The 43rd Reserve Division (''43. Reserve-Division'') was a unit of the Imperial German

Army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. The division was formed in August 1914 and organized over the next two months.43. Reserve-Division (Chronik 1914-1918)
/ref> It was part of the first wave of new divisions formed at the outset of World War I, which were numbered the 43rd through 54th Reserve Divisions. The division was disbanded in 1918 and its assets redistributed to other divisions. The division was part of the XXII Reserve Corps and was raised through the depots of the elite Prussian Guard, and thus recruited throughout

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...

Combat chronicle

The 43rd Reserve Division initially fought on the Western Front, fighting on the

Yser The Yser ( , ; nl, IJzer ) is a river that rises in French Flanders (the north of France), enters the Belgian province of West Flanders and flows through the '' Ganzepoot'' and into the North Sea at the town of Nieuwpoort. The source of the Ys ...

in October–November 1914 and storming Diksmuide in mid-November. It then remained in positional warfare along the Yser until June 1915. In June, it was transferred to the Eastern Front. It fought in the Gorlice-Tarnów Offensive, including the 1915 Battle of Lemberg and the assault on Brest-Litovsk. It then participated in the

Serbian Campaign The Serbian campaign was a series of military expeditions launched in 1914 and 1915 by the Central Powers against the Kingdom of Serbia during the First World War. The first campaign began after Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on 28 J ...

. After the campaign, it remained in reserve until returning to the Western Front in February 1916. It then fought in the

Battle of Verdun The Battle of Verdun (french: Bataille de Verdun ; german: Schlacht um Verdun ) was fought from 21 February to 18 December 1916 on the Western Front in France. The battle was the longest of the First World War and took place on the hills north ...

. In June 1916 the division was again sent to the Eastern Front to face the Russian Brusilov Offensive. Returning from the Eastern Front to France in November, it was in army reserve for a month and then returned to the trenches at Verdun. In April 1917, it fought in the Second Battle of the Aisne, also known as the Third Battle of Champagne (and to the Germans as the Double Battle on the Aisne and in the Champagne). The division remained in the trenches after that, until November 1917, when it was again transferred to the Eastern Front. After the armistice on the Eastern Front, it returned to Germany for training and then to France. The division then fought in a series of battles and engagements until it was dissolved in September 1918. Before 1918, the division was considered a good division, but by 1918 and prior to the division's dissolution Allied intelligence rated the division as third class.

Order of battle on formation

The 43rd Reserve Division was initially organized as a

square division A square division is a designation given to the way military divisions are organized. In a square organization, the division's main body is composed of four "maneuver," i.e., infantry regimental elements. Other types of regiments, such as artillery ...

, with essentially the same organization as the reserve divisions formed on mobilization. The order of battle of the 43rd Reserve Division on September 10, 1914, was as follows: *85. Reserve-Infanterie-Brigade **Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 201 **Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 202 **Reserve-Jäger-Bataillon Nr. 15 *86. Reserve-Infanterie-Brigade **Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 203 **Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 204 *Reserve- Kavallerie-

Abteilung ''Abteilung'' (; abbrv. ''Abt.'') is a German word that is often used for German or Swiss military formations and depending on its usage could mean detachment, department or battalion; it can also refer to a military division. In German, it ...

Nr. 43 *Reserve- Feldartillerie-Regiment Nr. 43 *Reserve-

Pionier PIONIER is the Polish national research and education network created to provide high-speed Internet access and to conduct network-based research. Most of the government founded higher education organisations and all of metropolitan area networ ...

-Kompanie Nr. 43

Order of battle on April 3, 1918

The 43rd Reserve Division was triangularized in April 1917. Over the course of the war, other changes took place, including the formation of artillery and

signals In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' ...

commands and a

pioneer Pioneer commonly refers to a settler who migrates to previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited land. In the United States pioneer commonly refers to an American pioneer, a person in American history who migrated west to join in settling and de ...

battalion. The order of battle on April 3, 1918, was as follows:Cron et al., ''Ruhmeshalle''. *85. Reserve-Infanterie-Brigade **Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 201 **Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 202 **Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 203 *2. Eskadron/Braunschweigisches Husaren-Regiment Nr. 17 *Artillerie-Kommandeur 43 **Reserve-Feldartillerie-Regiment Nr. 43 **I. Bataillon/Fußartillerie-Regiment Nr. 16 *Stab Pionier-Bataillon Nr. 343: **4.Kompanie/1. Westpreußisches Pionier-Bataillon Nr. 17 **Reserve-Pionier-Kompanie Nr. 43 **

Minenwerfer ''Minenwerfer'' ("mine launcher" or "mine thrower") is the German name for a class of short range mine shell launching mortars used extensively during the First World War by the Imperial German Army. The weapons were intended to be used by engine ...

-Kompanie Nr. 243 *Divisions-Nachrichten-Kommandeur 443

References

43. Reserve-Division (Chronik 1914/1918) - Der erste Weltkrieg
* Hermann Cron et al., ''Ruhmeshalle unserer alten Armee'' (Berlin, 1935) * Hermann Cron, ''Geschichte des deutschen Heeres im Weltkriege 1914-1918'' (Berlin, 1937) * Günter Wegner, ''Stellenbesetzung der deutschen Heere 1815-1939.'' (Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück, 1993), Bd. 1 * ''Histories of Two Hundred and Fifty-One Divisions of the German Army which Participated in the War (1914-1918), compiled from records of Intelligence section of the General Staff, American Expeditionary Forces, at General Headquarters, Chaumont, France 1919'' (1920)

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:43rd Reserve Division (German Empire) Reserve divisions of Germany in World War I Military units and formations established in 1914 Military units and formations disestablished in 1918 1914 establishments in Germany