Karl Ritter von Fasbender (3 December 1852 – 13 May 1933) was a

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

General der Infanterie General of the Infantry is a military rank of a General officer in the infantry and refers to: * General of the Infantry (Austria) * General of the Infantry (Bulgaria) * General of the Infantry (Germany) ('), a rank of a general in the German Imp ...

who served as a

corps Corps (; plural ''corps'' ; from French , from the Latin "body") is a term used for several different kinds of organization. A military innovation by Napoleon I, the formation was first named as such in 1805. The size of a corps varies great ...

commander throughout

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 ...

and briefly commanded an

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 ...

at the end of the war.

Military service

Although he was a native of the

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 ...

Province of Hesse-Nassau The Province of Hesse-Nassau () was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1868 to 1918, then a province of the Free State of Prussia until 1944. Hesse-Nassau was created as a consequence of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 by combining the p ...

, Fasbender joined the

Bavarian Army The Bavarian Army was the army of the Electorate (1682–1806) and then Kingdom (1806–1919) of Bavaria. It existed from 1682 as the standing army of Bavaria until the merger of the military sovereignty (''Wehrhoheit'') of Bavaria into that of ...

in 1872. He rose to divisional command in the pre-War period, before retiring in 1912. He also served as Chief of Bavarian General Staff in 1907 and 1908. Recalled from retirement on the outbreak of the War, he took command of the newly formed

I Royal Bavarian Reserve Corps The I Royal Bavarian Reserve Corps / I Bavarian RK (german: I. Königlich Bayerisches Reserve-Korps) was a corps level command of the Royal Bavarian Army, part of the German Army, in World War I. Formation I Royal Bavarian Reserve Corps was form ...

as part of the mostly Bavarian 6th Army. He commanded this Corps for almost the entire duration of the war. In the final days of the war, he was appointed to command the 19th Army. On September 3, 1914 in Hénamenil (France), he signed a letter which demanded that the civilian population of

Lunéville Lunéville ( ; German, obsolete: ''Lünstadt'' ) is a commune in the northeastern French department of Meurthe-et-Moselle. It is a subprefecture of the department and lies on the river Meurthe at its confluence with the Vezouze. History Lu ...

(France) pay a ransom of 650,000 francs, including 50,000 in gold pieces. The motivation was for acts of war supposedly committed by French civilians. The French later accused him of having these acts committed by his subordinates as a pretext for the ransom. Fasbender was awarded the

Pour le Mérite The ' (; , ) is an order of merit (german: Verdienstorden) established in 1740 by King Frederick II of Prussia. The was awarded as both a military and civil honour and ranked, along with the Order of the Black Eagle, the Order of the Red Eag ...

(the

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (german: Königreich Preußen, ) was a German kingdom that constituted the state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918. Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. ...

's highest order of merit) on 13 September 1916. He was also successively awarded all three classes of the

Military Order of Max Joseph The Military Order of Max Joseph (german: Militär-Max-Joseph-Orden) was the highest military order of the Kingdom of Bavaria. It was founded on 1 January 1806 by Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria, the first king of Bavaria. The order came in th ...

(german: Militär-Max-Joseph-Orden), the highest purely military order of the

Kingdom of Bavaria The Kingdom of Bavaria (german: Königreich Bayern; ; spelled ''Baiern'' until 1825) was a German state that succeeded the former Electorate of Bavaria in 1805 and continued to exist until 1918. With the unification of Germany into the German ...

: Knight's Cross (german: Ritterkreuz) on 5 October 1914, Commander's Cross (german: Kommandeurkreuz) on 4 January 1917 and Grand Cross (german: Großkreuz) on 23 April 1917. Karl von Fasbender died on 13 May 1933 in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

, Germany.

References

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fasbender, Karl von 1852 births 1933 deaths People from Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis People from the Kingdom of Bavaria Bavarian generals German Army generals of World War I Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (military class) Grand Crosses of the Military Order of Max Joseph People from Hesse

Military service

See also

References

Bibliography