VIII Army Corps (German Confederation)

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The VIII. Army Corps was a mixed corps of the Army of the German Confederation , which was formed from the contingents of Württemberg , Baden and Hesse . Until 1830 the contingents from Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen , Hohenzollern-Hechingen and Liechtenstein also belonged to the corps.

organization

The corps should not meet until mobilization . In peacetime he was not assigned any specific troop units, only the strengths of the individual contingents were fixed.

The commanders of the mixed corps were to be appointed according to an agreement between the participating states. The individual states also set up the commanders of the subordinate units.

The fragmentation of the armed forces did not stop at this corps either. There were no uniform regulations, the rank designations differed from each other as well as “the promotion regulations, the wages and salaries, the meal rates, the norms of the general service and the handling of the military justice, different also the length of service and the substitute system. ... as recently as 1859, the Württemberg attack signal was the same as the Baden withdrawal signal. ”Only the VIII Army Corps had agreements on the introduction of the same caliber and joint maneuvers.

structure

The corps had a target population of two divisions of two brigades each with two regiments .

Strength

The strengths of the quotas should be.

States Troops total Hunter infantry cavalry artillery Pioneers Guns
Württemberg Parts 0 13,955 0 10,826 0 1.994 0 1,145 0 18th
to bathe Parts 0 10,000 0 7,751 0 1,429 0 820 0 20th
Hessen-Darmstadt Parts 0 6,195 0 4,820 0 885 0 508 0 12

Until 1830 belonged to it

States Troops total Hunter infantry cavalry artillery Pioneers Guns
Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen 2 companies 0 356 0 356
Hohenzollern-Hechingen 1 company 0 155 0 155
Liechtenstein 1 move 0 55 0 55

Participation in wars

In the Schleswig-Holstein War (1848-1851) and in the fight against the Baden Revolution , not the entire corps, but only individual units of the contingent states ( Neckar Corps ) were deployed.

The mobilizations on the occasion of the Crimean War in 1855 and above all that of the Northern Italian War in 1859 turned out to be a disaster. “Already ruled in the Stuttgart headquarters of the VIll. Army corps the most oppressive dilettantism, so that was all the more true of the troops with their small number of trained or even useful ranks. The mobilized army presented itself as a rusty mess. Although she had to spend a quarter of a year instead of the four weeks required by the federal government for mobilization, even then she was only partially ready for war. "

In the German War 1866

During the German War , the corps was involved in the Main Campaign . Even the appointment of the Commander-in-Chief of the VIII Army Corps in 1866 led to conflicts between the allies . Both Prince Wilhelm von Baden (the younger brother of Grand Duke Friedrich ) and Prince Friedrich von Württemberg (a cousin of the Württemberg King) applied for command. Austria wanted to fill the post with its own partisan, however, and forced the allies on the kk Feldmarschalleutnant Alexander von Hessen-Darmstadt , who was in Austrian service and who was finally accepted after Austria had released him from the Austrian oath. The appointment was then made on June 14, 1866 by King Karl I of Württemberg , who formally had the regular right of appointment. Alexander received his appointment on June 16 and was sworn in on June 18 in Darmstadt . In his own words he had accepted the command "With very little hope and very reluctantly ..." . The Wuerttemberg Lieutenant General Fidel von Baur-Breitenfeld became Chief of Staff . The army corps was not complete until July 9th (about a week after the decisive battle of Königgrätz ). After the troops of the Electorate of Hesse , the Duchy of Nassau and an Austrian brigade were assigned to the VIII. Corps , associations of 6 sovereign states were combined in this large association. Already on August 9th - after a failed and lost campaign - Alexander resigned his command and felt compelled to publish his campaign journal in order to defend himself against the various attacks because of his command. The corps was to form the West German army together with the VII Federal Army Corps, which was formed entirely from the Bavarian Army . Since June 28, 1866, this has been under the command of the 71-year-old Prince Karl of Bavaria . The chief of staff was Ludwig von der Tann-Rathsamhausen - an opponent of the German fratricidal war.

On June 1, 1866, military representatives of the southern German Central Powers met in Munich , with Baden, Württemberg and Hesse-Darmstadt pledging around 45,000 men for the campaign - in fact, only around 35,000 men were later deployed by these states and this was not until mid-June Beginning of August. After the battle of Königgrätz, the will to act in unison was completely lacking, so that the Main Campaign was lost from the start and the battles at Frohnhofen , Aschaffenburg , Hundheim , Tauberbischofsheim , Werbach and Gerchsheim were only music to accompany the efforts for one that had already been initiated Armistice, with each of the Central Powers only pursuing its own interests.

