Background
Hans Hartwig von Beseler was born at Greifswald, Germany on April 27, 1850, the son of a legal scholar.
Hans Hartwig von Beseler was born at Greifswald, Germany on April 27, 1850, the son of a legal scholar.
Beseler entered the army in 1868, fought in the Franco-Prussian War, then as captain attended the War Academy, and served in the War Ministry. Beseler was appointed deputy chief of the General Staff in 1899 and five years later was widely regarded as Alfred von Schlieffen's heir apparent; but the post of chief of the General Staff instead went to Helmuth von Moltke while Beseler was ennobled and appointed inspector general of fortresses, engineers, and sappers. Promoted lieutenant general in 1903 and general of infantry four years later, Beseler retired from active service in 1910, having passed his sixtieth birthday. In 1912 he entered the Prussian House of Lords.
On August 2, 1914, Beseler was reactivated as commander of the III Reserve Corps and entered Belgium as part of the First Army. On September 17, he was entrusted with reducing Fortress Antwerp; Beseler attained his goal by October 10, receiving the order Pour le mérite. The III Reserve Corps fought along the Yser River in November, and was then shuttled east, where it stood with the Ninth Army at Lodz. As part of Army Group Gallwitz, Beseler was ordered to capture Fortress Modlin along the Vistula; it fell on August 20, 1915, with 85,000 prisoners taken, including thirty Russian generals.
Four days later General Erich von Falkenhayn appointed Beseler governor general of Poland at Warsaw apparently at the suggestion of generals Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff.
This was, in many ways, an unfortunate choice. Beseler was an intelligent, educated, and cultured officer, but totally unfamiliar with German politics. Neither did he possess command of the Polish language. Beseler encouraged the re-creation of Congress Poland, to be ruled through an "assembly of nobles." Above all, he saw the moment ripe for the "final phase of the Austro-Prussian historical duel," that is, for realizing a Prussian Kleindeutsch solution for Poland by "throwing Austria out."
Ludendorff, who had initially disliked Beseler's initiative in creating an independent Polish state, in time saw merit in the proposal. His interest was mainly in the recruitment of Polish soldiers for his armies, however, and the final proclamation of Congress Poland on November 5, 1916, therefore, vividly bore his imprint. The new Poland was to be created only after the end of the war, and recruitment was to take place without direct Polish involvement. In short, Ludendorff saw the new state primarily as a satellite to serve as a manpower reservoir for the Central Powers. In time, the Poles rejected this notion and their war minister, Joseph Pilsudski, was arrested by the Germans in July 1917.
Therewith Beseler's original proposal failed; Ludendorff turned against the governor general when Polish recruitment failed to materialize. Beseler was promoted colonel general in January 1918, but was a physically ill and mentally broken man who, on November 12, laid down command without a farewell to his troops an unpardonable breach of etiquette.
Violently attacked after the war by right-wing groups both for his failure to bid his soldiers farewell and for his alleged "pro-Polish" policies, the general insisted on a mock trial in 1919 and was found innocent of any wrongdoing by a court of the III Army Corps. He sought refuge at Sanatorium Loschwitz and died at Neubabelsberg on December 20, 1921.