Storm Battalion No. 5 (pipe)

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Storm Battalion No. 5 (pipe)

StB5 - Rohr.jpg
active March 4, 1915 to December 1918
Country coat of arms Kingdom of Prussia
Armed forces Prussian Army
Armed forces army
Branch of service Light infantry
Type battalion
structure see structure
Strength 628 (foundation strength)
march Good storm (parade march)
Butcher Battle for Verdun

Spring campaign Champagne campaign

management
Commanders See commanders

The Sturm-Bataillon Nr. 5 Rohr was a specialized unit of the Prussian army during the First World War .

As a result of the trench warfare that occurred a few months after the beginning of the First World War , General der Infanterie Hans Gaede suggested the formation of assault detachments in early 1915 in order to use them to overcome the paralysis of the front. At the Supreme Army Command (OHL) , Colonel Bauer accepted the suggestion, and by decree of the War Ministry of March 2, 1915, the first assault division of the German army was set up as the "assault division" on March 4, 1915. It was renamed on April 1, 1916 in "Sturm-Bataillon" and on February 10, 1917 in "Sturm-Bataillon Nr. 5 (pipe)".

organization

structure

March 4, 1915
  • storm Division
    • 1st Pioneer Company (1st Sturm-Company), provided by the replacement engineer battalion 10
    • 2nd Engineer Company (2nd Sturm Company), provided by the 3rd Replacement Engineer Battalion
    • Cannon department
    • Spare - Company
October 18, 1915
April 1, 1916
  • Battalion headquarters
  • four assault companies of 210 men each
  • two machine gun companies (MGK)
  • a mine thrower company (MWK)
  • a flamethrower squad
  • a battery of 10.5 cm Krupp mountain howitzers
  • a carrier animal relay
  • a pioneer company
September 1, 1916
  • in addition a 5th storm company

Armament and equipment

Main armament

Cannon Department (KA)
Storm Company
Machine Gun Company (MGK)
Mortar Department

equipment

Picture of a storm pioneer by Professor Dettmann
  • Steel helmet
  • Carabiner slung on the back
  • Side gun
  • two sandbags with hand grenades hung around their necks over their shoulders and held together on their backs by a second strap
  • in each sandbag four more empty sandbags as installation material
  • Middle wire cutters attached to the paddock with a carrying device
  • Fixed pioneer jump gear in the case (attached to the paddock, handle up)
  • Gas mask in the container
  • Haversack with four iron rations and two canteens
  • gun
  • Trench dagger
  • light MG (LMG)
  • Cartridges had to be stored in coat pockets and bread bags, as cartridge pouches were not carried

history

founding

The Sturm -teilung met for the first time on March 4, 1915 on the Wahn firing range near Cologne under their commander Major Calsow from the Samland Pioneer Battalion No. 18.

Commanders

Captain Rohr (1917)
Rank Surname Beginning of the appointment
major Calsow March 4, 1915
Captain Tillessen August 20, 1915 (in charge of the tour)
Captain Willy Rohr August 30th to September 7th (in charge of the tour)
Captain Willy Rohr September 8, 1915

Other officers

equipment

As of September 1915, the equipment included twenty 3.7 cm cannons with large protective shields captured near Kaunas . The pioneers were given protective shields 1.40 m high and weighing up to 28 kg.

Mission history

storm Division

After their training, the department was shipped from Wahn to Douai on May 16, 1915 to take part in the battle of the Lorettohöhe . She was assigned by the 6th Army to the "Lochow Group", which she initially deployed east of Souchez near Givenchy , but shortly afterwards moved to the heights of Vimy . More than half of the men were killed in an attack because their conspicuous shields drew enemy fire. The department was withdrawn.

The OHL then made the department available to the Army Department "Gaede" on August 29, 1915 . It was loaded to Neu-Breisach and moved from there to the Kaiserstuhl . On the orders of the Chief of the General Staff, General Erich von Falkenhayn , the previous company commander in the Guards Rifle Battalion was transferred to Captain Rohr.

Rohr refused to continue using shield cannons. They were left with the 6th Army. In September the cannon division in Kaunas received 20 captured Russian cannons. An important innovation was the construction of simulated enemy positions to practice the attack.

The Infantry Regiment. 187 turned on 9 October for the first time the new tactics in the attack on the Schratzmännele and 15 on the Hartmannsweilerkopf on. Both attacks were successful, but the losses were considerable. The storm department was meanwhile only used to develop the position.

On the night of 21./22. December the Hartmannsweiler Kopf and the Hirzstein were lost. The department moved out, but the Hartmannsweiler Kopf had already been recaptured when they got there. The attempt to recapture the Hirzstein on the 24th failed, as did a second attempt on December 27th. With the newly established infantry regiments No. 188 and No. 189 made available to him, the preparations for the following attack were entrusted to Rohr. At Ensisheim he had a position laid out according to the dimensions of the front in order to practice the attack. The infantry were assigned to the department as "attack skeletons". The attack was then carried out on January 8, 1916 and was successful.

