PEEBLES PROFILES
EPISODE IV
General Oskar von Hutier (1857-1934)
Oskar von Hutier served as an effective field commander during the First World War, and he was renowned for his efficient use of so-called infiltration tactics.
Von Hutier’s family background was military through and through. His grandfather fought with Napoleon, and his father saw action in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. Even the Quartermaster General of the German Army, Erich Ludendorff, was a cousin by marriage.
He was marked out early in his career as a highly promising military officer by Paul von Hindenburg while von Hutier trained at the Lichterfelde cadet school. He entered the General Staff Corps and spent his time shuttling back and forth between staff and troop commands.
With the First World War underway, von Hutier served initially with von Bulow’s Second Army during the First Battle of the Marne, commanding the 1st Guard Infantry Division. In April 1915, he was posted to the Eastern Front to take command of XXI Army Corps under Eichhorn’s Tenth Army.
In January 1917, von Hutier was assigned to command of Army Section ‘D’ on the Duna (Dvina) River south of Riga, preparatory to being handed command of Eighth Army three months later. It was while commanding Eighth Army that von Hutier established the reputation upon which his fame is based.
On September 3, 1917, von Hutier’s forces captured Riga while demonstrating the German Army’s new infiltration tactics. Although von Hutier played no role in the development of such tactics (which were based upon British and French models), his prominent and wide scale use of them caused the British to dub them “Hutier tactics”, and the name remained.
The attack was launched with no long preliminary bombardment. A short burst of artillery fire was followed immediately by infantry assaults with fast moving “shock” troops concentrating on the area (the enemy “soft spots”) behind the front line. The strong points, masked by gas and smoke shells, were “mopped up” by succeeding waves of infantry. This type of warfare would be used a month later at Caporetto.
On September 6, 1917, von Hutier was awarded the prestigious Pour le Merite for his successful efforts.
One month after capturing Riga, his units succeeded in taking the Baltic Islands of Moon and Dago in what was the only successful amphibious undertaking of the war. It was also the last stand of the Imperial Russian Army, as Petrograd was ripe for enemy attack and revolution from within!
Transferred to the Western Front, von Hutier was charged with spearheading the great German spring push of 1918. He was placed in command of the newly-created Eighteenth Army. Von Hutier’s five corps and 27 divisions opened the offensive on March 21, 1918 and made spectacular initial gains.
Once again deploying infiltration techniques, his forces captured some 50,000 prisoners and advanced a remarkable forty miles, largely in opposition to British General Sir Hubert Gough’s Fifth Army. His forces moved so quickly that German flanking forces trailed far behind in his army’s wake!
Promptly awarded the oak leaves to supplement his Pour le Merite two days later by the Kaiser, von Hutier’s advance was ultimately slowed and then brought to a standstill by increasingly effective British and French resistance, allied to supply difficulties across the old Somme battlefield.
Von Hutier renewed his offensive at Matz in June 1918, but he was quickly stifled by a highly effective French defense. Following this stand, his forces were thrown on to the defensive for the remainder of the war.
With the November armistice, von Hutier led his forces back across the Rhine to Germany. He maintained that the German Army had not been defeated on the battlefield but were “stabbed in the back” by political forces at home (a refrain taken up by other prominent commanders including Ludendorff).
Oskar von Hutier resigned from the army in January 1919. He accepted the presidency of the German Officers League and held the position until his death in January 1934 at the age of 77.