81st Reserve Division (German Empire) - Combat Chronicle

Combat Chronicle

The 81st Reserve Division initially fought on the Western Front, seeing its first action in the trenches west of the Somme. It was transferred to the Eastern Front in April 1915, and fought in the Gorlice-Tarnów Offensive, crossing the San River and fighting around Przemyśl, and then fighting in the 1915 Battle of Lemberg. It continued fighting across the border between Austro-Hungarian Galicia and Russian Poland, fighting in a series of battles leading to the taking of Brest-Litovsk in August and Pinsk in September, and then settled into positional warfare in the Pripyat Marshes. It remained there until December 1917, when, after the armistice on the Eastern Front, it was sent back to the Western Front. It fought in the trenches and saw action in the Battle of Armentières in April 1918, part of the Battle of the Lys, also known as the Lys Offensive or the Fourth Battle of Ypres. The division continued fighting on various parts of the Western Front until the end of the war. Allied intelligence rated the division as third class.