The German Army on Campaign, 1914–1918

Bob Carruthers

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781473837829
• eBook ISBN: 9781473889286
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

This is the photographic history of the German Army on campaign throughout the First World War. The most striking images from the German perspective are gathered here and form a significant historical record of one of the most important events of modern history.In 1914, the German war machine began its advance into Europe. By 1918 the German Army had lost over two million men, and suffered through some of the most horrific events in human memory. In a war caused by politics, it was the ordinary men who lost their lives and here we aim to highlight the human cost of the conflict from beginning to end.

The German Army On Campaign 1914-1918

The men who look back at us from the pages of this book were members of the German Army. Unlike the British and French armies against whom these men were pitched during the Great War, it is an institution which no longer exists. The German Army enjoyed a relatively brief incarnation, it was formed after the unification of Germany under Prussian leadership in 1871, and was dissolved in 1919, following the defeat of the German Empire in the Great War. The men pictured within these pages knew the force in which they served as the Deutsches Heer or German Army, which was the name given to the combined land and air forces of Germany.

It is important to understand that the German Army was not a heterogeneous institution. It was comprised of four major elements drawn from the major states of Germany, each of which had its own distinct character and traditions. Shortly after the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, the North German Confederation had entered into a series of conventions on military matters in order to regularise military matters with states that were not members of the confederation. The largest of the semi-autonomous states within the German Empire namely Bavaria, Württemberg, Saxony and Baden were to provide the four major non-Prussian elements of the German Army with Bavaria providing the largest contingent. In times of peace the contingents of the Bavarian, Saxon and Württemberg kingdoms were independent entities, however in times of war the Prussian Army assumed almost total control over the armies of the other states of the Empire.

Despite taking their marching orders from Berlin, the Bavarian, Saxon and Württemberg armies maintained distinct identities. Each kingdom had its own War Ministry. Bavaria and Saxony published their own rank and seniority lists for their officers and Württemberg’s list was a separate chapter of the Prussian army rank lists. Württemberg and Saxon units were numbered according to the Prussian system, but Bavarian units maintained their own numbering system (thus, the 2^nd Württemberg Infantry Regiment was Infantry Regiment No. 120 under the Prussian system).

The largest of the four armies was the Bavarian Army. It had formed the army of the Electorate of Bavaria from 1682-1806 and then the Kingdom of Bavaria from 1806 onwards. It therefore existed from 1682 as the standing army of Bavaria until the merger of the military sovereignty of Bavaria into that of the German State in 1919. However, the Bavarian army was never comparable in size to the armies of the Great Powers of the 19^th century, but it did provide the Bavarian Wittelsbach dynasty with sufficient scope of action to transform Bavaria from a territorially-disjointed small state to the second-largest state of the German Empire after Prussia. The Bavarian Army was a marginally less egalitarian outfit ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• The German Army On Campaign 1914-1918