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Mobilization-8

The more densely populated regions of the empire tended to have more trained reservists on the rolls of their Bezirks-Kommandos than the less populated regions. To balance the numbers of available reservists, the army corps of these more densely populated regions assigned a certain number of men to other army corps.

Exchange of Reservists between Army Corps

(Kraus, 2012), pp. 7.,  (Reichsarchiv, 1928), p. 12.

The Reichsarchiv goes even beyond these figures. In the first volume about field railroads during mobilization, it states that 148,000 reservists were transported from Berlin and the Rhineland to Eastern Prussia during the first six mobilization days. It is most probable that these 148,000 men included, not only army reservists, but also men manning the fortresses along the eastern borders. The figures given for reserve personnel mobilized for the Guard Corps are much higher. According to the Reichsarchiv, 68,000 men, mostly from Westphalia, were mobilized for the Guard Corps and were transported to Berlin.

An analysis of the chart above shows that upon mobilization, 54,300 infantry reservists (probably many more—mainly from Berlin and the Ruhr) were assigned in Eastern Prussia to I, XVII, and XX Army Corps. It becomes obvious that a significant share of the soldiers of the Eighth Army came not from Eastern Prussia, but from elsewhere in the empire. Reservists from the Ruhr area therefore were sent to Berlin or Pomerania upon mobilization, only to return to the West a couple of days later on the way to the deployment areas of their formations. This demonstrates the fallacy of the propaganda in the Reichsarchiv, Schlachten des Weltkrieges Volumes of the 1920s that the soldiers fighting at Tannenberg were morally superior to the attacking Russians because they were defending their homesteads. These books intended for the popular market differed from the official history produced by the Reichsarchiv. The work of the Kriegsgeschichtliche Forschungsanstalt des Heeres was completed by the Federal German Bundesarchiv in 1956, when the final 14th volume of  Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918  (the so-called Reichsarchiv red series) appeared. The Schlachten des Weltkrieges series was a popular narrative history, usually written by eyewitnesses. These books gave more space to propaganda than the red books did, tending to emphasize the heroism of the individual fighting against huge odds of manpower and materiel.

After start of the 1914 campaign, it became clear that Germany had too few troops to meet all its operational plans. As the National Service chapter points out, almost half of the candidates at the Musterung were excused from active service and sent to the Landsturm. They received a formal paper excuse pass called a Landsturmschein. Because many drafted conscripts had these passes, there were plenty of untrained recruits. Thousands of volunteers had reported to the different garrisons without needing to be called up. For the time being the army had far more men knocking at its door than were needed.