However, that did not happen.

  • First combat phase

  • Second combat phase

  • Third phase of the battle

  • Fourth phase of combat

Conquest of Hammelburg

The Prussians also remained victorious at Hammelburg. A Bavarian defense line on the Thulba was breached, whereupon the Bavarians built a new line directly in front of the city. The Prussian artillery caused severe damage when the city was bombarded and finally forced the Bavarian troops to retreat. The Bavarians withdrew southwards across the Saale towards Arnstein.

consequences

The Prussians recorded 153 dead and 770 wounded; the Bavarians had 111 dead and 659 wounded, plus 587 missing and prisoners. When General von Falckenstein received the news from headquarters on July 11th that the occupation of the countries north of the Main would be important for the prospective armistice negotiations, he ordered the Main Army to march right away in the direction of Frankfurt instead of the planned advance to Schweinfurt. The Goeben division took up the pursuit in two columns on July 14th. After the Prussians had advanced over the Spessart , they won the battle near Laufach against Hessian-Darmstadt troops and on July 14th stormed Aschaffenburg in fierce street fights against Austrian troops under Field Marshal Lieutenant Erwin von Neipperg . The federal troops had to move west across the Main . On the day after next on July 16, the Prussian Main Army occupied the city of Frankfurt without a fight.

Commemoration

Most of the victims of the battle - whether Bavaria or Prussia - were buried in mass graves on and next to the chapel cemetery. Some were immediately buried in the hallway where they were found because of the summer heat. Three Jewish Prussians , among them an officer, are buried in the Jewish cemetery in Kissingen. All of these graves still exist today. A memorial for the victims on both sides, the Mourning Germania by the sculptor Michael Arnold , was erected on the mass grave next to the chapel cemetery. Another memorial is located at the mass grave near Hausen and Friedrichshall ( Schlagintweit Monument). At the point where Oskar von Zoller was fatally wounded, a memorial commemorates the Bavarian general. Another memorial on the road from Winkels to Nüdlingen was erected for the more than 60 fallen soldiers of the Prussian Infantry Regiment No. 19 from Posen. Before the fight, the Prussian general Ferdinand von Kummer had given a cheering speech in Polish to the soldiers of the regiment because most of them were Polish residents of the province of Posen. Representatives of the Polish state took part in the commemoration in Kissingen on the 150th anniversary of the battle.

In the 19th century, several streets and squares in Berlin and its suburbs were named after Kissingen; on the one hand after the conscious battle, but also because Bismarck stayed here regularly for a cure.

literature

  • July 10, 1866 - A Kissinger contemporary witness reports. In: Thomas Ahnert, Peter Weidisch (eds.): 1200 years Bad Kissingen, 801–2001, facets of a city's history. (= Festschrift for the anniversary year and volume accompanying the exhibition of the same name / special publication from the Bad Kissingen City Archives). Verlag TA Schachenmayer, Bad Kissingen 2001, ISBN 978-3-929278-16-3 , pp. 148-151.
  • Kissingen as a theater of war. The war of 1866. In: Thomas Ahnert, Peter Weidisch (ed.): 1200 years Bad Kissingen, 801–2001, facets of a city's history. (= Festschrift for the anniversary year and volume accompanying the exhibition of the same name / special publication from the Bad Kissingen City Archives). Verlag TA Schachenmayer, Bad Kissingen 2001, ISBN 978-3-929278-16-3 , p. 146 f.
  • Werner Eberth : The German War 1866 in what is now the Bad Kissingen district. Theresienbrunnen-Verlag, Bad Kissingen 2016.
  • J. Heinemann: The battle near Kissingen and Nüdlingen on July 10, 1866 . AA Reichardt, Kissingen 1866, archive.org
  • Heinz Helmert, Hans-Jürgen Usczeck: Prussian-German wars from 1864 to 1871. Military course. 6th revised edition. Military publishing house of the German Democratic Republic, Berlin 1988, ISBN 978-3-327-00222-3 .
  • Wilhelm Leeb : The Kgl. Bavarian 4th field artillery regiment "König". A look back at its 50-year development from 1859–1909. Stuttgart 1909.
  • Josef Wabra: Battle of Hammelburg and Bad Kissingen. Werneck 1968.
  • The Russians in Kissingen . In: The Gazebo . Volume 34, 1866, pp. 529-531 ( full text [ Wikisource ] - Battle of Kissingen from the point of view of Russian spa guests).
  • War adventure of a peacemaker . In: The Gazebo . Issue 31, 1867, pp. 489–492 ( full text [ Wikisource ] - Battle in Kissingen from the perspective of an English spa guest).

Web links

Commons : Schlacht bei Kissingen  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Austria's battles in 1866. From the K. and K. General Staff, Bureau for War History, Volume 5: Vienna 1869, pp. 75 and 81.
  2. ↑ Austria's battles in 1866. From the K. and K. General Staff, Bureau for War History, Volume 5: Vienna 1869, pp. 75 and 81.
  3. ^ Josef Wabra: Battle of Hammelburg and Kissingen . Werneck 1968, p. 20 f.
  4. ^ Josef Wabra: Battle of Hammelburg and Kissingen . Werneck 1968, pp. 20 f., 32-34
  5. ^ Josef Wabra: Battle of Hammelburg and Kissingen . Werneck 1968, pp. 57-61
  6. ^ Josef Wabra: Battle of Hammelburg and Kissingen . Werneck 1968, pp. 20 f., 32-34
  7. ^ Josef Wabra: Battle of Hammelburg and Kissingen . Werneck 1968, pp. 35-45
  8. ^ Josef Wabra: Battle of Hammelburg and Kissingen . Werneck 1968, pp. 46-51
  9. ^ Josef Wabra: Battle of Hammelburg and Kissingen . Werneck 1968, pp. 22-31
  10. ↑ A list of the graves and monuments is printed in the article Battle of Bad Kissingen . In: Saale-Zeitung , July 8, 1966, quoted from: Josef Wabra: Battle of Hammelburg and Bad Kissingen . Werneck 1968, pp. 65-67
  11. ^ Theodor Fontane : The German War of 1866. The campaign in West and Central Germany . Berlin 1871, p. 120, books.google.de archive.org
  12. ↑ When the war came to Bad Kissingen . In: Saale-Zeitung , July 11, 2016