The Prussian Army under Frederick William I (1713 - 40) - Preface and Table of Contents
Preface
Law No. 46 in the Gazette of the Control Council in Germany of 31.03.1947 decreed the dissolution of the state of Prussia. Thus Prussia officially came to an end; however, it is disputed whether the Prussian state had not already been lost within the German Reich and whether the victors' dictate after the Second World War therefore served only as political window dressing. The clarification of the question whether it was in 1871 or 1947 that the short and eventful Prussian history, full of light and shadow, came to an end is ultimately idle; the historical fact is that Prussia no longer exists today. In this respect the Prussian state, which entered European history relatively late, shares the fate of many extinct polities; notable, however, is that — although the Prussian state no longer exists and thus belongs to the past — it still excites passions today and remains a controversial object of interest. The turn to this chapter of German history was reinforced and updated by the major Prussia exhibition in 1981 and by the 200th anniversary of Frederick the Great's death. Even in the former GDR the Prussian tradition was rediscovered and politically instrumentalized before reunification. The attention with which Prussia is still regarded is evident in many forms. Alongside the opening of various — in particular locally oriented — museums, an unabated flood of printed works on this subject continues to inundate the book market. It is striking that, both in the civilian and in the military sphere, the father, Frederick William I, always stands in the shadow of his brilliant son. While the number of biographies about Frederick the Great has become almost unmanageable, for a long time there was a lack of a comprehensive — scholarly — life description of Frederick William I from the viewpoint of more recent historiography 1).
In Prussian history it is precisely Frederick William I who not only played a tradition-forming role, but who created the economic, administrative, military and social foundations of the old Prussian military and civil-service state and thereby, domestically, the foundation that enabled his son to undertake the risky and ultimately successful seizure of the wealthy Habsburg province of Silesia. Filling the aforementioned gap, however, is not the purpose of the present work. This study considers only one — albeit significant — aspect of Frederick William I's period of rule, namely the military system. The Prussian army was decisively shaped by the autocratic Soldier King. As a shaper of the army he thus assumes a key role. An understanding of the anchoring of the army in society — promoted and successfully established by this one-sidedly acting Hohenzollern — and of the resulting social interconnections and reciprocal effects is indispensable if one wishes to at least partially uncover the sources of strength behind the dramatic self-assertion of the Prussian state under his successor. The later successes of the ingeniously constructed Prussian state system are inconceivable without the formative phase of the years 1713 - 1740, even when one takes into account the generalship of the Roi-Connétable.
Footnotes
1) see now: Frank Göse, Friedrich Wilhelm I., The Many Faces of the Soldier King, 2020.
Table of Contents
1. The Prussian state in 1713
2. The reform and expansion of the army
3. The infantry
4. "The Long Kerls" - on the history of the famous Guard Regiment
5. The cavalry
6. The technical troops
7. The garrison formations, cadets, etc.
8. The navy
9. The military replacement system - recruitment
10. The military replacement system - the canton system
11. The rank-and-file
12. The non-commissioned officers
13. The officers
14. The lower staff and the junior field attendants
15. Army economy, arms industry and clothing industry
16. The colorful coat (Infantry)
17. The colorful coat (Cavalry)
18. The colorful coat (Technical and other troops)
19. The military church system
20. The army medical service and health care
21. The invalids' system
22. Soldiers' wives and children
23. Training and maneuvers
24. The army in the field
25. Military and society
26. Frederick William as a builder of the army
Recommended Articles
Heeressoziologie
The provisioning system in the Seven Years' War.
Organisation
The Prussian Army under Frederick William I (1713–40) - "The Tall Lads" - on the History of the Famous Guard Regiment
Besides No. 3, the King's Regiment (No. 6) was the second infantry unit with an increased establishment. Even before the standing armies were formed, princes raised special formations for the protection of their person, some of which as early as the 16th and 17th centuries wore uniform dress and, above all, displayed splendid clothing; examples include the Swiss Guard of the Papal States (established 1506), the Royal Bodyguard (Trabant Guard) in England (established 1485), the Royal Noble Guard in Spain (established 1646) and the Royal Musketeer Corps in France (established 1622). The designation ‘guard’ became generally customary for these body and protective guards (Fr. garde = to protect, guard, watch).
Uniformierung & Ausrüstung
The History of the Old Prussian Cuirassiers (Pohl) - K 8
From an original script. It is evidently based on the history of the clothing, armament and equipment of the Royal Prussian Army / By the Most High Command of His Majesty ... published by the Royal War Ministry. Edited by Constantin Kling; Vol. 2: The Cuirassier and Dragoon Regiments from the beginning of the 18th century until the reorganization of the army in 1808.