bob lembke
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Posts posted by bob lembke
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Thanks to everyone for posting these great documents. What eye-candy!
In addition to drooling over them, I have scribbled the unit and personnel information down and entered the info in my timelines and storm unit rosters. So far only my Garde=Reserve=Pionier=Regiment (Flammenwerfer) is of any size (app. 1200 men), but "great oaks from little chestnuts grow".
If Daniel Murphy is still tuned in, can I ask you to clarify the info on your neat EK II document. (My eyes are a bit dodgy.) It was "Grenadier Gustav Gron"? My grasp of his last name is debatable.
Additionally, reading signatures is often a real bear. Was the CO a Major Gentle? Again, the last letters in particular are debatable. Very few of the officers of these units were "regular" line officers, and the research tools like Ranglisten are usually almost useless. Willi Rohr, however, had a career in line units and can be traced. By the way (someone asked), I believe that he died in 1926, at quite a young age.
Bob Lembke
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Chris;
I appreciate the advice. My father was in the unit in question about 4-5 times, as he seemed to have been initially trained there (a period say 6-8 weeks); he was sent there from G=R=P=R when he was wounded and medically declared unfit for FW duty, seemed to have been there for duty training new recruits. I have his oral history and lots of correspondence to fill out what he was doing at these different times. From his Pass he was in a number of units, with at least 11 transfers. However, his glee at shooting his company CO might have had something to do with him being passed along. During the war and for about 6-7 years after the war he was quite a handful. Freikorps, Schwartze Reichswehr, and then worked as a bodyguard. His photos show him in a skin-tight suit with the bulging outline of a P 08 under the right front of his suit jacket. He had a carry permit (which I think I have) from the Schwartze Reichswehr, which had close ties with the riot police. His cell leader upon occasion carried a MP 18.
Then I got the Pass of the other Flamm=Pionier, and sure enough he started out in this same unit and after 6-8 weeks he was transferred to G=R=P=R and sent to its HQ in France (as my father was) for training at the training company at the HQ before then being sent to a field company for combat duty.
So on the basis of two Paesse I think I have this figured out. However, I would love to study three or dozens of G=R=P=R Paesse to nail this down and learn many other things.
I have a copy of one S=B Rohr soldier, a MGer, and from that I think I have figured out something about where Rohr got their MG troops from. Again, more Paesse would be great. There is so much information in these documents, and I think mostly reliable, compared to the rubbish so many write about WW I.
So the guy on your great certificate is: Leutnant der Reserve Alwin Zirkler, and the EK I was awarded 27. January 1917, and the certificate dated 22 July 1917 ? (I have had cataracts, and my eyes are a bit dodgy.)
Also, Chip, your guy is: Pionier Johanes Gruben, who got his EK II on March 10, 1918, with the certificate dated March 11, 1918 ?
These guys will be in the S=B Rohr roster that I have barely started. Thanks for your help. I will start a roster for S=B Nr. 1 and put the other guy in.
I know a German who would like to, as far as possible, recreate a roster spanning the whole German Army (Armies) of the Kaiserzeit. Not (quite) as crazy as it sounds; certainly not as crazy as a 4600 pound FW in the trenches.
Bob Lembke
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Hi,
I vaguely remember reading that before becoming Stinkpioniers the Pionier Batln 36 was actually Ersatz Pionier Batln. 36 with no attachment to any combat unit. Once it became a fully fledged Gastruppe, maybe it was Aus der maus, but I am thinking more in Terms of the later Ersatz unit for the Pionier Batln 36.
The kind of technical skills the gas cylinder and Flame thrower men needed must have been similar, not from a combat perspective, but from a equipment perspective.
It could well be that the Ersatz Batln, having more recruits on their hands than they could forward to their unit ( as gas soldiers are not killed that often), supplied men to other units? i.e. "Say, anyone have any men in the "Locksmith, plummer" kinda vein? Men who know their way arounds tanks and hoses?"
Hi, Chris;
I just read thru Cron, and it sheds no light, aside from confirming the origin of P=R Nr. 35 and 36 and their eventual conversion to P=B Nr. 35, 36, 37, and 38. (Other battalions were added later, and the units shifted from cylinder attacks to projector attacks.)
