Guards Corps (German Empire)
The Guards Corps / GK (German: Gardekorps) was a corps level command of the Prussian and then the Imperial German Armies from the 19th Century to World War I.
The Corps was headquartered in Berlin, with its units garrisoned in the city and nearby towns (Potsdam, Jüterbog, Döberitz). Unlike all other Corps of the Imperial German Army, the Guards Corps did not recruit from a specific area, but from throughout Prussia and the "Imperial Lands" of Alsace-Lorraine.
The Corps served in the Austro-Prussian War. During the Franco-Prussian War it was assigned to the 2nd Army.
In peacetime the Corps was assigned to the II Army Inspectorate but joined the 2nd Army at the start of the First World War. It was still in existence at the end of the war in the 4th Army, Heeresgruppe Kronprinz Rupprecht on the Western Front. The Corps was disbanded with the demobilisation of the German Army after World War I.
Read more about Guards Corps (German Empire): Austro-Prussian War, Franco-Prussian War, Peacetime Organisation, Commanders
Famous quotes containing the words guards and/or corps:
“Whoever feels predestined to see and not to believe will find all believers too noisy and pushy: he guards against them.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Ce corps qui s’appelait et qui s’appelle encore le saint empire romain n’était en aucune manière ni saint, ni romain, ni empire. This agglomeration which called itself and still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.”
—Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)