{Preußische Armee
während der Napoleonischen Kriege}
1. Glory Years of the Prussian Army.
2. Prussian General Staff.
3. Decline of the Army.
4. Reforms of 1806-1813.
5. Prussian Army in 1812.
6. Prussian Army in 1813-1815.
Glory Years of the Prussian Army.
In 1740s Prussia owned 85.000 troops which gave her the 4th largest army in Europe, even though her lands stood at 10th in order of size and only 13th in population !
It means that it was possible for an agricultural state of few millions of inhabitants, on a small territory, without a fleet or direct maritime commerce, and with comparatively little manufacturing industry, to maintain, in some respects, the position of a great European power.
Truly amazing.
The Prussian, as well as the German in general, makes capital stuff for a soldier.
They are, withal, among the most pugnacious people in the world, enjoying war for its own sake, and often enough going to look for it abroad, when they cannot have it at home.
From the Landsknechte of the middle age to the present foreign legions of France and England, the Germans have always furnished the great mass of those mercenaries who fight for the sake of fighting.
"If the French excel them in agility and vivacity of onslaught, if the English are their superiors in toughness of resistance, the Germans certainly excel all other European nations in that general fitness for military duty which makes them good soldiers under all circumstances." (Source: "The Armies of Europe" in Putnam's Monthly, No. XXXII, publ. in 1855) Foreign generals and observers admired the Prussian military machine of 18th Century. Austrian commander, Prince Eugene of Savoy, reported that "the Prussian troops are the best of the German forces. The rest are pretty well useless." The Prussian army enjoyed reputation as one of the best trained, the most disciplined and one of the best led (Frederick the Great, Zieten, Seydlitz and other generals). They wore simpler dress than the French army with its many lackeys, cooks, courtesans, actors and chaplains, friseurs and valets, chests full of perfumes, hair nets, sun shades and parrots. Frederick the Great imposed so spartan discipline that 400 officers "are said to have asked to resign". Frederick's troops fought with great success against the Russians, French, Germans, Swedes and Austrians. The Prussians could march off to the battlefield in perfect order in a holy silence. The state of affairs which prevailed in the French army was somehow different, there was a near riot when even the small troop had to turn out. So this is not surprising that France had suffered a certain loss of prestige through her shocking defeats in the war against Frederick's army. The Prussian infantry was magnificent, marching in calm and silent lines under a withering fire. They moved doggedly forward until the enemy began to mass in terrified flocks around their colors. When the drums were playing "Ich bin ja Herr in deiner Macht !" it made a massive impression on everyone. One eyewitness wrote "I have never been able to hear that melody without the deepest emotion." The best part of the army however was the cavalry. One dragoon regiment routed 20 battalions and captured 66 colors ! In 1745 at Soor 26 Prussian squadrons routed 45 enemy squadrons deployed on a hilltop. Only the engineers and artillery were the weak link of Frederick's army. King Frederick the Great, used the army to enter upon a period of conquest. In 1740 on a slim pretext and without a declaration of war, he invaded Austrian territory.
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Frederick the Great was succeeded by Frederick Wilhelm II. Under his rule Prussia became even larger by the partitions of Poland of 1793 and 1795 but also underwent a period of eclipse. The failure to reform and the lack of preparedness after the death of Frederick the Great in 1786, and the real efficiency in the field was sacrificed to precision on the parade-ground led to the decline of the army. Defeated by the French Revolutionary army, Prussia withdrew from the coalition and remained neutral until 1806. Then her armies were crushed by Napoleon at Jena and Auerstedt. In 1807 Prussia had to accept the harsh Treaty of Tilsit, by which it lost most of its share of Poland and became a virtual dependency of France.
