The 5th Guard Regiment of Foot (German: 5. Garde-Regiment zu Fuß) was a regiment in the Imperial German Army prior to and during the First World War. Established in 1897, it was part of the 5th Guards Infantry Brigade and the 2nd Guards Division. During peacetime the regiment was garrisoned in Spandau.
With the outbreak of World War I, the regiment (as part of the 5th Guard Infantry Brigade) was transferred to the 3rd Guard Infantry Division of the Guards Reserve Corps. The regiment participated in the invasion of Belgium in August 1914; in late August the Guard Reserve Corps was transferred to the eastern theater of the war and thus the regiment took part in fighting in Poland, Russia and the later Lithuania. It was during this time that the regiment acquired the nickname "The White Devils" from the Russian because of the unit's distinctive white braid (litzen).
In May 1915 the 5th Guard Infantry Brigade was used to form the new 4th Guard Infantry Division. This division would become one of the German army's best divisions and thus the regiment would find itself engaged in some of the most significant battles of the war.
From November 1915 until the end of the war it fought on the western front, namely on the Somme, Arras, Flanders, and during the Spring Offensive of 1918.
During the war, just over 4,000 men of the regiment were killed. Commanders during the war were Oberst von Hülsen, Oberstleutnant von Radowitz and Major von Kriegsheim.
In 1919, the last remaining soldiers of the regiment formed the "Detachement Maltzan", a Freikorps ready for use in the Baltic.
In Spandau there is a memorial in memory of the killed soldiers of the 5th Foot Guards. The regiment was disbanded following the war and perpetuated by 6th Company, 5th Infantry Regiment of the Reichswehr in Angermünde, Brandenburg.
Famous quotes containing the words foot and/or guards:
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Phileas Fogg: My dear, I must ask you to leave these precincts at once. No woman has ever set foot in the Club.
Aouda: Why not?
Phileas Fogg: Because that could spell the end of the British Empire.”
—James Poe (1921–1980)
“The reason why men enter into society, is the preservation of their property; and the end why they choose and authorize a legislative, is, that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the members of the society: to limit the power, and moderate the dominion, of every part and member of the society.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)