X. Army Corps (German Empire)

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Parade stone on the Kronsberg in Hanover for the imperial parades during maneuvers of the X Army Corps in 1874, 1881, 1889 and 1907

The X. Army Corps was a large unit of the Prussian Army , which was formed in 1867 from the X. Army Corps of the Federal Army .

structure

Before the beginning of the First World War, the corps was III. Subordinate to Army Inspection and is structured as follows:

history

The corps was established after the German War on October 11, 1866 in the newly founded Prussian province of Hanover and the general command was in Hanover until the large association was dissolved in 1919 .

Franco-German War

Konstantin Bernhard von Voigts-Rhetz

In the war against France , the X. Corps, consisting of Hanoverian troops, fought in 1870/71 under the commanding General von Voigts-Rhetz in the association of the 2nd Army under Prince Friedrich Karl of Prussia . Colonel von Caprivi acted as chief of the general staff , the subordinate 19th division was under Lieutenant General von Schwartzkoppen , the 20th division was headed by Major General von Kraatz-Koschlau . The corps met in the Bingen am Rhein area by August 5th and crossed the Saar on August 10th . The X. Corps had preceded the 2nd Army and had secured Pont-à-Mousson and the left bank of the Moselle there until August 15 , with the 5th Cavalry Division assigned to the Corps to investigate the Metz-Verdun road. The aim was to determine whether the French army had withdrawn from the fortress of Metz or was still in the process of withdrawing. On August 16, the advance through Thiaucourt on St. Hilaire was ordered.

After the 2nd Army turned north, the X. Corps came across Tronville on Vionville and supported the attack of the III. Army Corps at the Battle of Mars-la-Tour . After a forced march, the 20th Division arrived from the west in time to relieve the heavily pressed 5th Division , while its artillery held up the French advance. The 38th Brigade of the 19th Division, acting at the same time, had already covered a march of twelve hours from Étain to the Meuse. During the attack on the heights of Bruville, the 19th Division got caught in a French crossfire and lost 2,600 men within 30 minutes. The corps arrived at the battlefield of Gravelotte as a reserve behind the guard corps , but no longer took part in the battle for St. Privat. During the siege of Metz , the X. Corps took over the security of the northern containment front and participated in the battle of Noisseville at the end of August in the defense against French attacks.

After the surrender of the fortress of Metz, the X. Corps was released and called to the area south of Paris on the Loire ; Troyes was reached on November 10 and Montargis on November 19 . After a battle between Ladon and Maizieres, the corps moved closer to the 2nd Army, which had the task of placing the French Loire Army under General Chanzy . In the battle of Beaune-la-Rolande on November 28, General Voigts-Rhetz had about three brigades with 11,000 men and 70 guns available. The corps succeeded in defeating the superior strength of the French XX. Corps under General Crouzat to maintain that the French did not use their entire force. The X. Corps was already exhausted when the III. Army Corps under General von Alvensleben intervened in support.

Before the Battle of Orléans on 3 and 4 December, the X Corps at Boynes was contracted and should behind in Pithiviers standing III. Corps intervene in the fighting. On December 10, the corps relieved the Bavarians on the third day of the battle at Beaugency and encountered the enemy in pursuit near Mortais. The 2nd Cavalry Division under General zu Stolberg led the avant-garde of the X Corps on December 15th during reconnaissance in the direction of Vendome. In the pursuit of the Loire Army at Le Mans , the corps was subordinated to the army of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg . This army division took Blois on December 13th and Vendôme without a fight on December 17th after further skirmishes .

At the end of December, another 150,000 French soldiers gathered at Le Mans. Until January 6, 1871, the German 2nd Army was concentrated near Vendôme. The width of the advance was up to 100 km. In the center were the III. and the IX. Corps, on the right the XIII. and on the left the X Corps, which advanced from Tours from the south. Between January 10th and 12th, the Loire Army was finally completely crushed at Le Mans . On January 11th the 19th division won the battle of Les Mortes-Aures, on January 12th the 20th division from La Tuillerie followed, both of which penetrated the southern suburb of Le Mans.

