Prussian Army
The Royal Prussian Army served as the army of the Kingdom of Prussia. It became vital to the development of Prussia as a European political and military power and within Germany.
The Royal Prussian Army had its roots in the core mercenary forces of Brandenburg–Prussia during the long religious strife of the Thirty Years' War of 1618–1648. Elector Frederick William, developed it into a viable standing army, while King Frederick William I of Prussia, dramatically increased its size and improved its doctrines. King Frederick the Great, a formidable battle commander, led the disciplined Prussian troops to victory during the 18th century Silesian Wars and greatly increased the prestige and military reputation throughout Europe and among the hodge-podge array of various German states kingdoms, duchies, principalities and free cities of the leadership in the East of the rising Kingdom of Prussia.
However the Prussian Army had become outdated and under-resourced decades later by the beginning of the late 18th century into the early 19th century era to meet the challenge from the west beginning in the political and social upheaval in the French Revolution of 1789–1793, overthrowing of the French monarchy, execution of Louis XVI, and the Royal House of Bourbon. The continuing strife spilling over French borders of the following French Revolutionary Wars, and then the Napoleonic Wars, and rise of the First French Empire of France under Napoleon I, defeated Prussia in the War of the Fourth Coalition in 1806–1807.
However, under the subsequent leadership of Gerhard von Scharnhorst, Prussian military reformers began modernizing the Royal Prussian Army, which contributed greatly to the later final defeat and exile of Napoleon I during the War of the Sixth Coalition. Conservatives halted some of the reforms, however, and the Prussian Army subsequently became a bulwark of the conservative Prussian royal government.
In the 19th century, the Prussian Army fought successful wars against Kingdom of Denmark in the Second Schleswig War of 1864; versus the Austrian Empire in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866; and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 with the Second French Empire of France, led by Emperor Napoleon III; which allowing Prussia to lead and dominate in the Unification of Germany, establishing the German Empire in 1871. The Royal Prussian Army formed the core of the new larger Imperial German Army, which was replaced by the Reichswehr after the defeat in World War I, in the First German Republic during the 1920s and early 1930s.
The Great Elector
Creation of the army
The army of Prussia grew out of the united armed forces created during the reign of Elector Frederick William of Brandenburg. Hohenzollern Brandenburg-Prussia had primarily relied upon Landsknecht mercenaries during the Thirty Years' War, in which Brandenburg was devastated. Swedish and Imperial forces occupied the country. In the spring of 1644, Frederick William started building a standing army through conscription to better defend his state.By 1643–44, the developing army numbered only 5,500 troops, including 500 musketeers in Frederick William's bodyguard. The elector's confidant Johann von Norprath recruited forces in the Duchy of Cleves and organized an army of 3,000 Dutch and German soldiers in the Rhineland by 1646. Garrisons were also slowly augmented in Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia. Frederick William sought assistance from France, the traditional rival of Habsburg Austria, and began receiving French subsidies. He based his reforms on those of Louvois, the War Minister of King Louis XIV. The growth of his army allowed Frederick William to achieve considerable territorial acquisitions in the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, despite Brandenburg's relative lack of success during the war.
The provincial estates desired a reduction in the army's size during peacetime, but the elector avoided their demands through political concessions, evasion and economy. In the 1653 Brandenburg Recess between Frederick William and the estates of Brandenburg, the nobility provided the sovereign with 530,000 thalers in return for affirmation of their privileges. The Junkers thus cemented their political power at the expense of the peasantry. Once the elector and his army were strong enough, Frederick William was able to suppress the estates of Cleves, Mark and Prussia.
Frederick William attempted to professionalize his soldiers during a time when mercenaries were the norm. In addition to individually creating regiments and appointing colonels, the elector imposed harsh punishments for transgressions, such as punishing by hanging for looting, and running the gauntlet for desertion. Acts of violence by officers against civilians resulted in decommission for a year. He developed a cadet institution for the nobility; although the upper class was resistant to the idea in the short term, the integration of the nobility into the officer corps allied them with the Hohenzollern monarchy in the long term. Field Marshals of Brandenburg-Prussia included Derfflinger, John George II, Spaen and Sparr. The elector's troops traditionally were organized into disconnected provincial forces. In 1655, Frederick William began the unification of the various detachments by placing them under Sparr's overall command. Unification also increased through the appointment of Generalkriegskommissar Platen as head of supplies. These measures decreased the authority of the primarily mercenary colonels who had been so prominent during the Thirty Years' War.
