History of mountain warfare
The earliest tools of warfare that can be found in the Alps of central Europe date back to the Bronze Age. Steep, inhospitable cliffs and harsh weather have limited human survival there, so war is not as abundant there as in more climate-friendly areas. And the war waged by ancient humans here is undoubtedly more difficult. The earliest large-scale warfare in the Alps was the famous expedition of General Hannibal and his elephants in 218 BC. Before the Alps could vent their petty frustrations, Hannibal had already crossed it and appeared before the unsuspecting Roman legions. The mountain remained silent for more than 1,800 years, until a man named Napoleon Bonaparte woke it up again. This time, the eternal silence of the Alps was completely shattered. It became a natural border between the great powers of Europe after the Napoleonic Wars. On all sides of the Alps, there is Austria, which inherited the mantle of the Holy Roman Empire, France, which is still strong, and Italy, which is newly united. The development of mountaineering and military technology in the second half of the 19th century meant that the mountains were no longer a reliable natural barrier. In order to defend its own security, the Swiss Confederation established the world's first army dedicated to mountain warfare at the end of the 19th century, and France, Austria-Hungary, and Italy followed suit. By 1914, the start of World War I, Italy had formed the famous Alpine Mountain Force, consisting of 16 mountain battalions. Austria-Hungary formed two mountain armies.
At this time, the mountain warfare technology was still in its infancy, and there was no reliable rock climbing technology at that time, so the mountain warfare could only be carried out in the mountainous areas where the terrain was relatively easy to reach, but it meant that the roads were more rugged than the plains and a little higher altitude, and the two sides dug trenches in the mountains and set up forts, and the mountain warfare at that time was only a variant of the positional warfare in the plains, but because the mountain warfare required great physical exertion, the mountain troops were usually composed of hard-working mountain youths. Its requirements and training are also more stringent than those of ordinary field troops. The image of the "elite unit" of the mountain infantry also began here.
German mountain infantry of the First World War
The Second German Reich was the first military power in Europe. However, its mountain troops were formed relatively late. With the exception of Bavaria and Württemberg in the south, Germany's border areas are largely plain. The precipitous Alps cut far from the territory of neutral Switzerland and friendly Austria-Hungary. Therefore, it was not until 1915 that Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered the formation of Germany's first mountain troops in Bavaria, whose members were veterans from Bavaria and the southern mountains of Württemberg. After the formation of the unit, it was planned to be put into use on the mountainous Balkan front, but it was transferred to France and **.
By the summer of 1917, the tug-of-war between Italy and Austria over the Isonso River region had been going on for three years. The two sides confronted each other across towering mountain peaks and bottomless valleys. But no one can move forward. It was not until August 1917 that Italy launched an offensive against the Austrian army there, having raised 40 infantry divisions and several thousand artillery pieces. Austrian Karl wrote to the Kaiser asking for help. The German mountain troops, who were fighting on the French front, were urgently transferred to the Italian front and formed the 14th Army Corps to assist the Austrians in their operations.
The 14th Army, which arrived at the front, found itself confronted by the Italians with well-constructed concrete positions, powerful artillery and hundreds of thousands of soldiers. The objective of the 14th Army was to capture Monte, Mount Cook, the Corovra Ridge and Heights 1114 behind the Italian lines. But the elite troops from Bavaria, Silesia and Swabia, carrying dozens of kilograms of mountain artillery, machine guns, ammunition and other burdens, penetrated the rear and flanks of the Italian army on the peaks of more than 3,000 meters, and appeared in front of the Italian soldiers. The Austrian army had already fought 11 fierce battles here, and finally won the 12th Battle of Isonso with the assistance of German mountain troops.
However, victory on one front could not save the Allies from declining on the entire world battlefield. A year later, Austria-Hungary and Germany declared defeat and surrender. The mountain troops under the Kaiser's banner were disbanded and demobilized.
Reorganization of mountain troops
After the end of World War I, the German Army was limited to 100,000 personnel. Due to the good performance of the German mountain troops in the First World War, the Weimar Republic retained a small part of the backbone of the mountain troops, and they would become the core of the future mountain troops. In 1935, Hitler tore up the Versailles Treaty and began rearmament. In the same year, the German Army formed the Mountain Infantry Brigade on the basis of the remaining mountain infantry personnel, and the third mountain infantry regiment and the 79th Mountain Artillery Regiment under its jurisdiction.
In 1938, Germany swallowed Austria, part of the Austrian Army was disbanded, and the rest were incorporated into the German Wehrmacht sequence, a total of more than 50,000 Austrian soldiers joined the German army, because the Austrian army has mountain troops, training and equipment are also good, out of cost considerations, Hitler decided to form two mountain divisions, the 1st Mountain Division and the 2nd Mountain Division based on the original German Mountain Brigade and Austrian Mountain Troops.
The 1st Mountain Division was formed on 9 April 1938 as part of the 7th Military Region in Munihe, and its headquarters was located in the famous alpine ski resort of Gasongspartenkirchen in southern Bavaria, near the border with former Austria, and its units included the 98th Mountain Infantry Regiment, the 99th Mountain Infantry Regiment, the 100th Mountain Infantry Regiment (which was transferred to the 5th Mountain Division in 1940), the 79th Mountain Artillery Regiment, the 54th Anti-Tank Battalion, and the 54th Mountain Communications Battalion. The backbone of the division was 3 regiments of the former mountain infantry brigade.
