solidity of organization, the Ersatz and Landwehr divisions, improvised but composed wholly of trained men and organized
according to scheme; and wholly improvised, divisions hurriedly
put together from miscellaneous sources in the fortresses of the
east. Further, there were a number of mixed Landwehr brigades,
both in the W. and the E., in addition to those forming parts of
divisions, and a large number of Landsturm units, serving wholly
as garrison troops in the W. but not uncommonly incorporated
in mobile Ersatz formations in the east.
The operating forces as apart from the fortress garrisons and the troops allotted to occupied territory and lines of communica- tion were divided into eight armies, I. VII. in France and Bel- gium (in numerical order from right to left), and VIII. in E. Prussia. The Silcsian Landwehr Corps (under Woyrsch) formed a separate command operating with the Austro-Hungarian armies.
The command was exercised by the Kaiser nominally, by the chief of the general staff (Moltke, Falkenhayn, Hindenburg) actually. In addition to supervising the eastern front and con- trolling war policy, the great general staff in its war form (the " supreme army direction," Oberste Heeresleitung or O.H.L.) directly commanded operations in France. From first to last no special commander-in-chief was appointed for the western front.
In the E. the VIII. Army grew into a great organization, comprising at one time in 1915 seven German armies, without counting Austrian armies included in its scope, or the German Southern Army which was outside it. This organization was under the commander-in-chief E. (Obcrbcfehlshabcr ost or Oberost), under whose headquarters the armies were grouped in two or more groups of armies 1 (Heeresgrupperi). But in spite of his title, the commander-in-chief E. exercised no powers of command over the Austrian front. Not until much later indeed was there unity of command in any form. As in the case of the Entente armies in the W., combined operations had always to be arranged between the German commander-in-chief E., through the chief of the general staff, with the Austrian higher command. Crises due to differences of opinion between the three authorities concerned were naturally frequent, and only gradually, by providing more and more assistance by direct reinforcements, 2 did the German command obtain an ascendency that was effective, and then it was the chief of the staff of the army and not the commander-in- chief E. who obtained and exercised it.
In the W., there was a strong case for the formation of groups of armies from the outset. The expedient of placing one army under the orders of another was tried occasionally, with unsatis- factory results. Otherwise, the control of events in the Marne campaign was in the hands of a distant O.H.L. into whose busi- ness the eastern front constantly thrust itself and which at one time (late Sept. 1914) seems to have had two heads. It was not until trench warfare had set in that groups of armies were formed in France. In sum, then, partly through events and partly from unwillingness to appoint a commander-in-chief in the only theatre in which German forces were employed exclusively, the offices of chief-of-staff and of commander-in-chief E. came to be overloaded with a mass of very varied functions which ranged from advising on economic policy and negotiating with Turkish staff officers and Lithuanian clergymen to weighing the pros and cons of a two-division operation. This was a considerable factor in the final defeat.
The strength in units of the three arms for both fronts and for the interior in Aug. 1914 may be taken, inclusive of Landsturm, as 1,700 battalions, 980 field and horse batteries, and 450-500 heavy (including immobile fortress) batteries.
Of these, approximately 987 battalions, 490 squadrons, and 820 field batteries of active, reserve and Ersatz formations, with,
1 Heer in German implies always the army as a whole, the " Host." The Heeresgruppe is a major subdivision of the Heer, and consists of several Armeen (armies) or A rmeegruppen (army-groups, i.e. groups of corps either are small or too temporary in character to be regularly constituted as " armies " with defined areas and lines of communication).
1 Finally, by allocating individual German battalions to Austrian divisions.
behind them, some 165 battalions and 28 squadrons and 30 field batteries of Landwehr, formed the western forces. To these should be added about 120 mobile batteries of heavy artillery (6-in. howitzers, 4-in. gun and upward). In order to arrive at a criterion of combatant strength it has become customary to use the infantry division as the unit, and to count unattached forces as equivalent to so many divisions, chiefly according to their infantry strength. It is calculated that there were in existence in the first weeks of the war 123 German divisions, or their equiva- lents in Landwehr and fortress brigades. Of these 77 constituted divisions and the Landwehr, etc., equivalent of 20 more were in the western theatre on Aug. 23 (the date of " high water " in the first phase), and 26 divisions or equivalents in the field and the fortresses (chiefly the latter) in the E., of which 13 at most could be considered as constituted divisions. In Sept. a naval division (shortly afterwards expanded to a corps) was formed and added to the forces in Belgium, for military duty and (later) for coast defence also.
Including engineers, communication troops, administrative troops and others of all categories, the total ration strength of the army immediately after mobilization may be taken at about 5,000,000. The number of untrained men liable to service (in- cluding youths of 17-20) was about the same.
The New Formations of Sept. 1914. The organization of all the above forces was either existing or deliberately prepared for in peace, with the exception of the Ersatz formations, and even as regards these latter, the idea of creating and employing them dates back to Schlieffen's tenure of office. But, especially, all had the common characteristic that they consisted wholly of men trained with the colours in peace.
The next pulsation of the national effort, in the last days of Aug. 1914, was the creation of a series of reserve divisions in which 75% of the rank and file were totally untrained. It has been noted that the Kriegsfreiwilligen, who presented themselves to the number of about a million, had merely been registered. As soon as the mobilization tide had receded and the depots were free, viz. about the middle of Aug., these men were called up, and formed, with a percentage of trained men (chiefly Landwehr II.), into new " Reserve " units numbered in the case of the infantry regiments from 201 upwards. These units were assembled in training camps, officered by such retired and reserve officers as were still available, constituted into brigades, divisions and army corps, and within six to eight weeks of formation thrown into the furnace of battle at Ypres and Lodz.
There were 13 of these divisions (43-54 R.D. and 6th Bav. R.D.), 12 constituting the 6 corps 22 R.-27 R. They have been described by German writers as " the glory of the country and the shame of the general staff " the glory of the country in that the flower of its young men composed them, and. the shame of the general staff in that, with a universal-service system existing in law and in practice, it had been unable to devise a system of service that would absorb and train them. These were the " levies " who advanced in masses, singing, under the rifle fire of the British Expeditionary Force at Ypres and of the Fusiliers Marins at Dixmude, and who at Lodz, with the Guard Res. Corps, first broke into the Russian positions and then extricated themselves from the most extraordinary " pocket " recorded in the history of the war. The story of these divisions may be interpreted in several ways. It will suffice here to say that their effort was the culminating point of the attempt to win the war outright, and that with its failure to do so, the German nation, not less than the army authorities, began to realize that the war would be a contest of endurance.
One more series of new divisions was created, however, before the policy of preparing for a war of endurance was applied to recruiting. The class of recruits who would normally have joined for training in Oct. 1914 were called up when the depots were clear of the first " new reserve " regiments. These (infantry regi- ments 249-273 R.) with the remainder of the Kriegsfreiwilligen, were, unlike the preceding divisions, held back for intensive training before being put in the field. They constituted the 75th-82nd Res. Divs. {38-41 R. Corps) and 8th Bav. Res. Div.,