Campaigns of the Great Elector
Brandenburg-Prussia's new army survived its trial by fire through victory in the 1656 Battle of Warsaw, during the Northern Wars. Observers were impressed with the discipline of the Brandenburger troops, as well as their treatment of civilians, which was considered more humane than that of their allies, the Swedish Army. Hohenzollern success enabled Frederick William to assume full sovereignty over the Duchy of Prussia in the 1657 Treaty of Wehlau, by which Brandenburg-Prussia allied itself with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Despite having expelled Swedish forces from the territory, the elector did not acquire Vorpommern in the 1660 Treaty of Oliva, as the balance of power had been restored.In the early 1670s, Frederick William supported Imperial attempts to reclaim Alsace and counter the expansion of Louis XIV. Swedish troops invaded Brandenburg in 1674 while the bulk of the elector's forces were in Franconia's winter quarters. In 1675 Frederick William marched his troops northward and surrounded Wrangel's troops. The elector achieved his greatest victory in the Battle of Fehrbellin; although a minor battle, it brought fame to the Brandenburg-Prussian Army and gave Frederick William the nickname "the Great Elector". After Sweden invaded Prussia in late 1678, Frederick William's forces expelled the Swedish invaders during the "Great Sleigh Drive" of 1678–79; Thomas Carlyle compared the wintertime Swedish retreat to that of Napoleon from Moscow.
Frederick William built the Hohenzollern army up to a peacetime size of 7,000 and a wartime size of 15,000–30,000. Its success in battle against Sweden and Poland increased Brandenburg-Prussia's prestige, while also allowing the Great Elector to pursue absolutist policies against estates and towns. In his political testament of 1667, the elector wrote, "Alliances, to be sure, are good, but forces of one's own still better. Upon them one can rely with more security, and a lord is of no consideration if he does not have means and troops of his own".
The growing power of the Hohenzollerns in Berlin led Frederick William's son and successor, Elector Frederick III, to proclaim the Kingdom of Prussia with himself as King Frederick I in 1701. Although he emphasized Baroque opulence and the arts in imitation of Versailles, the new king recognized that the importance of the army and continued its expansion to 40,000 men.
The Soldier-King
Frederick I was succeeded by his son, Frederick William I, the "Soldier-King" obsessed with the army and achieving self-sufficiency for his country. The new king dismissed most of the artisans from his father's court and granted military officers precedence over court officials. Ambitious and intelligent young men began to enter the military instead of law and administration. Conscription among the peasantry was more firmly enforced, based on the Swedish model. Frederick William I wore his simple blue military uniform at court, a style henceforth imitated by the rest of the Prussian court and his royal successors. In Prussia, pigtails replaced the full-bottomed wigs common at most German courts.Frederick William I had begun his military innovations in his Kronprinz regiment during the War of the Spanish Succession. His friend, Leopold I, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, served as the royal drill sergeant for the Prussian Army. Leopold introduced the iron ramrod, increasing Prussian firepower, and the slow march, or goose-step. He also vastly increased the role of music in the Army, dedicating a large number of musician-troops, especially drummers and fifers, to use music for increasing morale in battle. The usefulness of music in battles was first recognized in the Thirty Years' War by the Brandenburger and Swedish armies. The new king trained and drilled the army relentlessly, focusing on their flintlock muskets' firing speed and formation maneuverability. The changes gave the army flexibility, precision, and a rate of fire that was mostly unequalled for that period. Through drilling and the iron ramrod, each soldier was expected to fire six times a minute, three times as fast as most armies.
Punishments were draconian in nature, such as running the gauntlet, and despite the threat of hanging, many peasant conscripts deserted when they could. Uniforms and weaponry were standardized. Pigtails and, in those regiments which wore it, facial hair were to be of uniform length within a regiment; soldiers who could not adequately grow beards or moustaches were expected to paint an outline on their faces.
Frederick William I reduced the size of Frederick I's gaudy royal guard to a single regiment, a troop of taller-than-average soldiers known as the Potsdam Giants or more commonly the Lange Kerls, which he privately funded. The cavalry was reorganized into 55 squadrons of 150 horses; the infantry was turned into 50 battalions ; and the artillery consisted of two battalions. These changes allowed him to increase the army from 39,000 to 45,000 troops; by the end of Frederick William I's reign, the army had doubled in size. The General War Commissary, responsible for the army and revenue, was removed from interference by the estates and placed strictly under the control of officials appointed by the king.
Frederick William I restricted enrollment in the officer corps to Germans of noble descent and compelled the Junkers, the Prussian landed aristocracy, to serve in the army, Although initially reluctant about the army, the nobles eventually saw the officer corps as its natural profession. Until 1730 the common soldiers consisted largely of serfs recruited or impressed from Brandenburg, Pomerania and East Prussia, leading many to flee to neighboring countries. In order to halt this trend, Frederick William I divided Prussia into regimental cantons. Every youth was required to serve as a soldier in these recruitment districts for three months each year; this met agrarian needs and added troops to bolster the regular ranks.
The General Directory which developed during Frederick William I's reign continued the absolutist tendencies of his grandfather and collected the increased taxes necessary for the expanded military. The middle class of the towns was required to quarter soldiers and enroll in the bureaucracy. Because the excise tax was only applied in towns, the king was reluctant to engage in war, as deployment of his expensive army in foreign lands would have deprived him of taxes from the town-based military.
By the end of Frederick William I's reign, Prussia had the fourth-largest army in Europe but was twelfth in population size. This led to the famous quote of Voltaire: Where some states have an army, the Prussian Army has a state. The army was maintained with a budget of five million thalers.