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Alfred’s grandfather Karl pursued a career in the Royal Saxon Army and settled in Dresden, ultimately reaching the rank of Generalmajor and retiring before the wars of 1866-71. Alfred’s father Bernhard and uncle Alfred both followed Karl into Saxon military service. Bernhard ended his career as an Oberst of Gendarmerie (police) and died peacefully in 1916.

Thus the young Alfred von Heygendorff was destined to be an officer, and would be the first (but by no means the last) of his name to serve in war. From the age of six he was privately tutored at home, and accepted into the prestigious Königliche Gymnasium in Dresden at the age of ten in 1878. After several years of further study at the Großherzogliche Gymnasium in Weimar, Alfred received his Abitur (graduation certificate) and joined Kgl. Sächs. 1. (Leib-)Grenadier-Regiment Nr.100 (LGR 100 – the Saxon infantry life guards) as a Fahnenjunker in March 1887. He received his officer’s commission as a Leutnant the following year. From 1892 to 1894 he was seconded to the Kgl. Sächs. Kadettenkorps, a jealously guarded bastion of Saxon military particularism regarded with considerable suspicion by the Prussian chauvinist press (not least for the presence of many Hannoverian military families who refused to serve directly under the Prussians). While serving there – presumably as an instructor – he was promoted to Oberleutnant in 1893.

In May 1894 Alfred married Elsa von Wittern, herself daughter of a Saxon Oberst. They settled in Dresden, producing a daughter (Wera) and two sons (Egon and Ralph) – both of whom in turn became officers with LGR 100. Evidently Alfred was held in high esteem and personal trust by the Saxon royal family, for from 1898 he served for three years as personal adjutant to Prince Friedrich August, son of King Albert’s brother Prince Georg. In June 1902 Albert died childless and was succeeded by Georg, making Friedrich August the crown prince. Following the death of King Georg in October 1904, his son then succeeded him as King Friedrich August III – and Alfred von Heygendorff found himself a friend of the reigning monarch.

At the end of his royal adjutant’s appointment in 1901 Alfred was assigned to Kgl. Sächs. 2. Grenadier-Regiment Kaiser Wilhelm, König von Preußen Nr. 101 (GR 101) as a company commander and promoted to Hauptmann. He reached his final pre-war rank in 1911 as Major on the regimental staff. In 1913 he was appointed as a battalion commander in the likewise Dresden-based Kgl. Sächs. 12. Infanterie-Regiment Nr.177 (IR 177 – part of 32. Infanterie-Division), with which he went to war the following summer.

While lying in the firing line with his men at Perthes in the Champagne on 1st September 1914, Major von Heygendorff was wounded by a shrapnel ball and had to cede command of the battalion, but insisted on remaining with IR 177 in the field. Due to heavy officer losses he reported fit for duty again a few days later, although his wound was not healed and had to be freshly bandaged every day. On 2nd October he was given acting command of Kgl. Sächs. 13. Infanterie-Regiment Nr.178 (IR 178 – part of 23. Infanterie-Division), which was down to a strength of two companies. The regiment was refilled with replacements a few days later and Alfred appointed as one of its battalion commanders. On 22nd October he was awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class.

The following day Major von Heygendorff was sent to take over Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment Nr.245 with 54. Reserve-Division of the Saxon-Württemberg XXVII. Reserve-Korps, then heavily engaged in the First Battle of Ypres. His exemplary and energetic leadership of this undertrained and demoralised volunteer regiment in truly appalling circumstances earned him the Ritterkreuz of the Militär-St.Heinrichs-Orden (the highest Saxon and oldest German gallantry order) on 17th November. Without exception the surviving writings of his officers and men describe him with great affection, often calling him the ‘soul of the regiment’. This was magnified after his death when he became a symbol of the regiment’s sacrifice on the Somme, much commemorated in regimental postcards and in the veterans’ newsletter ‘Was wir erlebten – 245er Erinnerungen’ (‘What We Experienced – Memories of the 245ers’). In a 1922 issue, Professor Max Geissler of Leipzig wrote:

As the division’s senior regimental commander Major von Heygendorff was also well regarded by his superiors. During the Second Battle of Ypres in April 1915 he was entrusted by 54.RD with a critical role, as recounted in detail in ‘For King and Kaiser’. Considering the well-documented mutual distrust and antagonism which all too often arose between the Saxon and Württemberg elements of XXVII.RK, it is particularly remarkable that on this occasion he exercised direct command of Württemberg troops for two weeks. So far as we can tell from a survey of their (often frank and opinionated) literature, none of his Württemberg peers had a bad word for the Saxon commander of RIR 245.

While the XXVII. Reservekorps and attached units continued to hold the eastern end of the Ypres salient from Polygon Wood to Passchendaele, a task force of corps reserves including Major von Heygendorff’s composite regiment (composed of a battalion each from RIR 245, 246 and 247) took part from 24th April in the offensive against the northern face of the salient. Driving southward toward Zonnebeke, ‘Regiment von Heygendorff’ took numerous British and Canadian prisoners before the enemy abandoned the tip of the salient under cover of night on 3rd-4th May 1915. The composite regiment was then disbanded and its triumphant Major commander took charge of RIR 245 again during the subsequent advance which took them as far as Verlorenhoek.

Subsequently promoted to Oberstleutnant, von Heygendorff’s luck finally ran out when XXVII.RK was committed to the Battle of the Somme in September 1916. On 9th September his older son Egon (the regimental orderly officer of RIR 245) was severely wounded by artillery fire on the steps of his HQ cellar in Rancourt. Egon died the next day at hospital in Manancourt, and his father’s last letter home was to break the news to his mother. On 12th September, as the published history of RIR 245 states:

Alfred von Heygendorff’s younger son, Ralph, survived both world wars with the final rank of Generalleutnant in the Wehrmacht and died in 1953.

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Extracts from von Heygendorff’s private diary were later provided by his widow and surviving son to the regimental veterans’ association and serialised in ‘Was wir erlebten’. Written at the time and seemingly neither edited nor intended for publication, these entries provide a shockingly frank and immediate account of the chaotic situation he faced upon taking command of RIR 245.

On 20th October 1914 the regiment had stormed the village of Becelaere (Beselare) alongside Württemberg RIR 246, but rapidly became bogged down in costly attempts to take the British positions beyond (toward Polygon Wood). Cohesion was lost, and the intermingled German units in Becelaere suffered severely from British and misdirected German artillery fire. The many casualties included the original commander of RIR 245. Oberst z.D. Karl Artur Baumgarten-Crusius had survived personally leading the assault on the 20th only to be wounded by (purportedly) a German shell on the 21st. Invalided out of service with the honorary (charakterisiert) rank of Generalmajor, he would become one of the most prolific historians of the Royal Saxon Army and co-author of its three-volume quasi-official history Sachsen in Grosser Zeit.

By the time the Kriegsministerium in Dresden had dispatched Major von Heygendorff to assume command of RIR 245 on 23rd October, the regiment had also lost two of its three battalion commanders. Worse still for the 54.RD, its solitary brigade commander Württemberg Genltn. a.D. Karl von Reinhardt had been killed by a stray bullet on the 22nd while visiting the lines of RIR 245.

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