Higher Truppenführung

Translating 'Truppenführung' (Part III)

Emil Hünten Schlacht von Königgrätz (1885)

Last week, as I dug through dusty books and journals, looking for the words ‘Truppenführer’ and ‘Truppenführung’, I occasionally ran into the expression ‘higher Truppenführer’ [höhere Truppenführer]. In the case of the often-quoted ‘From the Regulations for the Higher Truppenführer of 24 June 1869’, Helmuth von Moltke limits the use of the term to those officers engaged in ‘the handling of large portions of an army’ [Handhabung großer Heereskörper]. To put things another way, Moltke employed ‘higher Truppenführer’ as a synonym for the senior general officers who commanded armies in the field and those, such as the commanders of army corps and cavalry divisions, who reported directly to them.¹

Four decades later, in a book of tactical problems related to the medical services of combined arms formations, Adolf von Oven identified ‘higher Truppenführer’ as the commanders of ‘brigades (and upwards) and formations of mixed arms’.² In memoirs published soon after the end of the First World War, Otto von Moser employed the term in two slightly different ways. In his forward to the book, he used ‘higher Truppenführer’ describe himself at the helm of an infantry brigade, an infantry division, and an army corps. Later, when discussing the ‘courses for higher Truppenführer’ that he ran at Solesmes and Valenciennes in occupied France in 1917, Moser noted that the participants were ‘the commanding generals of divisions, the artillery commanders [of divisions, who ranked as brigade commanders], and general staff officers’.³

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Translating 'Truppenführung'

Translating 'Truppenführung'

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Making the Most of The Tactical Notebook

1. Helmuth von Moltke Aus den Verordnungen für die Höheren Truppenführer von 24. Juni 1869, reprinted in Prussia, Great General Staff (editors) Moltkes Taktisch-Strategische Aufsätze, 1857-1871 (Berlin: E.S. Mittler, 1900), pages 171-215.

2. Adolf von Oven Taktische Ausbildung der Sänitäts-Offiziere [Tactical Training of Medical Officers] (Berlin: R. Eisenschmidt, 1908) page 53

3. Otto von Moser Feldzugsaufzeichnungen als Brigade- Divisionskommandeur und als Kommandierende General: 1914-1918 (Stuttgart: C. Belser, 1923) pages V and 244