The Prussian Army under Frederick William I (1713 - 40) - Chapter 6 - The Technical Troops

Artillery was, alongside infantry and cavalry, the youngest of the three arms, although its origins in Prussia go back to the 14th century. The handling of the firearms and cannons was initially performed by masters who gradually formed their own guild. Only under the Great Elector (1640–88) was the artillery subordinated to officers and thus turned into a regular military formation. On 1 Jan. 1672 the Great Elector issued an “Articuls-Brieff vor die Artillerie-Bediente in denen Chur-Fürstlichen Brandenburgischen Vestungen” [1], which, in addition to the oath formula for the gunsmith, contained detailed requirements and rules of conduct for the artillery personnel. In 1683 one bombadier and four gunner companies were established, and thus the artillery actually first emerged as an independent arm. King Frederick I also promoted the artillery and on 20 Dec. 1697 appointed Margrave Philip of Brandenburg‑Schwedt (1669–1711) as Generalfeldzeugmeister and Chief of the Artillery. He strove for its organization and training. Under his aegis the artillery received service regulations. These were confirmed by the King on 15 Mar. 1704 and in 12 articles regulated the internal affairs of the arm [2].

[1]              Mylius, Corpus Constitutionum Marchicarum, III. Part, I. Section, V. On Military Matters, No. XXXIII

[2]              Jähns, Max, Das Kriegswesen unter König Friedrich I., in: Hohenzollern-Jahrbuch 1900, p. 156 ff.

In the year 1700 the Prussian artillery consisted of 9 companies; in February 1713 the artillery numbered a total of 527 men. The command was led by Johann Gabriel Michael von Kühle(n), since 2 Dec. 1713 Major General and Chief of the Artillery. Kühle(n) was born in 1655; his father was Jürgen Kühle(n), a musician from Lübben. In 1682 he was a bombardier in the Electoral Brandenburg artillery; in 1683 von Kühle(n) became ordnance clerk, 1686 ordnance lieutenant, 1690 artillery lieutenant, 1694 captain, 1704 lieutenant colonel and 1709 colonel. Fallen on 9 Dec. 1715 before Stralsund, he had in the years 1714–15 strongly advocated for the increase and improvement of the artillery [1].

[1]              Schöning, Nachrichten zur Geschichte der Brdbg. Pr. Artillerie, Vol. I, p. 251.

At the end of 1713 the artillery received a new organization. The bombardiers (original designation for the crews of bombards, later for those of the throwing guns, a rank between private and corporal) were distributed among the artillery companies. The artillery was now divided into a field artillery battalion and artillery garrison companies, which essentially foreshadowed the later division into field and foot artillery. The field artillery battalion was to consist of 5 companies, each company’s table of organization comprising 6 fireworks men, 4 corporals, 11 bombardiers, 70 gunners and 2 drummers [1]. The field artillery battalion was now stationed in Berlin. The artillery garrison companies were stationed in Wesel, Magdeburg, Stettin and Pillau and each numbered 4 fireworks men, 13 corporals, 4 bombardiers and 250 gunners. The field artillery battalion was gradually strengthened, and from 1731 it numbered 6 companies. In this connection Frederick William I ordered the then Chief of the Artillery von Linger by ordre of 17 Jan. 1731: “My dear Major-General von Linger. Because I have now set the field battalion artillery to 6 companies and have strengthened each company up to 100 men; therefore it is My will: that per company ten carpenters should be with them, who understand their craft; each company shall also have 5 supernumeraries. There shall also be at each company, when the battalion is under arms, the bombardiers to stand three men rank-high, the gunners however to stand four men rank-high and I order that for these bombardiers grenadier caps be made: each company shall also again have three carpenters, which 18 carpenters shall march before the battalion, the caps and axes for the same I will have made, but the aprons you shall order ...” [2]. On 22 Jan. 1731 the King added: “It is My will that the firework corporals and bombardiers of the artillery battalion let as much as possible grow large moustaches, which you are to see to properly” [3].