First World War

Otto von Emmich
Walter von Lüttwitz
Konstantin Schmidt von Knobelsdorf

The Xth Army Corps marched into neutral Belgium in August 1914 as part of the 2nd Army under Colonel General von Bülow . The 19th Division under Lieutenant General von Hoffmann and the 20th Division under Lieutenant General Schmundt were subordinate to the Commanding General von Emmich , while Colonel Graf von Lambsdorff served as Chief of Staff . The commanding general von Emmich, to whom the attack force on Liège was subordinate, was to attack the outer forts of this fortress in the night of August 5th to 6th. It was not until the afternoon of August 12 that the heavy and heaviest siege artillery arrived that finally brought about the decision. After the conquest of Liège , the corps continued its advance south and was involved in the Battle of the Sambre from August 20 . The French 10th Corps had taken up position on the southern bank of the Sambre. On August 21st, the 19th Division reached the river at Pont de Loup, and the 20th Division entered Tamines . There was heavy house-to-house fighting with the population and looting. On August 22nd the corps took the south bank at Gerpinnes . The German 2nd Army pursued with mass into the area southwest of Avesnes. On August 27, the French 5th Army under General Lanrezac stopped again at Guise an der Oise and prepared a counterattack in the battle of Saint-Quentin . The X Corps had taken its thrust at Guise, to the left of it the Guard Corps was advancing at Hirson . Guise and its southern suburb of Flavigny fell into the hands of the 19th Division under Lieutenant General Hofmann on August 28th, and the 20th Infantry Division was in combat at Leschelle. On August 29th, the 19th Division reached Audigny and the 20th Division Macquigny. In the center, Lanrezac concentrated three corps for a counter-attack in order to take Guise back and pushed the German X. Corps back to the Oise. The 19th Division was only able to stabilize the situation at Jonqueuse - Mont d´Origny with the lastest effort.

On September 6th, another French counterattack began in the Battle of the Marne . The attack by the French 9th Corps at Sézanne- Concy failed, as did the 42nd Infantry Division at Villeneuve-lès-Charleville. After the German withdrawal, the parts of the 2nd Army that had returned on September 9th reached the Mareuil en Brie – Vertus line. On the left wing of the army, the X Army Corps and the Guard Corps remained behind on the southern bank of the Marne until the following day. On September 12th the German front on the Aisne was reorganized, Reims was given up by the corps. General von Emmich's troops stood on the northern bank of Vesle from Cormontreuil to Prunay, the guard corps connected to Prosnes to the southwest. On September 14th and 15th the corps defended the section between Brimont and Betheney, in the area north of Reims, with the 19th Division and the newly assigned 2nd Guard Division . On September 20, the X. Corps was able to push the opposite French 10th Corps back onto the Loive-Courcy line.

In April 1915 the corps was transferred to Galicia on the Eastern Front . Deployed on the right wing of the 11th Army under von Mackensen , the corps was deployed in the Battle of Gorlice-Tarnów . After crossing the San at Sieniawa, battles followed at Jaroslau and Radymno . After the breakthrough battle of Lubaczów , the advance northwards followed on June 17th. After the battle of Krasnostaw , there was persecution over the Wieprz to the Bug from July 18 . From September 9, the return transport to the west followed, at the end of September 1915 the corps intervened in the section of the 3rd Army in the autumn battle in Champagne . The incoming IX. Army Corps replaced the X. Army Corps in mid-October at the focus of the battle.

This was followed by positional battles on the Aisne and in June 1916 as a result of the Brusilov offensive, the return to the Eastern Front. The X. Corps under General von Lüttwitz was assigned to the corps group Bernhardi am Styr and Stochod in addition to the kuk II Corps and the Fath group . On July 28, 1916, General Besobrasov's Russian special army began the attack on the important Kovel transport hub , on the left two corps of Kaledin's 8th Army extended the front to Zaturcy. The right wing of the Bernhardi army group with the combined division Rusche, the kuk 29th division, as well as the X. Corps reinforced by the German 121st division defended the threatened Kovel. The Stochod line from Kisielin to Zaturcy was held by the 20th Division under von Schoeler . To the north of Trysten the Russians broke in on the left wing of the 19th Division, their positions at Woronczyn were lost, and behind the Stochod the front was strengthened again.