One of the many mistakes (besides chosing Foulkes in the first place) the Brits made re: flame warfare was to put their flame company into the gas brigade. I think that they had the same idea, similar technology, etc., but the temperment required was very different. Foulkes recruited a lot of pharmacist and plumbers' apprentices, and while they were fine sneaking about doing basically plumbing work while hidden in a trench or a dugout they, or their officers, didn't seem to have the stomach to grab the damn FW and sneak and/or charge toward the enemy; their entire effort seemed to be trying to hide and avoid that effort. The best example is the crazy idea to take a 4600 pound device, disassemble it into 200-300 man-carries, carry it into a trench and then into an underground sap, and then try to push the monster towards the enemy underground, eventually poking a flame nozzle up thru the ground like a U-boat periscope up thru the water, to blindly spray flaming oil (hopefully) toward the enemy. A crazier idea could hardly be imagined.
I have my father's Militar=Pass (which regretably is strangely missing info that I find in all of the other 40-50 Paesse that I have studied, possibly due to his war with his company bureaucracy), and two kind collectors, one German and one in California, gave me a copy of another G=R=P=R and a S=B Rohr Pass, each has taught me interesting things about the formation of these units, where their men came from, etc. In this fashion I have discovered an interesting origin of the G=R=P=R men, which unfortunately I will have to keep under my hat until I publish. (For the second time I am enjoying having a book published with major inputs from myself and probably no credit whatsoever.)
Chris, I am building rosters of the men of these storm units. My G=R=P=R roster was two men a few years ago; now it is about 1200. I have just started rosters of S=B Rohr and Jaeger=Sturm=Bataillon Nr. 3, and will happily collect the names of men belonging to other storm units. I would be delighted if you would make available names and related info for such men from your collection of award documents. Likewise, I will be happy to do look-ups for you. I collect names, ranks, sub-unit, date, place, and nature of death if died in service, etc., and awards, if known. I am a bit confused. Was Fritz Hinze a member of S=B 1 or S=B 5? (Of course I want to cram him immediately into one or another roster!)
Bob Lembke
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Hi,
According to him the FW Zug for Rohr came from the Flammenwerfer Regiment Pionier Bataillon 36... which is obviously wrong, but potentially has an understandable error... I think the Pionier Bataillon 36 is the answer.
I have to check a reference, but Pionier=Bataillon Nr. 36 was one of the cylinder gas release units set up by Haber and his co-workers. There first was Pionier=Regimenten Nr. 35 u. 36 of two battalions each, but these were later broken up into four battalions without regimental structures. What this has to do with FW, I don't know. I think he was just incorrect. Reddemann had a very large training infrastructure; training was first done in Berlin (my father had this duty when disabled by a wound), and finished at his training company at the flame regiment HQ in France.
According to a reference I have, ALL Sturm Bataillons had intergral FW units that were not part of GRPR. Most had just 3 Werfer, but 5. and 11. both had 9 werfer. Nr. 16.,17., 9., and 18. had to make do with only 2 werfer each.
Yes, that is a topic that I am very curious about. Reddemann, who I am sure did not like that arraingement, does not say a word about those arraingements. Would be very interested in your source.
(Pop had a very poor opinion of most German, French, and British troops, a position that I feel was unfair.)
He also seems to had a poor opinion about his Officers and NCOs :-) ... how many soldiers actually got a thumbs up? :-)
The only troops that he approved of in a blanket fashion were the Turks. Of course not as technical soldiers, but in terms of spirit. He had fought at Gallipoli as a volunteer Pionier before he joined the flame troops. (In the 1920's he ran guns to the Turks, invaded by the Greeks.) And he approved of the men of the elite units like Sturm=Bataillon Nr. 5 (Rohr) . He did not think much of most German troops, who he said tended to run away when they turned on the FW. He fought the French a lot, and he said that they had elan for the attack, but no stomach for the defense, at least against FW, and gave concrete evidence of that. I think he fought a bit against the Brits, possibly in Flanders, but I don't have specifics. He said that they were stubborn in the defense, but were dodgy in the attack, which I think was unfair. He later fought in the Freikorps in Berlin,and then was in the Schwartze Reichswehr. So he had a lot of experience with different opponents. He was one of that crazy 2% who really loved the war.