[1]              Schöning, Nachrichten zur Geschichte der Brdbg. Pr. Artillerie, Vol. I, p. 251.

[2]              Priesdorff, Soldatisches Führertum, Vol. I, p. 158 and Schöning, Nachrichten ..., Vol. I, p. 252

[3]              Priesdorff, Soldatisches Führertum, Vol. I, p. 158

The history of the Prussian artillery up to the eve of the Seven Years’ War (1756–63) is associated with Christian Nikolaus von Linger (1669–1755, ennobled since 1705). Born on 5 Apr. 1669 in Berlin as the son of the Electoral Brandenburg master of ordnance Salomon Linger, he enjoyed the favor of both Frederick William I and Frederick the Great. He was the first case of an officer rising from the artillery corps to become its chief and a general. In 1688 von Linger appears as a bombardier in the Electoral Brandenburg artillery; in 1696 he was lieutenant, 1701 captain and company commander, 1705 major, 1709 lieutenant colonel, in 1713 briefly left Prussian service and was re-employed in 1714, 1716 colonel and Chief of the Artillery, 1728 major general, 1739 lieutenant general and finally under the successor of the Soldier King in 1743 General of the Artillery; on 18 Apr. 1744 he received the Order of the Black Eagle [1]. Linger rendered valuable service to the development of the Prussian artillery: he organized and managed the gun factories in Potsdam and Spandau, improved the equipment of the armory in Berlin, simplified and standardized the calibers of the guns and was often employed by the Soldier King on other assignments. Thus, for example, in 1730 he was to erect the new lanterns in Friedrichstadt and in 1731 he was to submit to the King a drawing for a pulpit for the Potsdam garrison church. Under Frederick the Great he took care of the armament of the fortresses Glogau and Brieg, supervised the further increase of the field artillery battalion (since 1741 a regiment with 2 battalions) and the expansion and increase of the Silesian field artillery (1742).

[1]              Priesdorff, Soldatisches Führertum, Vol. I, p. 157 ff.

