Eastern Front On 1 August 1914, at the
outbreak of the First World War, Below was given command of
I Reserve Corps as part of
8th Army on the
Eastern Front. He led his Corps in the Battles of
Gumbinnen,
Tannenberg, and the
Masurian Lakes. As a result of his successes, he was promoted to
General der Infanterie at the end of August 1914 and to command of 8th Army at the beginning of November 1914. Below commanded the 8th Army in the
Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes (February 1915) and the
Army of the Niemen (later renamed 8th Army) in the Courland Offensive (May 1915). His forces advanced into
Courland and
Lithuania as far as the southern reaches of the
Western Dvina River. on the
Macedonian Front, consisting of the
German 11th Army and the
First &
Second Bulgarian Armies. In April 1917, he was briefly sent to the
Western Front to command
6th Army around
Lille.
Italy Below next served on the
Italian Front from September 1917. Commanding the Austro-German
14th Army (seven German and ten
Austro-Hungarian divisions) in the
Battle of Caporetto, his units were able to break into the
Italian front line and rout the Italian army, which had practically no mobile reserves. The battle was a demonstration of the effectiveness of the use of
stormtroopers and the
infiltration tactics developed in part by
Oskar von Hutier. The use of
poison gas by Germans troops played a key role in the collapse of the
Italian Second Army. A breakdown in German logistics brought the battle to a close on the line of the
Piave River and the front soon froze again in
trench warfare.
Western Front In February 1918, Below was brought back to the Western Front to command the new
17th Army for the
Kaiserschlacht Offensive. Shortly before the war's end, Below was involved in preparations for a possible final battle on German territory (Home Defense Forces West). ==Awards==