The Great War

Special Study: Mobilization of the German Army, August 1914

Berlin, 1 August 1914: An officer reads the Kaiser’s mobilization proclamation

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On 1 August 1914, Germany declared war on Russia and proclaimed mobilization, the process by which its peacetime army would transition to a war footing. With the exception of Britain, all major European powers used some variant of the cadre/conscript system, of which Germany’s was the most highly developed and most efficient example.

The peacetime strength of the German Army was 840,000, comprising long-service officers and soldiers plus the current intake of conscripts. This was called the Stehendes Heer (Standing Army), and it was backed up by trained reserves to the number of three million men: 1.3 million first-line reservists and 1.7 million second-line reservists. There was also the Ersatz (Replacement) Reserve, made up of men fit for active duty, but excess to annual conscription quotas or excused for various reasons. These men did bear a liability for reserve service, but only a small number had received any military training before 1914.

At the conclusion of their period of conscripted service, newly trained soldiers spent four or five years in the first-line reserve. They then passed into the second-line reserve, remaining there until they reached the age of forty-five, at which time their liability for military service ended. During their time in the reserves, they could be recalled to the colors for periodic refresher training. The system was designed to create and maintain a large pool of trained reserves, whose size was determined by the annual intake of conscripts. In Germany, budgetary considerations limited the annual conscript contingent to about half of liable young men; hence the existence of the Ersatz Reserve.

The Stehendes Heer was administered by eight Army Inspectorates (Armee-Inspektions), each supervising three or four of the twenty-four numbered corps district commands (Generalkommandos), which were responsible for the active military units stationed in their areas. These were sufficient in type and number to form a wartime corps: typically eight infantry regiments, two cavalry brigades, four field artillery regiments, a heavy field howitzer regiment, a Jäger (light infantry) battalion, a pioneer (combat engineer) battalion, an aviation detachment, and a train (transport and supply) battalion. The corps district commands were also responsible for mobilization of the first-line reserve units in their areas.

There was also a twenty-fifth corps headquarters, the Guard Corps (Gardekorps), stationed in Berlin, which did not administer a geographical corps command because it recruited its men from all over Germany. It also had more units than the numbered corps district commands. Its mobilization mission, however, was the same as that of the others.

Upon mobilization, the initial task of the corps district commands was to bring the units of the Stehendes Heer up to full war strength and to form reserve divisions, using for that purpose men of the first-line reserve. The men of the second-line reserve would be used to form militia (Landwehr and Landstrum) brigades, regiments and battalions. The corps district commands then split into two elements: the mobile corps headquarters that would command the regular infantry divisions in the field, and a small cadre that would remain behind as the Wehrkreis (military district) headquarters. Thus, for example, XX. Generalkommando divided into XX. Armee-Korps and Wehrkreis XX. Some of the corps district commands were also responsible for forming the reserve corps headquarters that would command reserve infantry divisions in the field.

The military districts constituted the Replacement Army (Ersatzheer), with the wartime mission of training newly conscripted men, dispatching reinforcements to units of the field armies, and forming new units. As the war went on, they were also empowered to direct economic mobilization and enforce wartime regulations in their areas.

The mobilized Army fielded fifty active infantry divisions, thirty-two reserve infantry divisions, and eleven cavalry divisions, plus a number of division-size Higher Landwehr Commands (Höherer Landwehr-Kommandeur). Also mobilized were six Ersatz infantry divisions. During mobilization, every regular infantry regiment formed a brigade Ersatz battalion to serve as a holding unit for reservists excess to requirements, men still in training, etc. These battalions each formed two infantry companies, which were then assigned to Ersatz brigades. The brigades used them to form four battalions, each with four companies. A similar process produced Ersatz field artillery battalions, cavalry detachments, and pioneer companies.  Four infantry battalions, two field artillery battalions, a pioneer company and a cavalry detachment made up an Ersatz Mixed Brigade (Gemischte Ersatz-Brigade). Nineteen such brigades were raised and eighteen of them were used to form six Ersatz infantry divisions. The overall strength of these divisions was about the same as an active infantry division.