"... just after the victories of Jena and Auerstadt, in which Napoleon destroyed the Prussian army and shook the Prussian state to its core, was to be something of a turning point. The Prussians were shocked and insulted by the French victories, but they also saw them as proof of the superiority of France and her political culture. When Napoleon rode into Berlin he was greeted by crowds which, according to one French officer, were as enthusiastic as those that had welcomed him in Paris on his triumphant return from Austerlitz the previous year. 'An undefinable feeling, a mixture of pain, admiration and curiosity agitated the crowds which pressed forward as he passed,' in the words of one |
Prussian General Staff. Despite small population (see diagram below) Prussia had the fourth largest army in the world. Such army required an efficient staff. The origins of what would become the German General Staff of the 19th and 20th Centuries - probably the most professional military machine in the world - can be traced to the Prussian Army of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
Portugal - 3 millions Prussia - 9,7 millions (in 1806 reduced to 4,9 millions) Spain - 11 millions Great Britain - 18,5 millions (England, Ireland, Scotland) Austria - 21 millions (with Hungary) Russia - 40 (with annexed territories) Saxony - 1,1 millions Poland Duché de Varsovie - 4,3 millions Holland & Belgium - 6,2 millions France - 30 millions Denmark - 1 million Lombardy - 2 millions Sweden - 2,3 millions Papal State - 2,3 millions Naples - 5 millions
The chief-of-staff was on army, corps and brigade level. Each of the had a goup of staff officers. In 1809 a corps of permanent staff officers was established and specific uniforms were introduced for them. The role of chief-of-staff on the three levels (army, corps, brigade) explained Peter Hofschroer and Mark Adkin: (Adkin - "The Waterloo Companion" p 111) Chief-of-staff of Corps Chief-of-staff of (Division) Brigade (Hofschroer - "Prussian Staff..." p 11)
After Napoleon's defeat in 1815 at Waterloo by Prussian and the German-British-Netherland army, Europe entered a long period of peace. Armies were cut back and interest in military science waned in most nations. Only in Prussia did military men study the crises of command that emerged during the last stages of the Napoleonic Wars, when mass armies took to the battlefields.
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Decline of the Army.
In 1806 the Prussian army consisted of 200,000 men: 133,000 infantrymen, 39,600 cavalrymen and 10,000 artillerymen and few thousands of engineers, garrisons, reserves etc. . . . . . . . . . 2 Guard infantry regiments (2 battalions each) . . . . . . . . . 58 infantry regiments (2 battalions each) . . . . . . . . . 1 jager regiment (3 battalions) . . . . . . . . . 27 grenadier battalions . . . . . . . . . 24 fusilier battalions . . . . . . . . . 13 cuirassier regiments (5 squadrons each) . . . . . . . . . 14 dragoon regiments (10 x 5 squadrons and 2 x 10 squadrons) . . . . . . . . . 9 hussar regiments (10 squadrons each) . . . . . . . . . 1 'Towarzysze' regiment (10 + 5 squadrons) . . . . . . . . . 4 foot artillery regiments (36 12pdr batteries of 8 guns) . . . . . . . . . 1 horse artillery regiment (20 6pdr batteries of 8 guns) . . . . . . . . . reserve (2 10pdr mortar batteries, 1 light mortar battery, 4 7pdr howitzer batteries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 6pdr batteries) Napoleon's efforts to get Prussia to close its ports to British goods in 1806 had revealed a problem. When Prussia agreed, the British navy retaliated by seizing 700 Prussian merchant ships in port or at sea and blocking their access to the North Sea. Facing economic collapse, the Prussian king then turned his anger on Napoleon, rescinding their agreements and ordering the French out. That in turn led to war, Napoleon's trouncing of the Prussian army at Jena (ext.link) and Marshal Davout at Auerstadt, and the creation of the Continental System. Napoleon's army marched into Berlin. By the treaty of Tilsit, Prussia was reduced to the status of a second rate power. She lost territory in Westphalia, Poland and along the Elbe River.
Although the Prussian army began Napoleonic wars with a fearsome reputation it was quickly destroyed by the French.
