Gardekorps

[Chris Boonzaier]

I have info about Regt, Armys and a number of other things... but Korps seem to be lacking.

Can anyone tell me where the gardekorps was 1917-1918 and what regts were in the 41 res Korps?

Thanks
Chris

[Bob Lembke]

Garde=Korps

Chris;

The Schlachten und Gefechte book (Highest General Staff, 1919) has about a dozen entries for the Garde=Korps for the 1917-1918 period, all on the west front, but they all are for the Oberkommando, not necessarily the Korps itself. In the second half of the war the Oberkommando of a given Korps was often seperated from the divisions that traditionally made up the Korps; e.g., the Oberkommando of III. Armeekorps became seperated from the 5. ID and 6. ID. I don't fully understand it, but what may have been going on was that the Oberkommando were left in the sector that they had become familiar with, while the divisions fighting for that Oberkommando were rotated in and out as they suffered casualties and required rebuilding. Then the Imperial Army started setting up army corps-level Oberkommandos that don't even seem to have been associated with any particular infantry units, just floating HQs. Interesting, but not clear to me.

"What regts were in the 41 res Korps?" I don't have any info on this.

Bob Lembke

[AOK4]

Bob,

You mean the Generalkommando of the Korps. Otherwise you're correct.

Jan

[Bob Lembke]

Generalkommando vs. Oberkommando

Jan;

I had noticed that the Schlachten und Gefechte mentioned the "Generalkommando" of the Garde=Korps; I assumed that this was another term for the "Oberkommando". My grandfather was the "Id" of the Oberkommando of III. Reserve Korps that regrettably blew up some of the forts about your Antwerp, I'm afraid. (I have letters he wrote from the firing positions of the 30.5 cm mortars and 42 cm howitzers; are you interested in this?)

So, is the Generalkommando of an army corps different than the Oberkommando of an army corps?

Looking up what I was talking about from memory, I see that what I assume to be the seemingly independent army corps-level headquarters were called, for example, 60. Generalkommando. Am I right; are these independent army-corps level headquarters assigned to various command tasks?

Thanks for any insight you can cast on this question.

Bob Lembke

[AOK4]

Hello Bob,

An Oberkommando is the command of an Army (Armee, hence Armee-Oberkommando), a Generalkommando is the command of an Army Corps.

The later formed Generalkommandos were Generalkommandos zbV (zur besonderen Verwendung). They never had any divisions especially attached to them, unlike all the other Generalkommandos which had in the beginning two divisions attached. Normal Generalkommandos used Roman numerals although these zbV often used Arabic numerals.

That's why in the beginning of the war you can talk about Army Corps, while later in the war you talk about Gruppen. A Generalkommando (of an Army Corps) was assigned, mostly for a longer time, to a certain front sector and got as many divisions attached as necessary (which did not need to have anything to do with the Army Corps of the Generalkommando). The number of divisions attached usually varied from two to five although this could be more. The Generalkommando of the Gardekorps was engaged as Gruppe Dixmude (August-September 1917) and Jeperen (September 1917-October 1918).

Regards,
Jan