The Imperial German army of 1914
The boots of nearly two million men were drawn from 26 States to march to the Guns of August
When the guns of august blew that began the Great war that we now world war one, the Imperial German Army was a unique organization. The German army that fought the French, Austrians and Danes in the latter part of the 19th Century was a coalition based army made up from several independent nations. The German empire in 1914 consisted of 26 states that included free cities, principalities, duchies and kingdoms. To be sure, there was no such thing as the Imperial German Army, as the five largest states provided their own land forces.
The largest of these forces was the Prussian Army. This large and dedicated force provided the backbone of the overall German war effort by placing 158 infantry and 11 Guards Regiments into the field or about 76% of the army. On the eve of World War I, a majority of two thirds of the officers in the Prussian Army were members of the nobility. Bavaria with the second largest field army provided 24 infantry regiments. The German Kingdom of Saxony contributed 17 regiments of grey uniformed infantry. The fourth army was made up of the ten regiments that came from the kingdom of Wurttemberg. The duchy of Baden provided its own army corps with eight regiments. The German army was famous for its complicated chain of command. At no time were soldiers ever free from supervision by a superior officer; even at the latrine a Gefreiter was required to supervise the activities of his squad. At the top of the chain was the Kaiser, who was theoretically second only to God and called himself a warlord. Often members of the Royal houses of these kingdoms were given commissions as generals over entire army groups in one of the last examples of kings leading armies on the modern battlefield.
Standardization and the use of one overall General staff (the OHL) was the key to the four armies being able to coordinate activities. The OHL was a model of modern war planning. So minute was Alfred von Schlieffen’s plans for victory over France that it even included the site where the French would be directed to meet German delegates to negotiate an armistice( the railroad station at Provins). The 1898 Mauser rifle, P08 Luger pistol, and maxim machine gun were common to all armies as was the same general grey uniform and spiked pickelhabe helmet. Regiments were given dual designations as both a unit of their kingdoms army as well as a different name/number designation in the mobilized national army. For instance the peace time 6th Westphalia Regiment in the Prussian army was the 55th Regiment in the wartime Reich Army. The main difference observed moving from army to army amongst the Germans was in minor traditions, decorations, and in the accents of the German language used.
The German soldier carried a set of six ammunition pouches suspended from a leather belt. A Brotbeutel (bread bag), an identity disc that had engraved on it the regimental and company number as well as the number of the individual on the company roll. Initially the German soldiers wore dark brown corduroy trousers and grey-brown jackets. As the war wore on these men switched to a more plain uniform and the distinctive spiked helmet of Hogan's Hero's fame was replaced by the infamous coal scuttle 'Fritz" helmet used by the German army from 1916 until the end of the second world war.
The Army Law of 1913 was designed to produce an army of 870,000 active men with 669 infantry battalions, 633 artillery batteries, and 550 cavalry squadrons. When mobilized with reservist and fully fleshed out this army amounted to 1,750,000 men in the front lines when war was declared on August 2nd, 1914 with and equal number of second rate reservists in home guard units. This outnumbered army was to oppose the 1,100,000 man French army, the 3.5 million men Tsarist Imperial Army, the Belgian army, as well as the combined British Expeditionary Force. The German air service had about 230 aircraft, in 33 Feldflieger Abteilung (FFAs) (flying sections) with six aircraft each, ten fortress detachments of four aircraft each, plus nine airships, and 54 aircraft in the naval service
Four years of war saw 13,400,000 Germans of all backgrounds placed into the grey uniform of the nation. The graves of the eastern, western and southern fronts kept 2,040,000 of these men for all time while another five million took home visible life changing wounds. This ratio of losses in which more than half of the ranks were either killed or wounded was the highest of any of the combatant armies in what was supposed to be the War to End All Wars.
german soldier in 1914 unform exhibit camp Shelby
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german soldiers battle of marne
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