Imperial German Army, 1914-18: Organisation, Structure, Orders of Battle

417 Pages·2007·1.31 MB·English

by  Herrman Cron

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IMPERIAL GERMAN ARMY
1914-18
Organisation, Structure, Orders of Battle
Hermann Cron
Translated by C.F. Colton, MA
Helion & Company
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Dedicated to the memory of the German Army in the First World War
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Originally published asGeschichte des Deutschen Heeres im Weltkriege 1914–1918in Berlin,
Germany, 1937
This English edition published by Helion & Company Limited 2001
Reprinted in paperback 2006
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This English edition © Helion and Company 2002
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Contents
Publishers’ note. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x
Part I
The Supreme Command of the Military Leadership and
Administration during the war
A. The Supreme Army Command. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1. The Kaiser and the Great Headquarters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2. The Chief of the General Staff of the Field Army . . . . . . . . . . . 17
a. Chief and First Quartermaster-General. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
b. The General Staff Departments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
c. The Quartermaster-General and posts subordinate to him . . . . . . 20
d. Supreme Arm-of-Service Authorities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
e. External Departments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
f. The Training Regulations of the Supreme Army Command . . . . . 29
3. Decorations and Honours. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
B. The War Ministry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
1. The War Minister. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2. The War Ministry of August 1914 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3. Expansion of the War Ministry up to Autumn 1916 . . . . . . . . . 35
4. The Hindenburg Programme and the War Ministry from
November 1916. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
5. The War Ministry during 1917 and 1918. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
6. The War Ministry at the end of the war. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
7. General changes in clothing, armament and pay ordered by the
War Ministry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Part II
Changes in Army Organisation
A. General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
B. In the Army of the West . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
C. In the Army of the East. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
D. On the Italian Front . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
E. On the Balkans Front. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
F. In Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Part III
The Higher Command Authorities and their development
A. Senior Command Authorities newly-created during the war . . . . 65
1. The Supreme Commander East. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
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2. Army Group High Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
a. General. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
b. Army Group Hindenburg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
c. Temporary Army Groups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
d. Established Army Group Commands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
B. Command Authorities from Army High Command to
Division level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
1. General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
2. Army High Commands and Coastal Defence High Command . . . . 77
3. Army Detachments and Army Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
4. General Commands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
5. Senior Cavalry Commanders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
6. Infantry Divisions (with Jäger, Reserve, Landwehr, Ersatz, and Naval
Divisions together with Senior Construction Staffs) . . . . . . . . . . . 95
7. Cavalry Divisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Part IV
The History of the Field Army in its individual service arms
A. Infantry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
1. The Brigade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
2. The Infantry Regiment (also Reserve, Landwehr, Ersatz and
Landsturm Infantry Regiments; Field Recruit Depots) . . . . . . . 111
3. The Jäger Battalion and the Jäger Regiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
4. Special Formations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
a. Mountain and Ski Formations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
b. Cycle Formations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
c. Assault Battalions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
d. Automatic Rifle Battalions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
B. Machine Gun Formations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
1. Development under the Falkenhayn Army Command. . . . . . . . 121
2. Development under the Hindenburg Army Command . . . . . . . 123
C. Cavalry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
1. The Cavalry Brigade Staffs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
2. The Cavalry Regiment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
D. Artillery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
1. Senior Artillery Commanders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
2. The Troops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
a. Field Artillery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
a1. In the first two years of the war. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
a2. Under the Hindenburg Army Command. . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
b. Heavy Artillery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
b1. In the first two years of the war. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
b2. Under the Hindenburg Army Command. . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
3. The Artillery Survey Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
E. Pioneers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
1. Generals and Regimental Commanders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
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2. Field Pioneers and Miners, together with Close-combat weapons . . 155
a. Until the end of 1916. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
b. From January 1917 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
3. Searchlight units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
4. Minenwerfer units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
a. Under the Falkenhayn Army Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
b. Under the Hindenburg Army Command. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
5. Gas Troops. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
6. Flamethrower units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
7. Cavalry Pioneer Sections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
8. Special Formations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
9. Assault Battalion 5 (‘Rohr’) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
10. Pioneer Siege Trains and Pioneer Park Companies . . . . . . . . . 171
11. Pontoon Trains. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
F. Air Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
1. Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
a. Until October 1916. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
b. Under the Commanding General of the Air Forces . . . . . . . . . 175
2. The Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
a. Dirigible Airships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
b. Field Airship Troops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
c. Aeroplanes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
d. Aerial Photography Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
e. Anti-Aircraft Weapons and the Aircraft Reporting Service. . . . . . 190
e1. Anti-Aircraft Guns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
e2. Anti-Aircraft Machine Guns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
e3. Flak Searchlights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
e4. Aircraft Reporting Service. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
f. Meteorological Service. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
G. Survey and Topographical Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
H. Armoured fighting vehicle units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
I. Signals Troops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
1. Until Autumn 1916 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
2. First reorganisation under the Hindenburg Army Command . . . . 202
a. Service Chiefs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
b. Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
3. Second reorganisation under the Hindenburg Army Command . . . 204
a. Service Chiefs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
b. Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
4. Female Signal Corps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
J. Field Railway Authorities and Troops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
1. The Organisation of the Field Railway Service. . . . . . . . . . . . 209
2. Railway Troops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
3. Waterways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
K. Motorised Vehicle Troops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
1. Until March 1915 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
2. The Organisation of the Motorised Vehicle Service from 10.3.1915
and its development up to December 1916 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
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3. The Reorganisation of 15.12.1916 and development up to the
end of the war . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
4. Imperial Voluntary Automobile Corps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
5. Imperial Motor Boat Corps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
L. Munitions Columns and Trains. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
1. At the beginning of the war . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
2. From 1915. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
a. Service Chiefs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
b. Munitions Columns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
c. The Trains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
M. The Medical Service in the Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
N. The Field Police . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
O. Labour units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
P. Technical and administrative special formations. . . . . . . . . . 231
1. Works Departments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
2. Electric Power Detachments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
3. Salvage Formations (Salvage and Collection Services) . . . . . . . . 232
4. The Representatives of the War Ministry for Extraction of Raw
Materials from the Occupied Areas in the West, and their agencies . 233
5. Prisoner of War and Prisoner Formations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Part V
The Lines of Communication
A. Lines of Communication Inspectorates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
B. Lines of Communication Formations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
C. The Supply Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Part VI
The Administrations of the Occupied Territories
A. General Governments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
1. General Government Belgium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
2. General Government Warsaw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
B. Military Administrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
1. The Territory of the Supreme Commander East. . . . . . . . . . . 250
2. Military Administration Rumania . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Part VII
Authorities and units in Germany
A. The Deputy General Staff of the Army and the home front
agencies of the Chief of the Field Railway Service . . . . . . . . . 255
1. The Deputy General Staff of the Army. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
2. The home front agencies of the Chief of the Field Railway Service. . 256
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B. The War Department of the War Ministry, the War Department
posts and War Economy departments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
1. The War Department . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
2. War Department offices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
3. War Economy Departments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
C. The Deputy General Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
D. Fortress Governments and Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
E. Infantry and Jäger. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
F. Machine Gun Troops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
G. Cavalry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
H. Artillery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
1. Field Artillery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
2. Foot Artillery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
I. Pioneers and their variants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
1. Pioneers, Engineer Committee and searchlight formations. . . . . . 274
2. Minenwerfer troops and Close-combat Weapons Park troops . . . . 275
3. Gas Troops and anti-gas protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
4. Flamethrower Troops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
J. Air Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
1. Under the Inspectorate of the Military Air and Motorised Vehicle
Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
2. From April 1915. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
a. Airship troops and Meteorological stations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
b. Aviation Troops. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
c. Home Air Defence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
c1. Until mid-December 1916 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
c2. Under the Commander of Air Defence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
3. The Intendance of the Air Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
K. Signals Troops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
L. Railway Troops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
M. Motor Vehicle Troops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
N. Train . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
O. The General Inspectorate of the Military Communications Service
and special technical formations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
P. Medical departments and the War Medical Inspectorates . . . . . 293
Q. The Inspectorate of Military Penal Institutions. . . . . . . . . . 294
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
Appendices
I. The Field Army, 17 August 1914 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
II. 18th Army, 21 March 1918. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
III. List of Brigade Staffs, Artillery and Pioneer Generals. . . . . . . 340
a. Infantry Brigades. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
b. Cavalry Brigades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
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c. Field Artillery Brigades and Artillery Commanders. . . . . . . . . . 354
d. Foot Artillery and Artillery Generals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
e. Pioneer Generals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
IV. List of Mobile Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
a. Infantry and Jäger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
b. Machine Gun Formations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
c. Cavalry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
d. Field Artillery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
e. Foot Artillery and Artillery Survey units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
f. Pioneers and variant units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
g. Airship units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380
h. Aviation units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
i. Anti-Aircraft units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
j. Signals Troops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
k. Field Railway Troops. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
l. Armoured fighting vehicle units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388
V. Commanders and their General Staff Chiefs . . . . . . . . . . . 389
VI. Abbreviations and glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
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Publishers’ Note
DespitethevastamountofliteratureproducedintheEnglishlanguageabout
theFirstWorldWar,or‘GreatWar’,adetailedworkdescribingtheorganisa-
tionandstructureoftheGermanArmyhasfailedtoappear.Itishopedthatthe
translationandpublicationofthisbookwillfillthatnotablegap.Itwasoriginally
planned that supplementary order-of-battle material would be added to this vol-
ume.However,suchanextensiveamountofdatahasbeenuncoveredthatithas
beendecidedtoissuethisseparatelyinadditionalvolumesatalaterdate.Thepub-
lisherswouldbeverypleasedtoreceivecorrectionsandadditionstothisbookfrom
interested readers, so that these can be incorporated into future volumes.
Dates:alldatesarerenderedasday/month/year,hence1.6.16=1June1916.
A list of abbreviations and German military terms used in the text can be
found in Appendix VI, Abbreviations and Glossary.
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