After the return of the department to the Kaiserstuhl, after a "big exercise" of all weapons near Oberbergen before General Gaede, the second course (the first was already in December) of the department in Oberrotweil took place, and the teaching activity should now be developed according to plan. However, the OHL transferred the department to the 5th Army on February 1, 1916, where the Battle of Verdun began. Assigned to the 12th Infantry Brigade, the division carried out the first attack on Herbébois, about 1,500 meters away , from Azannes with the 6th Infantry Division after the weather had prevented it for three weeks . Here the storm troops acted as wedges, but suffered heavy losses.

In March 1916, the department was commissioned to train the army's divisions in “modern hand-to-hand combat”. The nearby Doncourt , which was shot to death in the Battle of Longwy in 1914, was used as a training ground . From the reserve stocks of the Gaede Army Department, a machine gun platoon, a light mine thrower department and a small flamethrower department were added to the assault department.

The division was then withdrawn to the heights of Azannes. From there, their companies were brought forward all summer for attacks from Beuveille , which was to remain their location until the winter of 1918, and explorations were carried out.

Expansion of the department to a battalion

On April 1, 1916, the department was enlarged and renamed "Sturm-Bataillon". The assault companies initially received replacements from Pioneer Replacement Battalion No. 7 from Cologne, and later from Pioneer Replacement Battalion No. 35 from Friedrichsfeld . The machine gun company (s) received their replacement from the Hirschberg machine gun replacement department , the mine throwers from the Markendorf mine thrower replacement regiment , and the battery initially from the 83 field artillery replacement department in Cologne, later from the mountain Artillery replacement department in Freiburg .

The battalion was relocated to Verdun , where it was tactically subordinated to the newly formed "attack group east" under General von Lochow and took part in the unsuccessful attempts to conquer the Caillette forest. General Bruno von Mudra , the new commander of the attack group east, decided to have the newly made available divisions trained by the Sturm Battalion behind the front and only then to begin the attack.

The 4th Sturm-Company was assigned to the 7th Reserve Division on June 1, 1916 and finally captured the Caillette Forest. With a total of thirty attack operations, the battalion finally reached the fortifications of Souville on June 23 and captured Fleury .

The army set up two- to four-week courses in which officers, NCOs and men from the battalion were trained. From June 1916 courses were also held for the divisions of the other armies on the Western Front .

In the summer, the OHL decided to form four more assault battalions. By 1917, the OHL set up 14 more assault battalions, which were given the numbers of their respective armies. Battalions 14, 15, 16 were assigned to Army Divisions A, B, C. All commanders and most of the officers were trained in Beuveille.

Imperial visit

A " great exercise " took place in Doncourt on August 12th before the Crown Prince . Two days later the exercise took place in front of the emperor. In his entourage were, among others, the Crown Prince, the War Minister Adolf Wild von Hohenborn and the head of the field press office Walter Bloem , who described the visit in an essay ("The Kaiser at his Storm Youth").

In winter, courses were also held for officers of the Eastern Front of armies. Furthermore, two courses were held for the Austro-Hungarian allies on the Isonzo front . A detachment was sent to Sofia to set up a Bulgarian assault battalion there; Turkish officers were among the trainees .

When the storm battalions were given the number of their respective army, the oldest storm battalion was the only unit in the German army, at the instigation of the Crown Prince, to be given the honor of being able to use the name of its commander.

"The previous storm battalion (assigned to the 5th Army) is named" Storm Battalion No. 5 (pipe) "."

- Order received on February 10, 1917 from the Ministry of War

In the spring of 1917, Hauptmann Rohr switched the battalion's training courses to the "defensive battle". The first complete demonstration of the battle defense system took place in the presence of the Army Commander-in-Chief, General Max von Gallwitz , on March 16. Two weeks later he came back to Doncourt, accompanied by the Enver Pascha .

Spring offensive 1918

During the spring offensive, Operation Michael , half of the storm battalion was assigned to General Commandos IX and XVII and half to the 50th on the northwestern city limits of St. Quentin and the 36th Division in front of the heavily fortified village of Arvillers . A machine gun company was assigned to each half battalion. The battalion arrived on the night of March 19th. After the successful start of the attack, the two half battalions were reunited on March 23 and assigned to the 9th Infantry Division at General Command IX .

On April 25, the battalion was ordered to Maubeuge to direct the training of the Guard Cavalry Rifle Division, which had arrived from the east, for the western theater of war. As part of this training, a “major exercise” took place in the divisional framework. Spectators included General Field Marshal Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff as well as the German and Austrian Crown Prince . On June 1, the battalion returned to Beuveille.

Champagne offensive

A month later, the battalion was loaded onto AOK 3 in the section between Sainte-Marie-à-Py and Saint-Souplet , where it took part in the attack on the Battle of the Marne on July 15 . After the unsuccessful attack, the battalion was moved back to Beuveille on the 16th.