Napoleon wrote: "When I went to see the king of Prussia (Friedrich Wilhelm III ext.link), instead of a library I found he had a large room, like an arsenal, furnished with shelves and pegs, in which were placed fifty or sixty jackets of various cuts ... He attached more importance to the cut of a dragoon or a hussar uniform than would have been necessary for the salvation of a kingdom. At Jena, his army performed the finest and most spectacular maneuvers, but I soon put a stop to this tomfoolery and taught them that to fight and to execute dazzling maneuvers and wear splendid uniforms were very different matters. If the French army had been commanded by a tailor, the king of Prussia would certainly have gained the day."
"The Prussian Infantry who mobilised in 1806 were products of a system that had not altered since the Seven Years' War. They were immaculately dressed, drilled into unquestioning obedience, savagely punished if they fell foul of their commanders and were unfit for the new type of warfare in every possible way. At Auerstädt and Jena, they discovered their training was totally inadequate and as Napoleon's troops tore into the retreating Prussian army, its elderly commanders succumbed to panic or shocked paralysis. The whole campaign was epitomised by the surrender of Hohenlohe's army at Prenzla, where Murat was able to bluff a vastly superior force into laying down its arms. Twenty-nine thousand men under L'Estocq managed to link up with the Russian army in East Prussia, but by the end of November 1806, the majority of the Prussian Army had surrendered and Frederick the Great's sword and sash were on their way to Les Invalides as trophies. The basic material of the old army, the private soldier, was sound, but internal weaknesses had meant that the Prussian army was out-thought as well as outfought." (Robert Mantle)
Peter Hofschroer gives three main reasons for why Prussia was defeated in 1806. In 1806 Napoleon was very interested in the Prussian army. Chlapowski writes: "... the Emperor asked me about very many things. He fired questions at me as if I was sitting an exam. He already knew from our conversations ... that I had served in the Prussian amry, so he asked about my studies there, about my military instructors, about the organization of the artillery and of the whole Prussian army, and finally he asked how many Poles were likely to be in the corps which was still in East Prussia beyond the Vistula under General Lestoq. I could not answer this question but pointed out that most of his corps must be Lithuanians, as it had been mainly recruited in Lithuania. At that time, since the last partition [of Poland] the whole district of Augustow belonged to Prussia. I also explained that in Lithuania only the gentry were Polish, and the people Lithuanians. He did not know anything about Lithuania ... The Emperor listened patiently and carefully to all these details. ... [he] asked me about the [Prussian] military academies. How far did they go in the study of mathematics ? He was surprised at the elementary level at which they stopped. Didn't they teach applied geometry ? I myself had not learned this, but only later studied it in Paris." (Chlapowski/Simmons - "Memoirs of a Polish Lancer" p 12-13)
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Reforms of 1806-1813.
Digby-Smith writes: "Under the terms of the Treaty of Tilsit of 1808, Prussia's army had been limited to 42,000 men. By dint of much creative thinking, however, Scharnhorst and other members of the Prussian General Staff had invented the Krumper System by which each regiment called up a certain number of recruits, gave them basic military training, and then discharged them again in order to call up and train another batch, so that the 42,000 ceiling imposed by Napoleon was never exceeded." (Digby-Smith, - p 35)
Prussia was fortunate to possess, at this low ebb in its history, such able reformers as Gerhard von Scharnhorst and August, Graf von Gneisenau who put the Prussian army on a modern basis.
People's Army.
The idea behind the Prussian law was that every citizen who is physically capable of bearing arms thereby has the obligation to do so personally in defence of his country, during his years of military fitness. This idea was superior to the principle of purchasing substitutes which was found in others countries having a conscriptive system. It was the Krumper System introduced by Scharnhorst. Once the young men were trained, they were then sent home and replaced by new ones. Under the noses of French spies Prussia developed a reserve army capable of taking the field. On March 1st 1813 were established so-called Reserve Battalions. They were considered as part of their parent regiments and were made of reservists and raw recruits. The officers and NCOs were supplied by the parent regiments. The 39 Reserve Battalions formed twelve Reserve Regiments. In March 1814 these units were assigned numbers in line. Scharnhorst also persuaded King Friedrich Wilhelm III to institute a national militia called Landwehr. The Landwehr accepted men aged 25 to 40, too old and weak for the army. They were equipped not by the central goverment and ministry of war but by provinces. So in 1813-1814 the Prussian troops were of four types: regular, reserve, volunteers and Landwehr.
