Kingdom of Bavaria
Königreich Bayern
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Kingdom of Bavaria |
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| About the Kingdom | The Royal Bavarian Army | Orders and Decorations | Links |
About the KingdomThe Kingdom of Bavaria was one of most important members of the German Empire, second only to Prussia in size and population. A Catholic land, it had also been, before German unification, one of Prussia's main rivals and an ally of Austria. As a distinct German state, Bavaria has a long history. A Germanic tribe known as the Baiuoarii invaded the region in the 6th century A.D. and gave it its name. They were Christianized by the end of the 8th century A.D. and became one of the earliest German duchies. In 788, the duchy was added to Charlemagne's empire and was ruled by the Carolingians until 911. From the 9th to the 12th centuries, Bavaria was ruled by several ducal houses. Its dukes were involved in intrigues and rebellions against the Holy Roman Empire and in 976 much of its territory (including most of present-day Austria) was stripped away. In 1180, the Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich II bestowed the Duchy of Bavaria on Otto von Wittelsbach. The Wittelsbach family would rule Bavaria until 1918. Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria (1597–1651) headed the Catholic League in the Thirty Years War. During his reign, the Duke of Bavaria became an elector of the Holy Roman Empire. During the numerous European wars that followed the Thirty Years War, Bavaria was a frequent battleground and was overrun by many foreign armies in, among other conflicts, the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14), the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48), the War of the Bavarian Succession (1778), and the French Revolutionary Wars (1789-1815). Elector Maximilian IV Joseph united all the Wittelsbach lands in 1799 and allied himself with Emperor Napoleon I. Bavaria joined Napoleon's Confederation of the Rhine. In 1806, Napoleon dissolved the Holy Roman Empire. Bavaria was elevated to a kingdom and Elector Maximilian IV Joseph was proclaimed King of Bavaria as Maximilian I. The Bavarian Army joined Napoleon in his disastrous invasion of Russia and thousands of Bavarian soldiers died in the march on and retreat from Moscow. In 1813, Maximilian abandoned Napoleon and joined the Allies. As a reward for backing the right horse, at the Congress of Vienna (1814–15) the king was left in possession of virtually all of present-day Bavaria. A (relatively) liberal constitution was adopted in 1818. Maximilian I ruled until 1825. His successor, Ludwig I, was deposed in the 1848 revolutions and was succeeded by Maximilian II (1848–64). Maximilian II was known as a patron of the arts and was relatively liberal. He tried unsuccessfully to forge an alliance of southern German states as a counterweight to the rise of Prussia. His death in 1864 gave the throne to his son Ludwig II (1864–86). King Ludwig II was also a patron of the arts, and was especially close to the composer Richard Wagner. Ludwig II was also quite insane. A number of famous and beautiful castles were built during his reign, culminating in the unfinished fairy-tale Schloss Neuschwanstein, which would serve as Walt Disney's model for Cinderella's castle. During Ludwig II's reign, Bavaria would ally with Austria in the Seven Weeks War (1866) against Prussia. After Prussia's victory, Bavaria reluctantly acceded to Prussia's leadership of Germany. Bavaria allied with Prussia in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) and the kingdom joined the German Empire in 1871. Ldwig II drowned under suspicious circumstances in 1886. He was succeeded by his brother Otto I, who was also insane, and actual power lay in the hands of a regent, Luitpold. Luitpold was regent for Otto I until his death in 1912 and his son Ludwig III succeeded him as regent. After an act of the Bavarian parliament deposed Otto I in 1913, Ludwig III was crowned king and would rule until the monarchy was abolished with the defeat of Germany in World War One, ending 738 years of Wittelsbach rule. In the immediate aftermath of World War One, Bavaria was embroiled in violence as a socialist republic was declared and a communist revolution was attempted and suppressed by the German Army. Bavaria then joined the Weimar Republic, but saw further violence during the Nazis' failed Munich Beer Hall Putsch attempt in 1923. What autonomy Bavaria had retained within Germany was lost during the Nazi era, but after World War Two Bavaria would become a constituent state of the Federal Republic of Germany. But for the loss of the Rhenish Pfalz, the modern Free State of Bavaria (Freistaat Bayern) retains most of the former kingdom's territory.