In November 1916, the corps command was transferred back to the Aisne on the western front . Under the leadership of General Schmidt von Knobelsdorf , the corps was in action in Upper Alsace with Army Department B under General von Gündell's infantry until the end of the war . Between August 27 and September 5, 1917, the command was named after the location as the " Sierentz " group. At the end of October 1918, the corps command was assigned the 26th Landwehr Division and the Bavarian 30th Reserve Division .

Commanding general

The general command as the command authority of the army corps was under the leadership of the commanding general .

Rank Surname date
General of the Infantry Konstantin Bernhard von Voigts-Rhetz October 30, 1866 to December 11, 1873
General of the cavalry Albrecht of Prussia December 12, 1873 to July 9, 1888
General of the Infantry Leo of Caprivi July 10, 1888 to March 23, 1890
General of the Infantry Walther Bronsart von Schellendorff March 24, 1890 to January 26, 1893
Lieutenant General /
General of the Infantry 		August von Seebeck January 27, 1893 to April 3, 1899
General of the Infantry August von Bomsdorff 0April 4, 1899 to October 16, 1899
Lieutenant General /
General of the Cavalry 		Karl von Stünzner October 17, 1899 to February 8, 1908
General of the Infantry Alfred von Loewenfeld 0February 9, 1908 to May 28, 1909
General of the Infantry Otto von Emmich May 29, 1909 to December 21, 1915
Lieutenant General Walther von Lüttwitz December 22, 1915 to August 20, 1916
General of the Infantry Konstantin Schmidt von Knobelsdorf August 21, 1916 to the end

Flags / flag decorations

Lore

Most of the files of the X. Army Corps were lost in the air raid on Potsdam on April 18, 1945, in which the Reichsarchiv was badly hit. As a result, the north-west German military historiography from 1867 to 1919 is severely impaired, since correspondence, especially those of the Deputy General Command, can only be found in parallel records in regional archives, such as B. the State Archives Oldenburg .

literature

  • City of Oldenburg - City Archives (ed.): Oldenburg 1914-1918. A source volume on the everyday, social, military and mental history of the city of Oldenburg in the First World War . (Publications of the Oldenburg City Archives, Vol. 7), Oldenburg (Isensee) 2014. ISBN 978-3-7308-1080-4 .
  • W. Lenz: The Tenth Army Corps in the War against France 1870-71 , Verlag Schünemann, Bremen 1872. google books

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Prussian War Ministry (ed.): Ranking list of the Royal Prussian Army and the XIII. (Royal Württemberg) Army Corps for 1914. ES Mittler & Sohn . Berlin 1914. pp. 84ff.
  2. ^ Justus Scheibert : The war between France and Germany 1870/71. Pauli's successor, Berlin 1895, p. 301.
  3. ^ Justus Scheibert: The war between France and Germany 1870/71. Pauli's successor, Berlin 1895, pp. 68f.
  4. ^ Justus Scheibert: The war between France and Germany 1870/71. Pauli's successor, Berlin 1895, p. 211.
  5. ^ Justus Scheibert: The war between France and Germany 1870/71. Pauli's successor, Berlin 1895, p. 219.
  6. ^ Reichsarchiv : The World War 1914-1918. Volume I: Division of the Second Army, p. 670.
  7. ^ Reichsarchiv: The World War 1914–1918. Volume I: The Border Battles. P. 109f.
  8. ^ Reichsarchiv: The World War 1914–1918. Volume III: The Marne Campaign. From the Sambre to the Marne. ES Mittler & Sohn. Berlin 1925. Battle of St. Quentin. P. 141f.
  9. ^ Reichsarchiv: The World War 1914–1918. Volume 10, ES Mittler & Sohn. Berlin 1936. pp. 520f.
  10. ↑ Dermot Bradley (ed.), Günter Wegner: Occupation of the German Army 1815-1939. Volume 1: The higher command posts 1815–1939. Biblio Publishing House. Osnabrück 1990. ISBN 3-7648-1780-1 . P. 67.