In September, during the Meuse-Argonne offensive, the battalion was loaded onto the Champagne on Maas-West . Since the training of the newly arrived replacement was not yet completed, he was left behind with the 4th Company and moved to the woods around Cunel . After days of rest, the battalion was transferred to the Maas-Ost group , with the task of recapturing "Höhe 371" (the so-called Kronprinzenhöhe) south of Sivry from the Americans. When this project failed, the battalion was ordered to Thonne-le-Thil behind the front.

End of war

Around October 20, the battalion was ordered to protect the OHL's Grand Headquarters in Spa . Half assault companies each guarded the Emperor's villa , Villa Fraineuse , the Hindenburgs and that of General Groener . On the afternoon of November 9th, an assault company secured the train of Kaiser Wilhelm II at Spa station. The train that brought Wilhelm II into exile in the Netherlands left the station at around 5 a.m. on November 10 and was protected by the storm company as far as the Dutch border.

On November 14th, a company of volunteers to protect the army command was loaded onto the Hindenburg transport train and transported to Wilhelmshöhe Palace by OHL . It later formed the basis of the "Hindenburg Freikorps".

A few days later, the rest of the battalion received permission to travel home. Via Herbesthal and Cologne it reached Schwelm bei Barmen , where it was demobilized .

tradition

After the war, the Pioneer Teaching and Experimental Battalion continued the tradition of Sturm Battalion No. 5.

monument

Memorial to the Dead of the Storm Battalion
Commander's grave
  • Members of Sturm Battalion No. 5 are buried in Pierrepont, in the neighboring community of Beuveilles, where the hospital was located. A large monument with a lion was erected during the war and has been preserved to this day.
  • In the cemetery of honor in Lübeck , Willy Rohrs's tombstone shows that he commanded the battalion.

References

literature

  • Paul Koch: The Lower Silesian Pioneer Battalion No. 5 and its war organizations in World War 1914/18. Spur. Zeulenroda (Thuringia) 1928.
  • Hesse Pascal, Laparra Jean-Claude: Le Sturmbataillon No. 5 pipe 1916-1918. Histoire & Collections (France). 2011. ISBN 978-2-35250-166-4 .
  • Werner Lacoste: German storm battalions 1915-1918. Helios publishing house. 2nd Edition. Aachen 2010. ISBN 978-3-86933-013-6 .
  • Eberhard Graf von Schwerin: Royal Prussian Storm Battalion No. 5 (pipe). (From Germany's great times. Volume 116.) recorded after the memory with the help of the diary of Lieutenant Colonel a. D. Willi Rohr, Count of Schwerin. Spur. Zeulenroda 1939.
  • Bernhard Reddemann: History of the German Flamethrower Troop. Rim meeting. Berlin-Schöneberg around 1933.
  • Willy Rohr: Diary.
  • Hermann Franke : Handbook of modern defense sciences. Volume 2: The Army. Berlin / Leipzig 1937.

Web links

Commons : Sturm-Bataillon Nr. 5  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hellmuth Gruss: The German storm battalions in the world war. Structure and use. Junker and Dünnhaupt publishing house , Berlin, 1939
  2. ↑ A train was handed over to the Ottoman army for the Mesopotamian campaign during the war . As a replacement, the battalion received a platoon of 96 field cannons .
  3. ↑ The Krupp only four batteries had produced therefrom during the war. Two of these were given to the Bulgarian and one to the Turkish army .
  4. ↑ The so-called priest appointment was invented by a Hungarian priest named "Vécer". The name came from the Austro-Hungarian army. In the German army, the device was also called "Grenade Launcher 16".
  5. ↑ Willy Rohr: Instructions for training with the storm battalion.
  6. ^ Hermann Franke: Handbook of the modern defense sciences. Volume 2: The Army. Berlin / Leipzig 1937.
  7. ↑ Major from April 1918
  8. ↑ During the siege of Port Arthur, mobile shields were used by the Japanese pioneers to cut through the Russian wire barriers.
  9. ↑ "If he proves to be suitable, his appointment as leader of the Sturmabteilung must be applied for." ( Book of Honor of the German Pioneers, p. 559). His appointment took place on September 8, 1915
  10. ↑ The XV. AK in Strasbourg counting Rheinische Jäger-Battalion No. 8 had its peace location in Schlettstadt . The reservists who emerged from it and formed a large part of the 187s knew the Vosges from their active service.
  11. ^ Karsten Richter: The German storm battalions in the First World War. In: "Der Infanterist." Issue 01/2002.
  12. ^ Lothar Nagel: Württemberg storm company in the great war. Diary of the Württ. Sturmkompanie des Pruss. Sturm-Btls. 16. Körner-Verlag. Stuttgart 1930.
  13. ↑ The Jäger Battalions 3 and 11 , as well as the Reserve Jäger Battalions 5 and 6 were planned for this. From July to August their commanders were sent to training. The last three battalions, however, were relocated to the east before their training ended. As a result, only the first became a regular assault battalion and later another model battalion.
  14. ↑ From the Sturmabteilung to the training battalion. Traditional history of the Pioneer Training Battalion 1 (motorized) in Dessau-Roßlau Sturmbataillon 5 (Rohr) on the website of the Military History Museum in Anhalt.