The Pioneer Companies of Ersatz Divisions and New Reserve Formations (August-December 1914)

The German Army of World War I

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Carl Röschling (1890)

In the first week of August of 1914, the order of battle of every army corps in the service of the German Empire, whether active or Reserve, included three pioneer companies. Thus, as each army corps consisted of two infantry divisions, the ratio of pioneer companies to infantry divisions was three to two.¹

In the third week of August, twelve Ersatz pioneer companies reported for duty with the six Ersatz divisions that were then being assembled. Thus, the ratio of pioneer companies assigned to Ersatz infantry divisions to formations of that sort was two to one.²

In September of 1914, the twelve members of the first series of Reserve pioneer companies to be formed after the completion of pre-planned mobilization, joined, at a rate of one company per division, the twelve new Reserve divisions then being formed.³ In the same month, the Bavarian 6th Reserve Pioneer Company became part of the Bavarian 6th Reserve Division.⁴

Three months later, the twelve companies of the second series of post-mobilization Reserve pioneer companies found employment with the eight new Reserve divisions formed at the very end of 1914. (Four of the new divisions received two pioneer companies apiece. Four got by with one.) At the same time, two new Bavarian pioneer companies found a home with the new Bavarian 8th Reserve Division.

The handwritten corrections on the typewritten document listing the units to be formed for the sake of the second series of Reserve divisions suggest that an earlier plan to provide a single pioneer company to each such division was changed at the last minute.⁵

Numbers of the pioneer companies formed for service with Reserve divisions of the first two series of such formations raised after the end of pre-planned mobilization

For Further Reading:

The Mobilization of Ordinary Pioneer Battalions

The Mobilization of Pioneer Companies in August 1914

The Many Meanings of Ersatz

German Infantry Divisions (II)

German Infantry Divisions (III)

1. The II Reserve Corps soon disturbed the regularity of this pattern by transferring one of its three pioneer battalions to the 3rd Reserve Division. (The latter formation was the only German division to take the field at the start of the war that was not part of an army corps.)

2. The four Ersatz divisions received two pioneer companies apiece. One received three. The last made do with one. This irregular pattern resulted from the way that pioneer companies had previously been assigned to the mobile Ersatz brigades from which the Ersatz divisions were assembled. Reichsarchiv Die Grenzschlachten im Westen (Berlin: E.S Mittler, 1925), pages 683-685.

3. Rather than waiting to be called to the colors, many the members of the aforementioned divisions had volunteered for immediate wartime service. Thus, the formations, though officially known as “Reserve divisions of the First Series” [Erste Räte], were frequently described as “war volunteer” divisions. For a description of the legend of the student volunteers, see Robert Cowley “The Massacre of the Innocents” MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History Spring 1998. For a detailed analysis of the composition of the manpower of these divisions, see Alex Watson “For Kaiser and Reich: The Identity and Fate of the German Volunteers, 1914-1918” War in History, January 2005.

4. KB is an abbreviation for Königlich Bayerisch, which means “Royal Bavarian.”

5. Ernst von Wrisberg, Letter of 13 December 1914, US National Archives, Microfilm Series M 962 Reel 3, Frames 215 and 216.