His company CO was a serious coward, stole the men's money, and, as an infantry officer, insulted the Pioniere. My father was delighted to shoot him. (There were no other Flamm=Pioniere within about 100 km, and the company CO could get away with a lot, at least for a while.) The Feldwebel knew that the Oberleutnant stole the men's money and in order to take earned leave men had to be buggered by him. He also allowed the cooks to steal food and sell it to French pig farmers. So the command structure was a corrupt crew. For his part, Pop was educated, some college, spoke six languages, had a really big mouth, and his father was a staff officer who outranked everyone. He visited Pop's company once, the company had to be called out for review, and then there was retaliation. He also ran a business in captured food-stuffs. So he was a good fighter, wounded four times, but hardly a "team player". So he led a Flamm=Trupp but never was even promoted to Gefreiter, and got his EK II in 1921. He really was quite a thug at that time.
Bob Lembke
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Hi, Gentlemen;
Running on memory here, often a dangerous proposition, but a couple of points, ventured without referring to my copy, which is exactly that, a really excellent bound xerographic copy.
Later in the war, and certainly in 1918, I believe that Sturm=Bataillon Nr. 5 (Rohr) had not one but two MG companies. With its five storm companies and its other combined arms units, it was almost twice the size of most of the storm battalions, which were, I believe, three storm companies and one MG company. Chris, does your document simply refer to "the MG company"?
Graf von Schwerin was an artilleryman. He wrote the history almost 20 years after the events, having been lent Rohr's diary by his widow. Probably for that reason he goes on a great deal about the infantry gun battery, which I concede is an interesting topic, while almost entirely ignoring my personal mania, the Flammenwerfer (FW). S=B Rohr had its own FW detachment, and additionally periodically borrowed a FW Zug from Major Dr. Reddemann's FW regiment. My father was a member of 2. Kompagnie, Garde=Reserve=Pionier=Regiment (Flammenwerfer) for much of the war, which was based not that far from Rohr, and he had the duty of fighting in the platoon lent to Rohr several times, a duty that he much enjoyed, due to their professionalism. (Pop had a very poor opinion of most German, French, and British troops, a position that I feel was unfair.)
S=B Rohr's FW Abteilung seemingly was not a part of Reddemann's unit, although I think that they must have required technical and probably training support from G=R=P=R. My guess that it was, in size, about a Halb=Zug. I also assume that Reddemann, who was sensitive to questions of "turf", did not like that arraingement and for his part seems to never mentioned it in his published writings. I would be delighted if anyone knows more about this issue and chimes in.
Bob Lembke
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Thanks to all of you, who have all added to my understanding of this puzzling numeration.
In a similar vein, reading German sources on the Battle of Verdun, a pioneer battalion was fighting there, parceled out to several units to provide stiffening to assaulting units, and to add their bag of tricks, like geballtene Ladnungen u. Brandrohren to blow their way into a given fort, and I noticed that (working from memory here) there was Komp. 1./Pionier=Bataillon Nr. x, Komp. 2./ -----, Komp. 3./------, Komp. 4./-------, aber auch Reserve Kompagnie 2./Pionier=Bataillon Nr. x ! Maybe in this case the "excess" was used to form "Reserve" companies as well as "Feld" companies, or perhaps a company from the proper reserve battalion was sent to fight alongside the active line battalion, probably all fighting with infantry from the parent Armeekorps.
For me, the complexity of the organization of the German armies of the period adds to their interesting quality.
Bob Lembke
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I am reading the history of Infanterie=Regiment Nr. 31 "Graf Bose" , and in an attack the unit was supported by Pioniere. Below I will list three descriptions of the pioneer unit from the text:
Lt. Prien of the "2. F. Pi. K. 9." is awarded the EK I. (A Lt. Prien later shows up as the Provisions Officer of the I. Bataillon, I=R 31. )
Mention is made of " 1. Zug 2./F. Pi. K. 9. " .
Mention is made of " Pioniere (2./Pi. 9) "
As IR 31 was part of 18. ID and IX Armeekorps, I think I am on sound grounds to think that "Pi. 9." refers to Pionier=Bataillon Nr. 9, which in 1900 was the pioneer battalion of IX Armeekorps. Likewise, it is fairly certain that all three citations refer to the battalion's 2nd Company, and one to that company's 1st Platoon. But what does "F. Pi. K." refer to, specifically? "K" probably refers to Kompagnie. What about the "F"? "Feld"?
It looks like the pioneer battalion's 2nd company was closely associated with the regiment. What about a pioneer lieutenant ending up in an infantry unit? Or perhaps a brother?