A mobilized regular infantry division had 17,500 men. There were two infantry brigades, each with two regiments, each regiment with three battalions and a machine gun company. The divisional field artillery brigade had two regiments, each with two battalions. A cavalry regiment, one or two pioneer (combat engineer) companies, a medical company and a bridging column completed the division’s organization. Reserve infantry divisions were similarly organized but smaller, with around 15,000 men. Instead of a field artillery brigade they had only a regiment of two battalions. Some reserve infantry regiments had machine gun platoons in place of a full company. Both regular and reserve divisions sometimes had a Jäger battalion attached to them.

Except for the Guard Cavalry Division, no cavalry divisions existed in peacetime. For administrative purposes, regular cavalry brigades were assigned to the peacetime corps areas. Upon mobilization some of these brigades were combined to form cavalry divisions while others were broken up, their regiments becoming the reconnaissance element of regular infantry divisions. Cavalry divisions had three brigades with two cavalry regiments each, a horse artillery battalion, a machine gun detachment, a mounted pioneer squadron, a signals detachment, and a transport column. With 5,100 men and 5512 horses (riding and draught), cavalry divisions were substantially smaller than infantry divisions, though some of them were reinforced by an attached Jäger battalion.

The second-line reserve formations not earmarked to serve as fortress troops formed Landwehr Mixed Brigades (Gemischte Landwehr-Brigaden). These brigades had no standard organization but usually they had two infantry regiments, one or two field artillery batteries, a machine gun company or platoon, and a cavalry squadron. As noted above, these brigades could be combined to form a division-size Higher Landwehr Command. In August 1914, two such commands were grouped under a corps headquarters (Landwehrkorps) for service on the Eastern Front.

The regular and reserve infantry divisions were allotted to twenty-five regular corps and sixteen reserve corps on the basis of two per corps. An exception was the Guard Corps, which had three infantry divisions. Regular corps also had a heavy howitzer regiment, an aviation detachment, and various support units (medical, supply, transport and ammunition columns, signals). Most of the reserve corps had no heavy howitzer regiment. In a few cases, one of the divisions in a reserve corps was an Ersatz division or a Higher Landwehr Command. Regular corps and reserve corps bore the titles Armee-Korps and Reserve-Korps respectively. Ten of the cavalry divisions were allotted to four Senior Cavalry Commands (Höhere Kavallerie-Kommandos), usually referred to in English as cavalry corps.

The corps in turn were allotted to the field armies (Armeeoberkommandos), of which eight were mobilized in August 1914 by redesignating and reorganizing the eight peacetime Army Inspectorates. Thus, for example, VIII Armee-Inspektion became Armeeoberkommando 1, i.e. First Army. All but five infantry corps and the eleventh cavalry division went to the armies in the west, which were numbered First through Seventh. Eighth Army in East Prussia had three regular and one reserve corps, plus the cavalry division. One infantry corps (IX Reserve), reinforced with Landwehr formations, constituted the Army of the North, guarding Germany’s northern coast.

The numbered field armies varied in size, depending on the mission assigned to them. First Army, forming part of the right wing that was to sweep over Belgium into France, had five infantry corps (four regular, one reserve) plus a division equivalent of three Landwehr Mixed Brigades, for a total of eleven infantry divisions. Seventh Army, defending Lorraine, had one regular and one reserve corps, a reserve infantry division and a division equivalent of three Landwehr Mixed Brigades, for a total of six divisions.

Transitioning the Army to a war footing was just the first phase of mobilization. There followed the transportation, principally by rail, of the field armies to their deployment areas. In the west, this involved the movement of 1,500,000 men with their weapons and impedimenta from points all over Germany to the French and Belgian frontiers. According to plan, the excellent German railway system came under military control on the first day of mobilization. The railway experts of the Great General Staff had calculated that some 11,000 troop and supply trains would be required to complete the western deployment within two weeks. Thanks to careful planning and good management of the rail net, this stupendous operation went off without a hitch. At the height of the effort, trains were crossing the Rhine River bridges at two- or three-minute intervals.

By mid-August the seven armies facing France and Belgium were ready to execute the great right wheel first conceived by Count Schlieffen, while Eighth Army in East Prussia was bracing to meet the Russian steamroller. The hour had come. On 16 August 1914, the Germans launched their offensive—which as the Kaiser had assured his soldiers, would see them back home before the leaves fell from the trees.