The artillery, like the other arms, was initially replenished by recruitment; from 1733 supplementation under the canton system was then introduced. A particular feature of the time under Frederick William I was that the artillery should consist only of local sons. In the early years there were repeated conflicts with the citizenry in Berlin. Already on 9 May 1714 the King had forbidden all forced recruitment and decreed that the replenishment should only take place by voluntary enlistment at a public drumbeat and against payment of the signing fee. However, the “raising of the useless and disobedient people for the benefit of recruitment” was not considered violent recruitment. Thus there were repeatedly abuses and corresponding complaints. The prohibition of (violent) recruitment was repeated on 26 Feb. 1721. “All wool workers coming from abroad into the royal lands, their children, also household members” and “all domestic and foreign carpenters, masters and journeymen who wished to go to Prussia for building” were, for economic reasons, protected from recruitment by royal orders of 15 Oct. 1717 and 26 Oct. 1721. On 17 Apr. 1724 the order was issued that the “violent levying and enrolling of the settled people or peasants, wool workers and other manufacturers, as well as underage apprentices, shall be stopped.” On 6 Jan. 1731 von Linger complained to the King on the occasion of a troop increase: “It is true that Your Royal Majesty most graciously ordered that all trades here should give assistance in the recruitment of the field battalion; which would also help somewhat. But they are so stubborn that one can get nothing by kindness; and if one by force takes away a couple, the others scatter and go into the countryside for a time. Therefore Your Royal Majesty I most humbly request whether it might please Your Most Gracious to give an order to Mr. Gen.-Maj. Glasenapp that no craftsman's lad be released from the Landwehr who cannot show a lawful passport. Then I can be completed; otherwise I cannot possibly be completed, unless Your Royal Majesty most graciously commands that in the time when I must recruit neither cavalry nor infantry shall recruit, for in such a way I cannot possibly manage. Moreover Your Royal Majesty has most graciously consented that Lieutenant Colonel Nehring should send me 10 men, and that Stettin, Colberg and Magdeburg, Captain von Borck should likewise help. From these two last companies 20 men can be given in total, but the Prussian company is not able, as I myself have begged 5 men together from the battalion to help the company there, because there everything is enrolled. Yesterday I took a merchant’s apprentice of 5 foot 6 inches out in the suburbs. He is so devoted to lusts and games that, being only 20 years old, he daily hires sledges to Charlottenburg and lives in drinking and gambling. And because he reckons and writes well, he soon made a good bombardier here; just as I then engaged the present Captain Heinrich the same way.” The King granted the request [1]. The recruitment regulation of 14 Sept. 1732 also regulated replenishment for the artillery: it should not recruit outside the country, “but the captains shall seek to take nothing but local sons, for although among the locals almost as many rogues are to be found as among the foreigners, it is everywhere the custom that in the artillery only local sons shall be taken.” Ultimately, service in the artillery was apparently considered a matter of special trust. The replacement should moreover not be smaller than 4 inches. The 1st rank should only show “seven-inch people”, so even in the artillery body height played a role. A maximum size of 10 inches was prescribed; all larger recruits were reserved especially for the infantry. Due to the many abuses and the prevailing insecurity among the population the King introduced the canton system in 1733; the artillery was assigned as its recruitment district a number of towns in the Kurmark: Pritzerbe, Ziesar, Mittenwalde, Trebbin, Charlottenburg, Fehrbellin, Alt‑Landsberg, Müncheberg, Riesenthal, Wrietzen, Freienwalde, Oderberg, Werben, and in the Neumark: Berlinichen, Arnswalde, Bernstein, Neuwedel, Sommerfeld, Drossen and Zielenzig. From this district the artillery was to be supplemented in future, however it was allowed to enroll only recruits between 4 - 5 inches. Berlin was not to become a canton but was initially to be regarded as “assistance” (ordre of 24 May 1733 to Lieutenant General von Glasenapp). In recruitment under the canton system exemptions of certain social and professional groups had to be observed: thus on 1 Oct. 1737 it was determined that the sons of priests should be exempt from enrollment; on 4 Oct. 1737 theology students were exempted, however only if under 5 foot 9 inches. The regulatory measures led to a relaxation of the relationship between the residents and the artillery in Berlin. Subsequently, as a contemporary reports, service in the artillery was regarded as fashionable in bourgeois circles and was therefore sought after, similar to the Gensdarmes regiment [2].

[1]              Malinowsky-Bonin, Geschichte der brandenburgisch preußischen Artillerie, Vol. 1, p. 87 ff.).

[2]                König, Short Government and State History of Frederick William I, King of Prussia, Vol. I, p. 39

The training of the artillery was now pursued consistently; annual shooting exercises were held. These in 1737 lasted a total of 14 days. In the years 1732, 1737 and 1738 artillery officers were sent abroad to foreign armies. The expansion of the artillery in this period is evident on the one hand in the growth of personnel strength: 505 (1715), 1208 (1731) and 1208 (1739). On the other hand the number of guns also constantly increased: 1,532 (1702), 1,997 (1712) and 2,510 (1722) pieces. The latter inventory consisted of 732 bronze and 1,425 iron cannons, 171 bronze and 128 iron mortars, 27 bronze and 27 iron howitzers [1]. The stock of powder reached 29,440 hundredweights in 1721; in 1702 it had still been 7,167 hundredweights.

[1]              Paul v. Schmidt, Der Werdegang des preußischen Heeres, a. a. O., S. 120.

On the internal condition of the German artillery at the end of the reign of Frederick William I Jähns judges as follows: “The condition ... still strongly recalled its guild time. Most of its leaders had served from the bottom up, had often come from the artisan class, i.e. originally been gunsmiths, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, to finally, rather advanced in years, attain the rank of officer. Their theoretical knowledge was usually very small” [1]. This also applied to the Prussian artillery. The artillery did not lose its artisanal character even under Frederick William I. He did much for the establishment and expansion of this arm and in 1740 the Prussian artillery, alongside the Saxon, was considered particularly good; however, in the Silesian wars the Austrian (under Liechtenstein) and later in the further course of the 18th century the French (under Gribeauval) would take a leading role. The Russian artillery was also traditionally considered good. The successor of the Soldier King had a rather ambivalent attitude toward this specialized arm, but he too could not deny its growing importance [2]. Thus its strength grew by 1786 to a total of 4 field artillery regiments (founded 1762/3 and 1772). In addition there were a number of garrison and fortress artillery companies (in 1806 there were 15 companies). In total, in 1786 the field artillery corps numbered 9,746 and the garrison artillery 1,761 men; added to this were the miners and the pontoniers [3]. Thus, compared to the end of Frederick William I’s regency, personnel alone had increased 9.5-fold.

