Page:EB1922 - Volume 30.djvu/270

234 and were not put into the field till the "winter battle of Masuria" in Feb. 1915.

These divisions (except the Bavarian) were constituted on a new organic basis that of three infantry regiments under one brigade staff instead of four in two brigades, a form which, as will appear presently, came to be adopted throughout the whole army. In artillery strength they were however superior to all previous reserve formations. The original reserve divisions had only six 6-gun batteries, and the first new reserve divisions, hurriedly mobilized as they were, had nine 4-gun batteries. In these second new reserves, the number of batteries was increased to 12 (as in active formations, but with 4 guns in lieu of 6 per battery).

With the creation of these divisions expansion proper ceased. Until 1917 no further divisions were formed otherwise than by regrouping existing units, and the intake of recruits of successive classes was, with very few exceptions, used for maintenance only. The end of Jan. 1915, therefore, marks the close of the expansion period. At that date there were 147 infantry divisions, or equiva- lents of infantry divisions.

Regrouping had naturally as its object the better strategic and tactical utilization of these 147 divisions. The first step was to sort out the miscellaneous formations of Ersatz and Landwehr, especially in the east. Accordingly, the Posen, Thorn, etc., corps were recast, divorced from the fortresses from which they had already become separated, and constituted as the 83rd-8gth Divisions. These were on the 4-regiment basis, and the regiments after reorganization took the numbers 320-354 and 372-381 save that Landwehr units comprised in these divisions retained their original designations.

The battalions of Ersatz on the W. front (the "B.E.Bs.") were regimented chiefly with numbers between 357 and 371. On both western and eastern fronts the Landwehr brigades still unattached were used to form divisions, bringing the number of this category up to 19 (1-5, 6th Bav., 7-18, ist Bavarian.)

The next step was a more important one. It had become clear, first of all, that the army corps, as a working unit, was not supple enough, and as early as Sept. 1914 the practice had set in, both with the Germans and with the French, of regarding the corps headquarters as an organ for the tactical and administrative management of any two or more divisions which might be assigned to it. This led in sedentary warfare to the corps becoming an area or sector command, and in open warfare or for the handling of battle reserves as a headquarters told off to carry out a par- ticular mission. In either case, the inferiority of the German num- bers in both theatres of war enforced a better arrangement of the corps commander's forces than the 2X2 system gave. In the spring of 1915, therefore, two series of divisions, numbered 50-58 (even numbers), 101-107 * an< l 111-123 (odd numbers), 4th Guard and loth and nth Bav., were formed by taking a regi- ment each, and also one-quarter of the divisional artillery, from 50 or more existing active or reserve divisions. Thenceforward practically half the divisions of the army were on the new basis.

One other formation of the spring of 1915 must be mentioned. This was the Alpenkorps, a division formed for high mountain work when it became evident that Italy would enter the war. This corps d'tlite served in every theatre, not only in mountainous country, and at the last moment of the war was dispatched from France to attempt to stop the Allied advance in Serbia. It was exclusively Bavarian in composition.

During the spring and summer of 1915, to ensure against accidents, the effectives of units in 3-regiment divisions were considerably increased, company strengths of over 300 being frequent. Later, however, the precaution being seen to be un- necessary, some new divisions were formed out of this surplus; these were the 183, 185, 187 and 192, originally called flying (i.e. non-sector) " brigades," but from the outset practically equivalent to divisions of the new type.

Practically no further additions were made till the battle of the Somme and the intervention of Rumania created a new

1 The 108 and 109 were improvised during the eastern offensive of spring 1915.

situation. The creation of the so-called sth Ersatz Div. and the 25th and 47th Landwehr Divs. (all three mixed brigades reen- forced to the status of new type divisions) hardly amounted to more than a change of name.

The total of divisions and " equivalents " (the latter always diminishing as formations were regularized) remained stationary at the figure of 172 from July 1915 to the end of May 1916. The ration strength of the army was on March 31 1915, 5,029,672, and on March 31 1916, 6,767,144; and the losses had been as follows: (8 months up to) March 31 1915, 281,389 "killed, 205,048 missing, 835,612 wounded, 13,402 died of disease, etc. ; (12 months up to) March 31 1916, 376,954 killed, 121,040 miss- ing, 897,475 wounded, 29,840 died of disease, etc. The "defini- tive " losses dead, missing, wounded discharged as unfit are difficult to establish; but if we take for wounded not returned to duty the figure of 29% (which is a high one), we arrive at a total of " definitive " losses of all kinds of about 1,780,000 for the whole period. To repair these losses, and to increase the ration strength by some 1,750,000 men as well, the intake of recruits necessary would be about 2,500,000. These recruits were (a) the Kriegsfreiwilligen, (b) the class 1914, called up somewhat after the normal date, (c) the class 1915 called up before the normal date, and (d) the class 1916 called up before the normal year.

As early as the autumn of 1915, in fact, Germany had been compelled to anticipate the conscription, to bring youths of 19 as well as those of 20 to muster, and to shorten the period of training to the minimum.

The general policy followed was to consider a class collectively as a means to be allotted to specific ends. Later in the war the practice was carried to the extent that even when called up, trained and ready, a class was under embargo and could not be sent into the front line until the chief-of-staff, in consultation with the Government, should issue an order removing the ban. What may be called routine losses and wastage were made good as a rule by returned sick and wounded or other experienced men rather than by recruits.

Early in 1915, partly in order to have a reserve at hand, and partly in order to ensure an intensive training under realistic condi- tions, the system of " Field Recruit Depots " was gradually intro- duced. When these had been established, men spent only half or less than half of the abbreviated training period allowed in the Ersatz battalion at home and the remainder in the Field Recruit Depot a few miles behind the front. Eventually there was one depot per division, with an establishment (in 1917) of 1,350, of whom 900 were recruits under training and the rest training staff and re- turned wounded waiting allocation. Further, as pools to meet losses which could not be covered by the depots of the divisions affected, large training centres were created at Beverloo (the peace training camp of the Belgian army) and at Warsaw. The training camps in Germany were of course utilized for home training, and in them from time to time new batches of divisions were created and assembled. The period spent by the soldier in training varied con- siderably: sometimes it was as little as one month in the Ersatz battalion and two or three weeks in the Field Recruit Depot or at Beverloo; in less critical times it might be four to five months in all.

Hitherto, it will be noticed, little or no call had been made on the 5,000,000 men composing the untrained half of the male population of military age. This was because the maintenance of the country's economic life was more necessary than ever as the blockade tightened its pressure. Nevertheless, a certain combing- out of agriculture and industries began in the winter of 1915-16. Further, a law was passed in 1916 for the reexamination of men who had been rejected by the annual muster commissions as permanently unfit.

From the summer of 1916 the situation of the German army became very critical. The costly offensive of Verdun had been followed by the Allied offensive on the Somme, the Russian break-through at Lutsk, the sixth Isonzo battle, and immediately thereafter Rumania's declaration of war. For the first time since 1914 the Central Powers were face to face with a simultaneous and prolonged strain on all fronts.

Before describing the measures taken to deal with this crisis, it is convenient to review the changes which had taken place in the meantime in the constitution of the fighting units themselves.