The
Seebatallione [sea battalions] were naval infantry troops or marines serving in the
PrussianPrussia was a historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries this state had substantial influence on German and European history...
navy, the navy of the
North German ConfederationThe North German Confederation , came into existence in August 1866 as a military alliance of 22 states of northern Germany with the Kingdom of Prussia as the leading state. In July 1867 it was transformed into a federal state...
, the Imperial German Navy and briefly in the modern Federal German Navy, the Bundesmarine.
The first
Seebatallion was organized on 13 May 1852 as the Royal Prussian
Marinier-Korps at Stettin. This formation provided small contingents of marines to perform traditional functions such as protecting officers, general policing aboard warships and limited amphibious shore intrusions.
The
Seebatallione [sea battalions] were naval infantry troops or marines serving in the
PrussianPrussia was a historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries this state had substantial influence on German and European history...
navy, the navy of the
North German ConfederationThe North German Confederation , came into existence in August 1866 as a military alliance of 22 states of northern Germany with the Kingdom of Prussia as the leading state. In July 1867 it was transformed into a federal state...
, the Imperial German Navy and briefly in the modern Federal German Navy, the Bundesmarine.
Establishment and history
The first
Seebatallion was organized on 13 May 1852 as the Royal Prussian
Marinier-Korps at Stettin. This formation provided small contingents of marines to perform traditional functions such as protecting officers, general policing aboard warships and limited amphibious shore intrusions. The
Seebatallion in 1870 had a strength of 22 officers and 680 non-commissioned officers and men. Battalion headquarters was then located at
KielKiel is the capital and most populous city of the northern German state Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of over 236,000 .Kiel is approximately to the north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore...
.
After the establishment of the German Empire in 1871, Chancellor
Otto von BismarckOtto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck was a Prussian German statesman and aristocrat of the 19th century. As Ministerpräsident of Prussia from 1862–1890, he oversaw the unification of Germany. In 1867 he became Chancellor of the North German Confederation...
more or less ignored the navy as it did “not fit his intentions.” Bismarck’s continental policies sought to avoid colonial or naval entanglements and he would oppose plans to further develop navy forces. With the creation of the Imperial Admiralty, Prussian army
Generalleutnant Albrecht von StoschAlbrecht von Stosch was a German General der Infanterie and Admiral who served as first Chief of the newly created Imperial German admiralty from 1872 to 1883....
was appointed chief. Stosch had no experience in naval matters, but “nevertheless, brought significant administrative talents to his new post.” He also perceived military power to emanate “from the tip of an army bayonet.”
Stosch ended the practice of placing marines aboard warships. Instead he adopted a concept that became known as
Infanterieismus. He would train seamen as naval infantry, qualified in using small arms and competent in infantry tactics and amphibious operations. That approach would position the
Seebatallion as a compact, self-contained organization, roughly equivalent to the British Royal Marine Light Infantry. Scheduled exchanges of officers from the Prussian army brought current tactical thinking to the sea battalion. Enlargement of the battalion to six companies allowed a reorganization of the unit and the transfer of half of the battalion to Wilhelmshaven to form the
II. Seebatallion. Both battalions were then increased in size to four companies.
After the successful occupation of
KiautschouThe Jiaozhou Bay concession was a German colonial concession which existed from 1898 to 1914. With an area of 552 km², it was located in the imperial province of Shandong on the southern coast of the Shandong Peninsula in northern China....
in China on 14 November 1897 by the navy’s
East Asia SquadronThe German East Asia Squadron was a German Kaiserliche Marine cruiser squadron which operated mainly in the Pacific Ocean between the 1870s and 1914...
in a flawless demonstration of
Infanterieismus, two companies from the first and two companies from the second battalion were combined to populate a third formation, the
III. Seebatallion. This new battalion arrived at Tsingtao on 26 January 1898 to garrison the East Asian Station of the imperial navy. It was and remained the only all-German unit with permanent status in a protectorate.