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The Royal Bavarian Army
On the eve of war in 1914, Bavarian forces were organized into the German Army's 6th (Bavarian) Army (6. Bayerische Armee) under the command of Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria. The 6th Army consisted of four corps:
The 6th Army's organization would soon change, as subordinate units were attached and detached, but it remained primarily a Bavarian formation. In September 1914, Korps Eberhardt was formed and attached to 6th Army. It was a mixed formation, with its main units being the 30. Reserve-Division, a mixed Bavarian and Prussian unit, and the Bayerische Ersatz-Division, or Bavarian Replacement Division, which had begun formation on mobilization. In October 1914, the Bayerische Ersatz-Division was replaced by a provisional unit division called the Division von Rekowski after its commander. Korps Eberhardt became the XV. Bayerisches Reservekorps in December 1914, and the Division von Rekowski was renamed the 39. Reserve-Division. The 30. Reserve-Division and the 39. Reserve-Division were Bavarian formations, but were not officially renamed the 30. Bayerische Reserve-Division and 39. Bayerische Reserve-Division until December 1916. The Bayerische Ersatz-Division, which had been reassigned to various provisional Army Detachments (Armee-Abteilungen) and other corps, continued to fight on the Western Front. Its commanding officer, Generalleutnant Eugen Ritter von Benzino, was killed in action on November 28, 1915. In late 1917 and early 1918, it went to the Romanian front and then to Ukraine for a respite, but returned to the Western Front in the spring of 1918. Other Bavarian formations would also be raised as the war progressed. Soon after mobilization, in late August 1914, various Bavarian Landwehr units were organized into the Verstärkte Bayerische Landwehr-Division, soon renamed the 1. Bayerische Landwehr-Division. In September 1914, a third Bavarian reserve division, the 6. Bayerische Reserve-Division, was raised. In December of that year, another was organized, the 8. Bayerische Reserve-Division. In 1915, three more Bavarian divisions were raised - the 6. Bayerische Landwehr-Division in February, the 10. Bayerische Infanterie-Division in early March, and the 11. Bayerische Infanterie-Division in late March. 1916 saw the organization of four more Bavarian divisions - the 12. Bayerische Infanterie-Division in July, the 14. Bayerische Infanterie-Division in August, the 9. Bayerische Reserve-Division in September, and the 2. Bayerische Landwehr-Division in December. The 15. Bayerische Infanterie-Division and the 16. Bayerische Infanterie-Division were added in early 1917. In addition to these primarily infantry formations, the Bavarians also had a cavalry division. The Bayerische Kavallerie-Division was raised on mobilization, and engaged in traditional cavalry screening and patrolling operations on the Western Front in the first few months of war, waiting, like the other German cavalry divisions, for the great exploitation operation that never came. At the end of the year, it moved into occupation duty in Belgium, and then in early 1915 entrained for the Eastern Front, where greater space and fewer roads meant there still was a significant role for cavalry. The Bayerische Kavallerie-Division fought the Russians until 1917, and then in late 1917 went to the Romanian front. In 1918, the division went to Ukraine. Besides these divisions, there was one other formation not officially Bavarian, but which had a strong Bavarian stamp on it. The was the Alpenkorps, or Alpine Corps, which despite its name was a division-sized formation. The Alpenkorps was raised in Bavaria in May 1915 under the command of Generalleutnant Konrad Krafft von Dellmensingen, formerly Crown Prince Rupprecht's chief of staff in the 6th Army. It was intended to assist the Austrians on the Tyrolean front, after Italy joined the war on the Allied side. It consisted of the 1. Bayerische Jäger-Brigade (including the premier unit of the Bavarian Army, the Bayerisches Infanterie-Leib-Regiment)and the 2. Jäger-Brigade, along with various support units. The Alpenkorps spent the middle of 1915 fighting the Italians in Tyrol; then after a brief respite, it went to the Serbian front for the Austrian offensive against Serbia. Driving through Serbia, the Alpenkorps reached the Greek border by the end of the year, and stayed there until March 1916, when it was transferred to the Western Front. In May 1916, it entered the Battle of Verdun. After heavy losses in the bitter fighting around Verdun, the Alpenkorps was sent to the Romanian front in September 1916. The next year was spent fighting in Romania, until September 1917, when the Alpenkorps again returned to the Italian front. In early 1918, the Alpenkorps once again returned to the Western Front. They were visited by King Ludwig III on May 14, 1918. After spending the summer resting and retraining, it went into action in August, mainly as a reserve force to defend against Allied breakthroughs. In October 1918, the Alpenkorps returned to the Balkans, deploying to Macedonia but soon being forced along with other German and Austrian troops to retreat back through Serbia into Hungary.
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| The principle orders and decorations of the Kingdom of Bavaria for military personnel were, for officers, the Military Order of Max Joseph and the Military Merit Order and, for non-commissioned officers and enlisted personnel (including officer candidates), the gold and silver Military Merit Medals and the Military Merit Cross. Unlike several German states, Bavaria had no military decoration which was awarded without regard to rank (and thus comparable to the Prussian Iron Cross). In addition to these awards, the Kingdom of Bavaria had a number of other orders . Among these were the Order of St. Hubertus (Haus-Ritter-Orden vom heiligen Hubertus), Bavaria's highest order, founded in 1444 and revived in 1708; the Order of St. George (Militärischer Haus-Ritter-Orden vom heiligen Georg), founded in 1729; the Merit Order of St. Michael (Verdienstorden vom heiligen Michael), founded in 1693 and revived in 1837 as Bavaria's principle peacetime merit order for services to the Crown; and the Merit Order of the Bavarian Crown (Verdienstorden der Bayerischen Krone), founded in 1808. More on these orders may be found here. Another order, although military, is not covered here due to its rarity, though I hope to remedy that at some point. This is the Military Medical Order (Militär-Sanitäts-Orden).
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 Reverse of the medal bar above |
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Below, a three-medal bar with the Iron Cross, 2nd Class, Bavarian Military Merit Cross, 3rd Class with Swords, and World War One Honor Cross for Combatants.
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