The extreme German abbreviations are OK, and saved a lot of paper and printer's ink, but when they are used in a non-standard fashion, one is waist-deep in the swamp.
Bob Lembke
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Uwe;
Thanks for the help. I had read the address easily, and had not attempted the text. I was not sure where Friesenheim was, and actually did not know that the Pfalz was part of Bavaria. Until a few hours ago I was in a terrible time press, fortunately now eased off.
Bob Lembke
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Hi,
the sender is his wife!
"26.3.1915
Lieber Heinrich! ... In der Hoffnung auf ein baldiges Wiedersehen gr??t dich herzlich deine dich innig liebende Frau & Kinder"
"Dear Heinrich! ... ... wife and children,"
Regards
Uwe
I didn't even try with the text; my eyes are less than perfect and I don't read Suetterlin well lying on my side. But I had hoped that the text would sort out who was the sender and if the guy in the photo was the recepient, or a very similar sergeant. Was the card sent from a place on the Rhine? Not from Bavaria? I can't work on this now.
Bob Lembke
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Douglas;
Are you able to read the reverse? The PC seems to be sent to the platoon sergeant pictured in the photo, unless the sender and addressee are very similar soldiers, based on Chip's information. Despite the smudges, the writing is basically very good, if a bit curious to me. If you post an enlarged scan of the text of the message, oriented right side up, Perhaps someone or myself will read it for you. But, usually the stamps, cancellations, etc. tell more than the text, which usually is of the vein "warm socks, rotten food". PC seems to be sent from a civilian location, not a military unit.
Bob Lembke
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Hi Bob,
I have paid the Larcade's book 34 euros. I don't know where you have bought it but it is a little high price
Regards
Christophe
I got my copy at about 34 Euros from the publisher, but then the print run, possibly only 500, was sold out, and I tried to get a copy for a friend, and ran into really high prices. I hope that it was reprinted.
Bob Lembke
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It looks like it was hit by one of those ultra large caliber shells!
My father was trained to knock out British tanks by getting a geballtne Ladnung (six "potato masher" warheads tied or wired about a complete "potato masher" grenade, which served as the fuze and detonator for all seven) into a roof hatch. He said that one guy in his unit knocked out three tanks in two days by this method. The stick grenade was not a fragmentation grenade but a powerful concussion grenade; one can imagine the effect of the explosion of seven of them simultaniously within the confined space of a Mark IV, which also contained the fuel tank, I believe. I suspect the damage pictured would be consistent with this form of attack, although it might have been hit by a shell on the other side, say a 10.5 cm howitzer round. I believe that some of these were used as "infantry guns", as well as the 7.7 cm fieldpiece.
Bob Lembke
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Check AbeBooks.They don't have that particular title, but there seems to be a fair selection by other authors.
I think that, at any given moment, abebooks lists about 70,000,000 books for sale, so they offer lots of different books, and if they don't offer a copy of a book it must be quite scarce. Lots of German used book bookstores list their offerings on abebooks as well as ZVAB. I don't know about French bookstores.
Lacarde wrote a nice book about German stormtroop units, sort of an Osprey type of book, I got one from the publisher, but they seemed to be for sale for about $80, a bit steep for a paper-bound short book.
Bob Lembke
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It is easy to find info on the Leib Regt attacking Fleury, ditto for the the 10th bavarian Infantry attacking towards the Kalte Erde... But between them were the 2nd bavarian J?ger Batln... I remember reading something about them on that day.... but cannot remember where... the Batln history has suprisingly little on this major event....
Any ideas ? Jens?
I believe that this fighting was described in Volumes 14 and 15 of the Schlachten des Weltkrieges series. There was a major employment of Flammenwerfer in this fighting.
Bob Lembke
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It seems that the seriously wounded passed from Hospitals to Ersatz battalions. then out of the service. The Ersatz battalion was a proccessing unit for them. Depending on how long their "Kur" period took, it could go on for years.
I suppose the system back then had them looking after the guys better then modern times when they find themselves out on the street just months later.