Nevertheless, the total losses of the corps amounted to 402 dead, 1,439 wounded, 118 prisoners and 2,444 missing, whereby the number of missing persons should also include a larger number of dead.

Ordre de Bataille of the VIII Federal Army Corps in a contemporary representation:

  • Staff VIII Federal Army Corps 1866

  • 1st (Württ.) Division in the VIII Federal Army Corps 1866

  • 2nd (bad.) Division in the VIII Federal Army Corps 1866

  • 3rd (Hess.) Division in the VIII Federal Army Corps 1866

  • 4th (combined) division in the VIII Federal Army Corps, 1866

  • Reserve cavalry and reserve artillery in the VIII Federal Army Corps, 1866

References

literature

  • Heinrich A. Eckert: The German Armed Forces. Munich 1835
  • unknown South German author: The Army of the States of the German Confederation , Augsburg 1838
  • The eighth Army Corps of the German Armed Forces in 1840 , Ulm 1840 Google digitized version
  • Memories of the first war exercises of the eighth German Army Corps in 1840 , Ulm 1840 Google digitized version
  • Bernhard von Beck: War-surgical experiences during the 1866 campaign in southern Germany. Wagner, Freiburg im Breisgau 1867 digitized version of the BSB Munich
  • Robert Volz: Cholera on the Baden theater of war in the summer of 1866: Official report. Reimbursed to the Grand Ducal Baden Ministry of the Interior. Karlsruhe 1867 digitized version of the BSB Munich
  • Association of Friends of the Military History Museum Schloss Rastatt eV, publisher: Unter dem Greifen, Altbadisches Militär from the union of the margravates to the founding of the empire 1771-1870 , Braun printing and publishing house Karlsruhe, 1984
  • Willi A. Boelcke: Handbook Baden-Württemberg , Verlag Kohlhammer Stuttgart, 1982, ISBN 3-17-007726-0
  • Military History Research Office (Ed.): Handbook on German Military History 1648 - 1939 , Bernard & Graefe Verlag für Wehrwesen München, 1975, Volume 1, IV Military History in the 19th Century 1814 - 1890

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The army ... p. 529:
  2. ↑ Under the gripping, p. 99f
  3. ↑ Boelcke, p. 216: "The southwest German states of the 8th Corps of the German Federal Army, Württemberg, Baden and Hessen-Darmstadt, decide to introduce the rifle caliber 13.9 mm."
  4. ^ Heinrich A. Eckert: "Das deutsche Bundesheer" , Munich 1835 p. 16
  5. ↑ Wolfgang Pettner in Handbook IV, p. 285 f
  6. ↑ s. Austria's fighting in 1866. From the K. and K. General Staff. Bureau for War History, Volume 1, Vienna 1868, p. 139
  7. ↑ s. Alexander von Hessen-Darmstadt: Campaign Journal of the Commander-in-Chief of the 8th German Federal Army Corps in the campaign of 1866 in West Germany , Eduard Zernin, Darmstadt & Leipzig 1867, p. 39 online in the Google book search
  8. ↑ s. Alexander von Hessen-Darmstadt: Campaign journal of the Commander-in-Chief of the 8th German Federal Army Corps in the campaign of 1866 in West Germany , Eduard Zernin, Darmstadt & Leipzig 1867 online in the Google book search
  9. ↑ s. Alexander von Hessen-Darmstadt: Campaign Journal of the Commander-in-Chief of the 8th German Federal Army Corps in the campaign of 1866 in West Germany , Eduard Zernin, Darmstadt & Leipzig 1867, p. 39 online in the Google book search

Remarks

  1. ↑ The minimum contingents of the 18 small and micro states were withdrawn from the army corps to which they had been assigned in 1830, as their unequal training and armament made them a tactical burden. They were combined to form the reserve division .
  2. ↑ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German Constitutional History since 1789 , Vol. 1, Kohlhammer Verlag Stuttgart, 2nd Verb. Edition 1960, p. 611 f “If the Bundestag decided to mobilize the armed forces, then the contingents were by calling up those on leave and to bring reservists to full warfare. Only with this "formation of the war army" did the federal contingents held by the individual states come together to form an effective federal army, which then also received a joint commander in chief, the federal superintendent. "