| The Prussian Machine - Generals |
Hans von Beseler
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(27.4.1850 - 20.12.1921) place of birth: Greifswald, Pommern (Pomerania) Prussian colonel general who was born into the family of Georg Beseler, a well-known law instructor. He served during the Franco-Prussian War as a lieutenant in a combat engineering company. When Beseler later became the Deputy Chief of the Great General Staff (1899), he was regarded as von Schlieffen's heir apparent. But when that post went instead to von Moltke, he retired in 1911. He entered the Prussian House of Lords in 1912, but as war broke out, was reactivated to command III. Reserve Corps. Beseler is best known for commanding the occupational forces which captured the Fortress of Antwerp, a feat which earned him the Pour le Merite. With the
III.
Reserves transferring to the Eastern Front in November 1914 under Gallwitz,
Beseler found himself in command of the army which captured and occupied the Fortress of Modlin
(Nowo Georgiewsk), taking over 85,000
Russian prisoners. Falkenhayn then appointed him Governor General of Poland at
Warsaw (1915). In the fall of 1916, Beseler unrealistically promised Ludendorff
that Poland could provide the German Army with five extra
divisions by the spring of 1917. After promotion to colonel
general in late 1918,
Beseler committed the
unpardonable act of leaving his command without a farewell to his troops. He
died and was buried three years later at Neubabelsberg near Potsdam, 20
December 1921. He and his wife Clara Cornelius had three daughters.
Additionally, Beseler's uncle Wilhelm Hartwig von Beseler was president of the provisional
government of Schleswig-Holstein (1848).
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