They also had recuperation companies (I have forgot the exact German term) and my father was parked in one for a while. There is a lot of insight into the detailed and complex actions of the german Army of the era to make maximum use of men with different levels of disabilities. I have an interesting Pass of a young man who was in a Guards regiment, but within a few weeks of fighting it was discovered that he had a bad heart. He was treated and later shifted to something like a Landsturm battalion, where I assume it was felt that he could keep up with the older men, and perhaps only guard a bridge rather than be in combat. (I have coronary heart disease, which certainly put a halt to my Alpine climbing, for example, so I "have been there".) I also have studied Paesse where a man was badly wounded, recovered somewhat, was put in a war factory, but still was a soldier, and a couple of years later was discharged, probably when the medical types realized that he would never recover enough to return to an army unit in a useful way.
The Germans were acutely aware of their limited numbers of men and seemed to make great efforts to use men carefully, as they did with other resources. I suspect that when the German Army finally broke down, all of the resources, men, materiel, etc., had been closely managed, and when things finally "ran out" there was no slack in the system at all, and the whole war economy and machine just broke down. Does anyone know the poem; "The Parson's Wonderful One-horse Shay", about a wagon so perfectly made that it ran for 100 years, and one day 100 years out the owner was racing down the road and his damned carraige had every part all break or wear out at the same instant, and the rider ended up in the road sitting on a pile of junk?
Bob Lembke
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Hi, Chris;
I had thought that you meant that his career was over, in the sense that he was dead or out of the army in a month or two. Certainly the active phase of his career was. It was common for men with persistant wound disability to be parked in an Ersatz=Bataillon or Depot while he was watched to see if he recovered enough for active duty. My own father was wounded in late 1916 at Verdun, spent 1917 in a variety of hospitals and recuperation units (Effort was made to keep him in contact with his unit; in fact shortly after his wound he was sent from the hospital to his unit for a weekend!). He had an arm wound that got reinfected and spit out bone fragments for over 10 years. Early in 1918 he was sent to the unit in Berlin which did the preliminary training of flame pioneers, where he presumably trained recruits for flame warfare. His Pass has the interesting notation, after a medical evaluation: "k. v., ohne Flammenwerfer"; or: "fit for combat, not with flame throwers". As an experienced Flamm=Pionier, and a guy with a technical education, he must have been considered more valuable as a flame thrower trainer than as just another body for the infantry meat-grinder. Finally, he performed some sort of trick to go back to the front, to a different flame company, where he was wounded twice more in a month for his trouble.
I have some Paesse that are very short due to wounds, disability, etc. However, all of them are interesting and tell you things.
I had thought that you suggested that IR 103 was full of volunteers. The reserve regiment certainly could have been. Having seen the carnage in Belgium, my grand-father pushed my father toward the Pioniere, not the infantry, where he said that my father would learn useful things. I think in one letter g-f wrote that as a Pionier he would build and hold the storm ladders, while the infantry would climb up the ladders and charge into the wire.
Hope that you do not mind the personal stuff. I would think that it would be interesting, a different slant than you get from the usual books. It is mostly from a lot of correspondence, mostly Feldpost, and a lot of family oral history.
Bob Lembke
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Chris, I think it reads: Soldat ( Zweij. Freiw.) Zweij?hriger Freiwilliger = two year volunteer
Hardy
I second Hardy's reading.
Chris, where do you get the 2 month career? On post # 2, the various dates span from August 1914 (his possible intake) to his award of the EK II on July 1916.
Not an authority here, but the "slaughter of the innocents" concept is a bit overworked. However, the charges in Belgium were bad enough that my grand-father (there as a staff officer) spent a lot of energy keeping my father from volunteering for the infantry. I have a rather dramatic letter from him describing a Belgian battlefield, with all the contorted corpses, and the battlefield being very cold, which in August/September was certain really not physically cold. The damn letter seems to have a bloodstain on it! I should have it chemically analysed!
The IR 103 was an active regiment, it was not all volunteers, I would think.
These Paesse are a tremendous historical resource, but the lack of any organization or liason makes them almost useless as an organized resource.
Bob Lembke
PS: Chris, would you like to post more of the Pass?
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Hi,
I am looking for some information on the above...
Seems to have been a weapons and ammunition research center... Does anyone have an idea?
Thanks
Chris
Chris;
Isn't this town in Bavaria? I started poking thru my preuss. Ranglisten, but I realize that they will be no help.
Bob Lembke
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Glenn and Dave,
Thanks for the replys. My question originated when I looked into my unit history to get some information on an officer, whose wartime tunic is owned by an acqaintence. The odd thing is that the tunic has the shoulder boards of the 145.IR, but the officer, one Hauptmann d.R.Brune, was listed as the F?hrer of the 11.Komp. of RIR67.