[1]              Jähns, Geschichte der Kriegswissenschaften, Bd. 3, S. 2659.

[2]              vgl. hierzu: Duffy, Friedrich der Große und seine Armee, S. 162 ff. und Guddat, Kanoniere, Bombardiere, Pontonniere. Die Artillerie Friedrichs des Großen

[3]              Jany, Geschichte der Preußischen Armee, Bd. 3., S. 134.

There was no formal engineer corps before 1713; only when required was appropriate specialist personnel employed. This usually came from abroad, mostly from Italy, Holland and France, and besides military tasks such as fortress construction also had to carry out civilian assignments such as surveys, land improvements, etc. In peacetime the engineers were distributed among the individual fortresses and were subordinate to the local governors. At the head of siege corps, however, as early as the 17th century there usually stood a Quartermaster General, who represented a purely military rank and stood at the head of the engineers assigned to the army or the corps. At the beginning of the 18th century military rank designations for younger engineers such as ensign or lieutenant already appeared in isolated cases. Only under Frederick William I, however, was an engineer corps with a fixed military organization to be created. Since the engineers initially lacked such a fixed organization, it was only at the end of 1728 that a complete rank list could be compiled. This comprised 1 lieutenant colonel, 5 majors, 12 captains, 10 lieutenants and 11 conductors, i.e. 39 officers [1]. In June 1739 the engineer corps numbered 41 persons [2].

[1]              Bonin, Geschichte des Ingenieurskorps und der Pioniere in Preußen, Vol. I, p. 33

[2]              Jany, Geschichte der Preußischen Armee, Vol. 1, p. 659.

At the beginning of this development stood the ordre of 21 Mar. 1729, by which the King instructed all governors: “Having resolved to set the Corps of Engineers on a regular footing, and to place it under the command and special supervision of Lieutenant Colonel von Walrawens, you are to point out to von Walrawe the engineers in your government as their chief, so that they shall recognize him as such, and the eldest shall report to him every 14 days on their condition and especially on the progress of fortress construction” [1]. In the engineer corps Gerhard Kornelius von Walrave (1692 - 17773, ennobled 1724) occupied an essential position. Walrave entered Prussian service in 1715 through the mediation of the “Old Dessauer” from Dutch service. He developed the fortifications of Wesel, Magdeburg, Stettin, Küstrin, Kolberg as well as Philippsburg and Kehl and ranks among the most important fortress builders of the 18th century. Born in 1692 in Warendorf (on the Ems) as the son of an engineer, Walrave—like his father—initially entered the service of the Dutch States General (1708). In the Prussian army he was promoted to major in 1719, to lieutenant colonel in 1722, to colonel and chief of the engineer corps in 1729; under the successor of the Soldier King he was finally in 1741 promoted to major general and in the following year became chief of the pioneer regiment (No. 49). Despite various disagreements Walrave enjoyed the favor of Frederick William I and at first also the goodwill of Frederick the Great, but Walrave’s career ended in 1748 with his arrest for fraud and embezzlement. Walrave was confined on the Sternschanze in Magdeburg and spent the last 25 years of his life there. A formal trial does not appear to have been held for him [2].

[1]              Bonin, op. cit., pp. 33/34

[2] Priesdorff, Soldatisches Führertum, Vol. 1, p. 230 ff. and Preuß, Friedrich the Great and Major-General von Walrave, in: Journal for Art, Science and History of War, Vol. 105, 1859, p. 40 ff.