Brigade (Divisional) and Corps System.
Prussian Army in 1812.
. . . . . 12 infantry regiments (the 8th was Guard). . . . . . These units were refered to by their povinicial denomination. . . . . . 6 grenadier battalions . . . . . 1 Garde-Jäger-Battalion . . . . . 1 Ostpreußisches Jäger-Battalion . . . . . 1 Schlesisches Schützen-Battalion . . . . . 4 cuirassier regiments (the 3rd was Guard) . . . . . 6 dragoon regiments . . . . . 6 hussar regiments . . . . . 3 uhlan regiments (and squadron of Garde-Uhlanen)
Prussia "... as an 'ally' of France, has been ordered to provide the French Grand Army with a 30.000-man contingent to protect its left wing, in the same way as the Austrians are to protect its right. This had caused the Berlin court to put out secret feelers to Vienna - feelers which, after three no less ruinous defeats, have fallen on deaf ears. Even so, just to make sure there are no misunderstandings, Marshal Oudinot is ordered to occupy Berlin with his 30,000-strong II Corps, while Narbonne at the same time is sent there to exercise his old-style diplomacy on a traumatized Prussian court." (Paul Britten Austin - "1812: The March on Moscow" p 27)
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Prussian Army in 1813-1815. Charles Esdaile wrote "At Jena and Auerstadt the Prussian army had fought adequately, but its performance had hardly been heroic. At Leipzig and Waterloo, by contrast, it is claimed that a very different vision was on show. Gunther Rothenberg writes: "In 1806 the typical Prussian soldier had been a mercenary or a reluctant conscript; now he was animated both by patriotism and by a deep and even savage hatred of the French. The first expressed itself, as it had in the days of Frederick, by religion. As the Prussian infantry saw the French retreating the evening of waterloo, the fusiliers began to sign the old Lutheran hymn, 'A mighty fortress is our God' ... Hatred of the French expressed itself in bitter fighting and in the ability to rally after initial defeat."
Prussian Army in 1813-1814.
Prussian Army in 1815.
In 1815, the Prussian army consisted of: These forces were organized into six army corps and guard corps. At Waterloo the Prussians had 38,000 infantry in 62 battalions, 7,000 cavalrymen in 61 squadrons, and 134 guns. Total of 50,000 men. The troops were led by seasoned officers and generals. "That the morale of the majority of the Prussian army withstood the rigours of the field and the shock of Ligny was due to the high quality of leadership at all levels. " (Adkin - "The Waterloo Companion" p 208) After Napoleonic Wars, at the Vienna Congress, Prussia was widely perceived as under Russian influence. Prussia and Russia proposed to partition France, while Austria and England strove for and pushed through a lenient treatment of France.
The Royal Guard in 1815.
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Sources and Links.
Oiver Schmidt - "Prussian Regular Infantryman 1808-1815" 2003
History of Prussia and Military History {Preußische Geschichte und Militärgeschichte}
Hofschroer - "Prussian Light Infantry 1792-1815" 1984
Hofschroer - "Prussian Staff and Specialist Troops 1791-1815"
Craig - "The Germans" 1991
Duffy - "Frederick the Great" 1985
Digby-Smith - "1813: Leipzig"
Holborn - "A History of Modern Germany 1648-1840" 1982
Petre - "Napoleon’s Conquest of Prussia 1806" 1993
Simms - "The Struggle for Mastery in Germany" 1998
napoleon-series.org
flags from warflag.com
Silesian Landwehr 1813{Schlesische Landwehr 1813}
Reenactors of Kurmark Landwehr 1813 {Kurmärkische Landwehr}
East-Prussian Landwehr 1813 {Ostpreußische Landwehr}
5th Prussian Brigade {5. preussische Brigade}
Lützow's Free Corps and Volunteer Riflemen 1813-2003 {Lützowschen Freikorps}