And Glenn, it also mentions that he was wounded on August 24, 1914, the same day that your Major was killed. Was the III/RIR67 with the 145.IR on that day?
Chip
Chip;
Far from a uniform expert, but was it considered Kosher for an officer from a regular regiment, when seconded to a reserve unit to fill up its ranks when the war started, to continue to wear the shoulder boards of the old regiment? Also, in the rush to get reserve units "out the door" at the start of the war, officers had better things to do than rush off to their military tailors. When the war started, my grand-father was taken out of the Landwehr reserve and put into the Generalkommando von III. Reservekorps. God knows what he was wearing, It had been a long time (18 years) since he was in a regiment, but if he was I think he would have gone off in the old uniform. Amazingly, the railroad volume of Der Weltkrieg 1914-1918 states that the III. RK was able to "get out the door" three days after the III. AK marched out, to me an amazing feat of preparedness.
It seems that once an officer served in a Garde unit, they seemed to wear the Garde Litzen in later non-Guards postings. Is there a parallel? Perhaps the officer in question was sti;ll considered an officer of the older regiment, seconded to the reserve unit.
Bob Lembke
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Bob,
no problem and I can confirm the the Feuerwerker book lists Herr Fuchs with an EK1 but does not give any indication of the award date. Frustratingly, the wartime editions of the Milit?r-Wochenblatt listed Bavarian winners of the EK1 but not the Prussians!
If you need the scans again I can of course do that.
Regards
Glenn
Great! I was beginning to fear that I was totally "losing my marbles". I thought that you had estimated roughly when he got the EK I, I guess not. Perhaps the Generalkommando all got the EK II, and g-f later got the EK I, possibly for finding that 1100 car-loads of hidden nitrates, which was vital for the war effort. Family oral history says that he got a citation from the High Command for finding the explosives.
I don't want to bother you for the scans again. I am now embarrassed as the 5-6 places I put the great information are all temporarily not working. (Just wait, I may end up on your "doorstep", hat in hand, pleading for them in a month or two.)
It is really fascinating learning more and more about my g-f, a really interesting guy, a sensitive guy quite different from my father, who was a murderous thug at this point in his life. He later really mellowed out and was a great Dad. No one on my mother's side seemed to have served in the military, they were half English, many were communists, and some later suddenly popped up as Nazis, to the great amusement of the rest of the family. Pop and g-f were well to the right of the Nazis, died-in-the-wool monarchists.
Bob Lembke
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Hi,
not 100% historically correct.
1) The amount of brits involved in the fighting at Antwerp were proportionally less than the number of players of non European descent in a pre- end of Apartheid era South African Cricket team (if that is possible).
2) The III. R.K. was not on its own having the Marine- and 4th Ersatz Division with it.
3) The taking of Antwerp was facilitated by the fact that the belgians were leaving anyway. A victory against 150 000 men is of little practicle value when most of them turn up in Flanders a short while later to continue the fight. King Albert realised that holding Antwerp was not an option and while delaying with troops in front of it, he was evacuating like crazy at the back. It was the Schlieffen plan that made Antwerp redundant and caused it to be evacuated.
Just a couple of points as it is a section i am working on at the moment for some Iron Cross documents.
Best
Chris
There was a bit of puffery in my description, but I think that it is historically correct, without making your statement historically incorrect. First of all, the Kaiser was indeed delighted; one only has to read his telegram of congratulations to appreciate that.
The newly formed Marine Division and the 4. Ersatz Division were, along with some smaller units, such as a bicycle company or battalion on the right flank, added to the III. Reservekorps, not fighting alongside it, so technically one can say that the III. RK alone was fighting tha Allied forces.
Roughly, the Allied forces were as follows. I believe that six of the seven divisions of the Belgian army were in the action, if you include the Belgian cavalry division protecting the Allies' lines of communications. Belgian divisions were enormous, almost double the size of a German division. (I think that this is complicated by the fact that the Belgians had two things that they called "divisions", one, I think, twice the size of the other. I dimly recall a lengthy thread on this topic on another forum a year or two ago.)
