Skip to content
Vestes Bellica Military history archive

Vestes Bellica

Vestes Bellica

Search Vestes Bellica

Find articles from the collection and the blog.

Archive for this collection

Explore articles

95 contributions in the archive

Reset filters

24 articles found

Heeressoziologie

The Prussian Officer Corps under Frederick the Great (1740–86)

In the Frederician era the history of the old Prussian army reached its culmination. In this period the political and functional integration of the social elites into the army structure was also completed. The creation of a bureaucratic military organization and the orientation of the domestic economy to the needs of the army had already been completed in the formative phase under Frederick William I (1713–40). Thus a long process of centralization was concluded and the military as a total organization had emerged. Characteristic of the old Prussian example is the mismatch between the sizing of the army and the state’s resources. The resulting overstretch produced on the one hand a high degree of efficiency, but on the other hand a certain one-sidedness with considerable feedback on political culture. The first half of Frederick the Great’s reign was marked by the high-stakes gamble of the Silesian conquest; the ordeal of the Seven Years’ War brought the still relatively young Prussian kingdom close to the abyss. A supporting element of the ultimately successful Prussian army was the officer corps, endowed with high social status, whose internal development in the years 1740–86 will be outlined in the following lines [1].

Heeressoziologie

The Prussian Army under Frederick William I (1713 - 40) - Chapter 9 - The Military Replacement System - Recruitment.

Numerous abuses are associated with recruitment at home and abroad, and the excesses connected with the intense hunt by Prussian recruiting detachments for tall recruits permanently damaged the image of the Prussian state in the eyes of contemporaries and posterity. However, the use of foreigners for army replacement was a problem for all armies of the 18th century and characteristic of the age of mercenary armies. A contemporary reports: „The recruitments both within and outside the country were under King Frederick William incessantly pursued with the utmost severity. No school was exempt from this, only the universities. As long as the student remained at the university and within its walls, he was considered in a free city. The Dessau infantry regiment was quartered in Halle, and it captured before the gates, in the villages, and sometimes even in the town at night many a student. They hurried with them to Dessau until the clamor and tumult that was sent there subsided among the students. As soon as one left the university, one was safe nowhere; even the candidates, when they traveled to ordination in Magdeburg, Stendal, Berlin, etc., were in danger of being stopped at the gate and taken away. For only the actual preachers were safe from the recruiters, but no candidate iam vocatus, nor any school servant, was safe from the recruiters. Here in Atzendorf a detachment of soldiers occupied the school at night and dragged the organist Franken from his bed and led him to Calbe. But because he had described the officer to be much larger than he actually was, the inspector Theune, who followed him, immediately brought him back from there. The Prussian officers and non-commissioned officers sent abroad for recruitment did no better. Every regiment selected for this purpose the most cunning and deceitful heads. If these could not persuade a big fellow to enlist and take the bounty, they sought by cunning and force to seize him. Nothing was too difficult for them, nothing too dangerous; they risked everything and let it come to what would happen. They broke in, dragged the big fellow from his bed, often bound and gagged him in his nightshirt, put him on a ready wagon and hurried with team horses to reach the border and our provinces“1. The abuses in domestic and foreign recruitment are also explained by the enormous performance pressure weighing on the responsible officers. The regulations of 1726 spoke clearly on this point: „If the captains recruit handsome men without complaints and acts of violence with good manners, the colonels good regiments, and the captains good companies present men in good order; then they will recommend themselves best to His Royal Majesty; on the contrary those who have bad regiments and companies will recommend themselves in the worst possible manner“.

Heeressoziologie

The Prussian Army under Frederick William I (1713 - 40) - Chapter 10 - The military replacement system - the canton system

The replenishment of the Prussian army took place—as already evident from the previous chapter on recruitment—by voluntary recruitment at home and abroad and by the levying of local conscripts, the latter method initially developing in practice over the years and only later being formally recognized by the king. Foreign recruitment, however, had always been only an auxiliary means in the earlier history of the Prussian army; primarily the army was supplemented by recruiting locals. Under the Great Elector the army was not a people's army, “but an army of professional soldiers, who were not levied but recruited, though mostly local lads”1. The Great Elector was aware that the service of locals within the framework of a national armament was the better and above all the cheaper form of army replenishment than the recruitment of foreign mercenaries. Efforts to reorganize the feudal and provincial levy of the nobility and estates failed due to the regular resistance of those affected. Although the Great Elector repeatedly called the people to arms, the result was unsatisfactory because of the estates’ and population’s lack of commitment to compulsory service. The provincial levy was used only in the war against Sweden (1674/75), but without support from regular troops it had no effect. The provincial levy was also called to arms during the Swedish invasion of East Prussia. Frederick III, later I, did not initially change the replacement mode, but attempted to place a territorial militia alongside the standing army. The so‑called territorial militia was introduced in 1701 on the Schatull estates, in 1703 in the Amt villages, and in 1705 (07.05.) in the towns. The knightly estates were not touched by this, since the nobility successfully invoked their feudal obligations. Those enrolled in the territorial militia were exempt from quartering, marching duties, running messages, participation in wolf hunts and similar corvée services and public burdens, and were not allowed to be recruited by the regiments. Only young, strong unmarried men were enrolled, though also married men without property and sustenance. The term of service lasted 5–6 years. The territorial militia was intended to create a reserve army and was based on the still valid conscription duty of the subjects. In wartime the standing army was to be relieved from service in the country by the territorial militia; however, the militia soldiers received only poor training, so their military value was rather low. Before the introduction of the territorial militia voluntary recruitment was supplemented by internal levies, whereby voluntariness was increasingly suppressed during the long war periods under Frederick III/I. From 1688 recruits for the standing army were to be provided by the provinces and estates, and from 1691 recruitment was again carried out by the regiments. Both methods of replenishment had disadvantages: recruits provided by the provinces and districts often were of poor quality, with the lower social strata overrepresented. Recruitment by the regiments often paid little heed to the personal circumstances of those levied; violence and arbitrariness unsettled the population and harmed the economy. The “Interim regulation and constitution, as it shall be observed with the recruitment of the regiments both mounted and foot” of 1693 (20.11.) finally standardized replenishment on the basis of a territorial system. From then on the regiments reported their need for replacement men to the state administration, which distributed the requirement among the various provinces and districts that were assigned to the regiments as fixed recruitment districts. The recruits had to be provided by the provinces and districts at a specified time, otherwise the regiments could complete themselves.

Heeressoziologie

The Prussian Army under Frederick William I (1713 - 40) - Chapter 15 - Military Economy, Armaments Industry and Clothing Industry

In the instruction for his successor from that year the king also commented on his economic policy goals and emphasized that “a country without manufactures ... a human body without life, therefore a dead country which is constantly poor (powerless) and miserable and cannot attain prosperity. Therefore I beg you, my dear successor, conserve the manufactures, protect them and plant them, promote them and spread them further in your lands, especially in Prussia, and adhere to the edicts I have issued that no foreign woolen goods be introduced into our lands and that the noble and common inhabitants of our country should not dress in foreign woolen goods ...”1.