Georg von der Marwitz

Georg Cornelius Adalbert von der Marwitz (7 July 1856 – 27 October 1929) was a Prussian cavalry general, who commanded several Imperial German armies during the First World War on both the Eastern and Western fronts. Marwitz was born in Stolp (Słupsk) in the Province of Pomerania and entered the Prussian Army in 1875. In 1881 he married Helene von Kameke, daughter of Prussian War Minister Georg von Kameke, with whom he had five children. From 1883 to 1886 he attended the Prussian Military Academy. Until 1900 he commanded a cavalry regiment, at which point he became chief of staff of XVIII Corps. Before the outbreak of the First World War he was the Inspector-General of Cavalry. Marwitz was assigned to the Western Front in 1914 as commander of II Cavalry Corps, and participated in the Battle of Haelen. After this first battle Marwitz was transferred to the Eastern Front to take command of the newly formed XXXVIII Reserve Corps, which he led in the Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes in the early winter of 1915. He was then transferred south and fought with Austria-Hungary against the Russians and was awarded the Pour le Mérite on 7 March 1915. After recovering from an illness in the fall of 1915, Marwitz served on the Western Front as the commander of the VI Corps, before returning to the Eastern Front until the successful halting of the Russian Brusilov Offensive in June 1916. On 6 October 1916 he became adjutant to Kaiser Wilhelm II, a post that he left in December 1916 to take command of the Second Army on the Western Front. The German Army formed along the Siegfried-Stellung line to Havrincourt Wood to la Vacquerie; a mile behind was the Hindenberg Support line. In front lay a strongly fortified line of trenches. Behind the Support Line was yet another system called the Beaurevoir-Masnieres-Marcoing Line. Each system was built with deep concrete bunkers, massed machine guns in cover, and as much as 50 yards of barbed wire in front. The planned Wotan Line to Cambrai, where Marwitz's Second Army was situated, was never completed.