The British forces were not inconsiderable, they were, if memory serves, the Naval Division, also newly formed (a brigade of sailors and one of Marines?), commanded by the intrepid Sir Winston, who I understand created great mirth when he telegraphed the Cabinet from Belgium requesting his promotion from lieutenant to major general. I believe that about 3500 men of the Naval Division were not able to retreat to the west but were driven into internment in Holland. (Did they ever rejoin the war effort?)
Additionally, the Antwerp fortress complex, the third biggest in the world, after Paris and Amsterdam, I believe, comprising something like 45 forts, was manned by about 30,000 fortress troops.
So six enormous Belgian divisions, plus the UK Naval Division, plus 30,000 fortress troops, must have been more than double the size of III. RK, which basically comprised four reserve and scratch divisions. Additionally, the defenders should have also had some advantage from the forts and being on the defensive. (But of course the 30.5 cm mortars and 42 cm howitzers were a big factor when they pounded forts which the Belgians were attempting to defend. I have letters written by my grand-father from the firing positions of these guns as they shelled forts, and I can locate some of these batteries within about 100 meters, based on the letters and other sources that I have.)
While the forces at Antwerp were in danger of being cut off, at the same time they were a serious threat to the lines of communication to the German forces further west.
So I think that both our statements were largely correct, except your suggestion that the British forces were comparable to two or three token black players on a Apartheid-era S. African football team; they were a full division, after all, although they possibly did not have all their artillery, etc.
I have a theory that Sir Winston, seeing the German 16.5" howitzers quickly reduce the Belgian forts, assumed that the 15" guns of the Queen Elisabeth would quickly blow the old Turkish forts up. But the guns, the ballistics, shells, etc. were very different. Sir Winston was not really a "detail guy".
Bob Lembke
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Bob,
a couple of thoughts:
in 1914 I would imagine the EK2 was still a very prestigious award.
The EK2 when newly presented was worn suspended from its ribbon in the second buttonhole.
Regards
Glenn
Glenn;
Got off my butt and went elsewhere in my house and actually looked at the photo of the Generalkommando at Ghent. I am learning more about the functioning of my memory. The photo shows the officers wearing one medal, not two, hanging from their second buttonhole, with one ribbon hanging the medal, and a second ribbon crossed over the ribbon that the medal hangs from. I believed at the time when I evaluated this photo re: the medals that when one EK ribbon is worn crossed over the other it represents having been awarded both EKs. (I am no expert on medals, by any means.) I guess that I then conflated in my mind that the men were wearing pairs of medals, not one medal with a pair of ribbons.
Some time ago you sent me two scans from your then recently purchased serious book on the Feuerwerker u. Feuerwerk=Offizier institution and their part in the war. I stored the scan in several ways, as I do with important materials. I have the scans themselves on a hard-drive (actually a RAID II pair of hard-drives), but an AOL download blew out my operating system big-time and the files there are for the while inaccessible. The material is mentioned and described in my family history time-line, and it mentions where printouts of the scans are in a hanging file that is not in its place in my paper file. (There are some files visable under a pile of material to be filed; it must be there. I have to do the filing to get at the files, unless I risk a "datalanche".) I also have a couple of copies in a pile of material that I am going to send to a couple of older family members that knew Heinrich. The long and the short of it is that I have saved the two scans in a number of ways and places, but that at the moment they all are inaccessable.
The two scans were a scan of an article written by Heinrich Fuchs for your book describing how he was, upon an order of the Ministry of War, sent out to roam over Belgium looking for valuable Beute, and how he did find goodies, including two rail cars of eau de Cologne, but his real prize was finding 1100 rail cars of nitrates. This jibes with the family oral history. The other scan was of another page of your book that, as I remember, listed the Feuerwerk=Offiziere that received the EK I during the war, and I believe that you gave an approximate date of the award.
I also preserved your scans with the e-mail that you used to send them, but that is also locked up in the computer with the blown operating system, which requires complex work to restore it to life. I just want to let you know that I have saved your valuable material in multiple fashions (five at least), but that for the moment they all are inaccessable. Thank you again for sending me this treasured information.
The page of awards could also be suffering a breakdown of my memory, and only be an award of his EK II, but as I recall the listing was limited, a listing of those getting the EK I would be more like a phone book.
The question remains why neither EK was mentioned in the book that Dave has uncovered. It suggests that that source is not complete.
I have other photos of my g-f wearing the EK, but they are in true archival storage, and a bit of a bother to get at. The photo of the Generalkommando of III. RK is actually a copy I made centuries ago and frames and hung somewhere.