Units and garrisons in 1912
- I. Seebatallion at Kiel
Kiel is the capital and most populous city of the northern German state Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of over 236,000 .Kiel is approximately to the north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore...
on the Baltic
- II. Seebatallion at Wilhelmshaven
||-||}Wilhelmshaven is a coastal town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the western side of Jadebusen, a bay of the North Sea.-History:...
on the North Sea
- III. Seebatallion at Tsingtao (with its replacement and training base at Cuxhaven
Cuxhaven is an independent town and seat of the Cuxhaven district, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the shore of the North Sea at the mouth of the Elbe River. Cuxhaven has a footprint of 14 km by 7 km...
)
Additional small formations were the East Asian Marine Detachment (OMD) at
PekingBeijing is a metropolis in northern China and the capital of the People's Republic of China...
and Tientsin, and a company composed of personnel from I. and II.
Seebatallions as Marine-Detachment in internationally occupied
AlbaniaAlbania , officially the Republic of Albania , is a Mediterranean country in South Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Montenegro to the north, Kosovo to the northeast, Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south-east...
.
Deployments
Since the mid-1880s
Seebatallion troops were frequently used as temporary intervention forces, mostly in the colonies. A company was sent in 1884 to German Kamerun. During the
Boxer rebellionThe Boxer Rebellion, more properly called the Boxer Uprising, or the Righteous Harmony Society Movement in Chinese, was a violent anti-imperialism, anti-Christian movement by the "Righteous Fists of Harmony,” Yihe tuan义和团 or Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists in China , between 1898 and 1901...
in China from 1900 to 1901, the first and second
Seebatallion, reinforced by an engineer company and field artillery battery, comprised the German contingent to the international relief force. In 1904-1908 during the
HereroThe Herero are a people belonging to the Bantu group, with about 240,000 members alive today. The majority live in Namibia, with the remainder living in Botswana and Angola. Most are employed as workers on large farms or earn their living as merchants or tradesmen in the cities...
and
NamaNama may mean:* NAMA_ or National_Asset_Management_Agency, Ireland's National Asset Management Agency* Nama , a genus of plants in the family Hydrophyllaceae* Holy Name in Indian religions...
revolt, a formation in battalion strength supported the
SchutztruppeThe Schutztruppe was the African colonial armed force of Imperial Germany from the late 1800s to 1918, when Germany lost its colonies. Similar to other colonial forces, the Schutztruppe consisted of volunteer European commissioned and non-commissioned officers, medical and veterinary officers...
in German South West Africa; during 1905-1906 a
Seebatallion detachment served in
German East AfricaGerman East Africa was a German colony in East Africa, including what are now Burundi, Rwanda and Tanganyika...
during the
Maji MajiThe Maji Maji Rebellion, sometimes called the Maji Maji War, was a violent African resistance to colonial rule in the German colony of Tanganyika, an uprising by several African indigenous communities in German East Africa against the German rule in response to a German policy designed to force...
uprising.
World War One
The outbreak of the
Great WarWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
saw the rapid expansion of marine forces into division size units. Drawing on
Seebatallion reservists and conscripts, the naval infantry brigade under
Generalmajor von Wiechmann grew into the first Marine Division. An additional Marine Division was formed in November 1914 as well as
Marine-Korps-Flandern [Marine Corps Flanders] under Admiral Ludwig von Schroeder (known in Germany as the "Lion of Flanders"). In early February 1917 a third Marine Division was organized thus giving the naval infantry corps a strength of 60-70,000 men.
Marine units fought in 1914 at Tsingtao and Antwerp, in 1915 at Ypres, in 1916 on the Somme, in 1917 in Flanders and during the 1918 offensive battles in northern France.
Bundesmarine
In April 1958 a marine engineer battalion was raised for the Federal German Navy and was initially under the command of the destroyer forces commander. After several reorganizations, the amphibious groups of the federal navy were dissolved or reassigned in 1993.
Footnotes and references
- Gottschall, Terrell D. By Order of the Kaiser. Otto von Diederichs and the Rise of the Imperial German Navy, 1865-1902. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2003. ISBN 1-55750-309-5
- Nuhn, Walter. Kolonialpolitik und die Marine. Bonn: Bernard & Graefe Verlag, 2002. ISBN 3-7637-6241-8
External links