The 2nd Mountain Division was established on April 1, 1938, based in Innsbruck, Austria, and belonged to the newly formed 18th Military Region (Salzburg Military District), with mainly Austrian members, and its subordinate units included: the 136th Mountain Infantry Regiment, the 137th Mountain Infantry Regiment, the 111th Mountain Artillery Regiment, the 67th Bicycle Battalion, the 47th Mountain Anti-Tank Battalion, the 82nd Mountain Engineer Battalion, and the 67th Mountain Communications Battalion.
At this time, the formation and establishment of the mountain infantry of the German army had not yet been determined, so the two divisions adopted a three-regiment system and the other adopted a two-regiment system (both referring to infantry regiments), and the attachment of engineer units and reconnaissance units was also different, after about a year of experiments. The German army basically determined the establishment of the 2nd Regiment of the Mountain Division, and transferred personnel from the 3rd and 7th Divisions of the former Austrian Army to form the 3rd Mountain Division in Graz, Austria, on April 1, 1939. The division is subordinate to the 138th Mountain Infantry Regiment, the 139th Mountain Infantry Regiment, the 112th Mountain Artillery Regiment, the 68th Bicycle Battalion, the 48th Mountain Anti-Tank Battalion, the 83rd Mountain Engineer Battalion, and the 68th Mountain Communications Battalion.
First war in Poland
On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. After the outbreak of the war, the 1st Mountain Division was subordinate to the 14th Army under the command of General Liszt, and was part of Rundstead's Army Group South. All three mountain divisions completed their mobilization on 26 August. According to the German battle plan, the 1st Mountain Division attacked north from Slovakia, the 2nd Mountain Division attacked east from the Carpathians, and the 3rd Mountain Division was responsible for filling the gap between the two divisions. However, the 3rd Mountain Division was transferred out of Poland shortly after the start of the war and thrown into the Western Front to guard against a possible British and French attack. The remaining two divisions entered Slovakia territory from Bratislava, moved eastward along poorly maintained railways and roads, crossed the former Polish-Czechoslovak border at the easternmost point of Slovak territory, and advanced into the interior of Poland.
The 1st Mountain Division was located on the right flank of the 2nd Mountain Division, and the target was the Dukla Pass in the Eastern Carpathians. After a quick battle, the 1st Mountain Division annihilated the two Polish light infantry regiments guarding there, capturing the Dukla Pass and the nearby town of Sanok. After that, the two divisions advanced rapidly northeast along the flat and swampy city of Vistula River, and in the absence of roads and railways, they marched more than 200 kilometers around the heavily defended Polish city of Przemyśl to occupy Lviv (now part of Ukraine), the capital of the Galician region and the second largest industrial city in Poland, and then cooperate with the 14th Army to complete the rendezvous with Bock's Army Group North and complete the deep encirclement of the German army against the Polish army.
The vanguard assault force that blitzed the city was a battle group of the 1st Mountain Infantry Division, consisting of 4 mountain companies and supported by artillery, engineer and anti-tank units. The main forces of the 1st Division, after a short break, marched with the battle group and fought along a rudimentary path towards Lviv. The German battle group reached the vicinity of Lviv on September 14 and immediately formed positions and established an encirclement of the city of Lviv. Other main forces of the 1st and 2nd Mountain Infantry Divisions also arrived on the outskirts of the city from 15 to 20 September.
The fighting in Lviv was unusually fierce. Due to the speed of the march, the two mountain divisions actually stood out ahead of other German units, and at one point the battle was at a stalemate on the outlying positions of the city of Lviv. During the battle, the 1st Mountain Infantry Division suffered considerable losses: 243 people were killed and 400 wounded. Considering that Poland is not a formidable opponent, this is indeed a staggering number. However, in the spoils of Hitler and Stalin's agreement, Lviv was east of the dividing line between the two countries, so the 14th Army had to cede the largest city in eastern Poland to the Soviet troops who participated in the spoils-sharing feast. In the end, part of the Polish army withdrew to Hungary and Romania, part of the Polish army laid down ** to the Soviets, and the defenders of Lviv, who fought valiantly until the last moment, surrendered to the 1st Mountain Division on September 21. The Polish POWs were respected by the Germans and were soon sent home to avoid being shot in the Katyn Forest or in the White Sea concentration camps at the hands of the Soviet "liberators".
After the Polish campaign, the 1st Mountain Division was sent to the Western Front by November 1939 to prepare for the upcoming French campaign. The German offensive on the Western Front was planned to begin on November 25, 1939, and later advanced to November 12, but preparations were not completed due to the disobedience of the Army General Headquarters headed by Brauchitsch. Although the Western Front was still in the stage of "sit-down war" at this time, Britain and Germany were already about to fight for the right to enter and exit the North Sea and the North Atlantic. In view of the lessons learned from the blockade of the German High Seas Fleet by Britain in the Baltic Sea during World War I, the German Navy has always made controlling the coastlines of the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean a strategic priority in the next major war. At the suggestion of the commander of the German Navy, Raeder, Hitler approved the invasion of the Nordic countries. The goal of the Germans was neutral Norway, and at the same time passing through Denmark. Considering that the terrain of Norway was mostly mountainous and fjords, the High Command decided to put the 2nd and 3rd Mountain Divisions on the Norwegian front.
To be continued.