Martin Wilhelm Remus von Woyrsch was a Prussian Field Marshal, a member of the Prussian House of Lords from 1908 to 1918, and an Ehrenkommendator or Honorary Commander of the Order of St. John.
Background
Remus von Woyrsch was born at the estate Pilsnitz (Pilczyce, now part of Fabryczna) near Breslau (Wrocław) in Prussian Silesia. He came from old minor nobility, first from South Bohemia and then from ca. 1500 in Troppau (Opava) in Moravian Silesia.
Education
After Woyrsch finished high school in Breslau, he joined the 1st Potsdamer Garde-Grenadier Regiment on 5 April 1866. He served at the battle of Königgrätz in 1868. He later fought in the 1870–71 Franco-Prussian war where he was wounded but earned the Iron Cross. In 1901 Woyrsch was promoted to divisional commander.
Career
Woyrsch entered the army in 1860, fought in the wars of 1866 and 1870/1871, and then transferred to the General Staff; he was promoted colonel in 1896, major general and brigade commander the following year, and lieutenant general in 1901 as chief of the Twelfth Division at Neisse. Woyrsch headed the VI Army Corps at Breslau in 1903/1904, was promoted general of infantry in 1905, and retired six years later at the age of sixty-four.
Reactivated on August 1, 1914, as commander of his native Silesian Landwehr Corps, Woyrsch was ordered to advance against Ivangorod. Early in September the Austro-Hungarian army was heavily engaged at Krasnik and Woyrsch's troops were thrown in to turn an apparent defeat into a modest victory. The Silesians were thereafter deployed as part of the Austro-Hungarian army near Tarnavka against the Moscow Grenadier Corps; after a severe defeat of the alliance partner on September 9, Woyrsch's forces covered the Austrian retreat near Tarnow, losing 8,000 men but saving the Austro- Hungarian First Army from certain annihilation. Only a hastily planned German offensive by the new commanders in the east, Generals Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, drove the Russians behind the Vistula and saved Silesia from occupation.
Woyrsch then returned to German command and from October 1914 until the end of 1917 commanded Army Section Woyrsch in the east. Specifically, early in November 1914 he halted the Russians once again near the Silesian borders at Czentochau; Woyrsch managed to tie down the enemy long enough for Ludendorff to cave in the Russian flank at Thorn. Woyrsch's units, which then included the Austro-Hungarian Second Army, participated in the final victory at Thorn. Woyrsch was rewarded with the coveted Pour le mérite and promoted colonel general.
In May 1915, General August von Mackensens Eleventh Army broke through the Russian line at Gorlice-Tarnow, ushering in a series of German offensives all along the eastern front. Woyrsch's units on June 17 defeated the enemy at Sienno, took Ivangorod on July 21/22, and thereafter crossed both the Vistula and Bug rivers; in one month, Woyrsch advanced over 400 kilometers as far as Baranovichi, which in June and July he held against repeated Russian attempts to recapture the city. On August 29, 1916, this capable Silesian officer was entrusted with command of Army Group Woyrsch in southern Poland; the unit was disbanded on December 31, 1917, following the collapse of the Russian front. By then over seventy years of age, Woyrsch requested retirement and was promoted field marshal for his steadfast efforts in the east. After the war Woyrsch assumed command of the southern wing of the German border guards in the east and died at Pilsnitz near Breslau on August 6, 1920.
Connections
He married Thekla von Massow (1854–1943) from East Prussia, on 26 September 1873 in Potsdam, Brandenburg. She was the daughter of the royal Prussian forester Hermann von Massow.
His nephew Udo von Woyrsch (1895–1983) was an SS Obergruppenführer and SS and Police Leader.