Glenn, once again thanks for your help with my research.
Bob Lembke
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Bob,
Feuerwerks-Hauptmann d.L. Fuch's award of an EK2 is also confirmed in the Kriegs-Rangliste der s?mtlichen Offiziere im Bereiche der Feldzeugmeisterei as at 1 February 1916. That being the case his EK1 presumably came later?
Regards
Glenn
"Speaking of: "one of our most illustrious Pals"! I have a letter from g-f to my father, dated just after Antwerp fell, saying that, paraphrasing from memory: "I just had dinner with a high gentleman, and he confided that we are to get a high decoration." As he was the Id, I think that the "high gentleman" was either the Ia, who he reported to, possibly the AK chief of staff, or possibly the guy on the bureaucratic side that he reported to. As you know, the Id uniquely reported to both sides of the Generalkommando. Or, slight possibility, von Beseler himself.
Also, I have a picture of the Generalkommando standing on the steps of the City Hall in Ghent, I believe, 18 men displaying new pairs of medals hanging from the button-hole, von Beseler the OPLM, all looking quite pleased. The Kaiser telegraphed an enthusiastic congrats when Antwerp fell, and he probably ordered the mass decoration, I would guess.
So g-f and the other officers physically got their medals in the fall of 1914, at least physically. I don't know a lot about the bureaucratics of awarding medals.
Just now looked up my translation of the letter, which was dated September 30, 1914. (The above was from memory): " Yesterday evening I was with a gentleman that reports to the commanding general, and to our ???????? he has presented everyone the Iron Cross. "
As to the ?????, I translated the letter just after I started to teach myself German, I have to run at the letters again. I do see that my memory embellished the letter a bit. I think I transposed the "high decoration" from a statement of a Oberleutnant of my father's flame regiment, Theune, describing an award for a successful flame attack that he led at Verdun, where he used that phrase. I have not read the letter for 4-5 years, probably.
I also understand that the Germans took Ghent on October 12, 1914. As I said, the picture in Ghent shows happy officers, many sporting new identical pairs of medals.
Any opinions on this will be gratefully received.
Bob Lembke
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Dave;
You posted the scans while I wrote one of my overly long posts.
I have the scan of the page of the book that I mentioned, and I have a photo of the Generalkommando in Belgium, 18 of which seem to be wearing their new EK I and EK II, while von Beseler is showing off his OPLM. But the photo cannot definitively show that the set of two medals so many got were certainly those two medals. The Kaiser was delighted when III. RK beat up about 150,000 Belgians and Brits and took the third largest fortress complex in the world.
Perhaps the book you copied is not complete, or later Baenden completed the lists.
Bob Lembke
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Sturmbataillon and Flammenwerfer
in Germany: Imperial: Rick (Research) Lundstrom Forum for Documentation and Photographs
Posted
Chip;
Sorry; somehow I missed this interesting post. I have been juggling about four threads on a couple of fora, while attempting to have a bit of a life. I poked thru my roster for G=R=P=R, not just thru the Pioniere, but up the food chain up to Feldwebel. No hit. Regrettably, most of the men in my roster got there by getting killed (the death list of the G=R=P=R is, to my mind, extraordinarily accurate, for several reasons, not the least of which was the nature of the person that kept it up.) So Schloesser survived the war.
Sounds like this was not the Storm Battalion Nr. 16, if it belonged to the 26. Landwehr Division. What is a Landwehr division doing owning a storm battalion, especially one that never seemed to fight? Some line units formed semi-permament storm units from their own resources, but I have never heard of one bigger than a company. The true storm battalions were "owned" by armies, one to an army.
Or, perhaps this was the Sturm=Bataillon Nr. 16? Was the 26. Landwehr Division in the zone of the 16th Army at the time of the award? Was the date of Nov. 22, 1917 the date of the awarding of the EK II, or the date of the signing of the award? In one of the EK documents recently posted there was 5-6 months between the two dates. (My suspicion is that one was issued fairly promptly, and when the really neat forms became available a second one was written out as eye candy.)
If so, why did the Landwehr division issue the EK II, and neither the G=R=P=R or the S=B 16?
So many questions, so little time! The exact wording of the document may shed some light. Are there two dates? The award date was probably just after the incident triggering the award; most of the FW attacks in my time-line include the company of the attacking FW troops.
Bob Lembke