Working on a deal

[Douglas Jr.]

Originally Posted by Ron Smith

In 1919 General Hans von Seekt a very charismatic and highly respected General managed to get control of the chaos. He began to dissolve the Freikorps units organizing them into a 100,000 man Reichswehr.

Later circa 1920-21 the Allied Commission mandated that it be reduced to 10,000 men. von Seekt complied by discharging all but the most experienced and battle hardened NCOs, known as "The Army of Sergeants".

In fact, between the Armistice in November, 1918 and the Treaty of Versailles, in June 28th, 1919, the Germans expected to preserve a larger force, something like a 500,000 strong army. However, the Treaty limited the Army to a 100,000 men force, and allowed 10,000 to the now called Reichsmarine (with only was able to retain four old pre-Dreadnought battleships and a few costal defense units). No Air Force was allowed, as well as tanks and submarines. Hence the decision to have a highly trained cadre in order to allow a fast rearmament in the near future (as happened after 1935).

In such scenario, the government turned to the Freikorps, as a unofficial and non governmental militias to help them to fight agains the Commies, the Poles, Czechs and Red Russians, during the border clashes that ocurred between 1918-1923.

But, as you said, some Freikorps units had their own political agenda and stagged a few coups attempts agains the fragile Weimar Repulic, such as the Kapp-Luttwitz Putsch in 1920 and the infamous nazi Beer Putsch in 1923.

Besides that, it is interesting to note that the Police units role during this timeframe is often overlooked. Although the size of the German Armed Forces was strictly controlled by the Allies, they didn't bother at all to set a limit to the Polizei units. By alocating WWI veterans and other volunteers to the police units, Germany kept another source for trained reserve of soldiers.

Osprey Publishing has a reasonable book about the Freikorps, that, although a fast reading, is both cheap and fully available: http://www.ospreypublishing.com/stor...9781841761848/


Regards,

Douglas