Prussian officer

“ No condition in life can be more active, and at the same time have less variety in it, than that of a Prussian officer in the time of peace. He is continually employed in the same occupation, and continually occupied in the same place. There is no rotation of the troops as in the British service. The regiments which were placed in Berlin, Magdeburg, Schweidnitz, and the other garrisons at the conclusion of the war, remain there still. ”

“ There is no Prussian officer who does not feel proud of him as a comrade; for taken all around, there is probably no man of finer physique in all the German army. At a Court where the Princes are all tall, and some of the Generals look like giants; there is no one who overtops or outweighs the Honorary Colonel of the Magdeburg Cuirassiers. ”

“ At the end of a short time, once the first terror had subsided, calm was again restored. In many houses the Prussian officer ate at the same table with the family. He was often well-bred, and, out of politeness, expressed sympathy with France and repugnance at being compelled to take part in the war. This sentiment was received with gratitude; besides, his protection might be needful some day or other. ”

“ The Prussian-born officers were, in general, educated men, who performed their duties very well; but half of the officers, born outside the kingdom, were poor gentlemen from almost every country in Europe who had joined the army only to have a living, and lacking patriotism, were in no way devoted to Prussia, which the majority abandoned when there was any adversity. Finally, as promotion was only by length of service, the great majority of senior Prussian officers were old and infirm, and in no state to support the fatigues of war. ”

“ In consequence of their remaining constantly in the same place, conversing always with the same people, and being employed uniformly in the same business, the Prussian officers acquire a staid, serious appearance, exceedingly different from the gay, dissipated, degagé air of British or French officers. Their only amusement, or relaxation from the duties of their profession, seems to be walking on the parade, and conversing with each other. ”

“ The insufferable spirit of militarism and the arrogance of the Prussian officers in Alsacian towns have served to turn against the empire many thousands whom another policy might have won; for it must be remembered that by no means all the inhabitants of the Reichsland have been by birth and by home [71] training French sympathizers. Instead of crushing out the ‘souvenir de France,’ the Prussian civil and military officials have caused it to be born in many a soul which was by nature German.
“The Prussian has never understood how to win the confidence of others. ”

“ I find many of the Prussian officers improved by success. Those with whom I have come in personal contact have been remarkably civil and polite, but I confess that—speaking of course generally—the sight of these mechanical instruments of war, brought to the highest state of perfection in the trade of butchery, lording it in France, is to me most offensive. I abhor everything which they admire. They are proud of walking about in uniform with a knife by their side. ”

“ To us Prussian officers an order stands above everything else. There is nothing we would not sacrifice to obey our orders. And my order was to recover the Star of Poland for His Imperial Highness the Crown Prince, Lieutenant Colonel in the Regiment to which I have the honor to belong, the First Regiment of Prussian Foot Guards. ”

“ And it is this fact, and the evidences that an insurrectionary spirit is still widely spread abroad, which are given as the excuse of a continued Prussian occupation. It is difficult, certainly, for a traveller in a land so lately convulsed, and still placed in circumstances so peculiar, to arrive at truth. Prussian officers will tell him how, on the arrival of the Prussian army in the country, and the dispersion of the insurgents, flowers were strewn along its path by the populations, who thus seemingly hailed the Prussian soldiers as their deliverers ”

“ The principle of universal military service, thus called into existence in Prussia in time of war, had been continued through fifty years of peace, and enabled Prussia, with a population scarcely more than half as numerous as that of Austria, to place upon the decisive field of Königgrätz a larger army than that of her opponent.
The Prussian system, which has since been copied by all the great military nations of Europe, is, in its essential features, as follows: Every able-bodied man in the kingdom, upon reaching the age of twenty years, is available for military service ”

“ Practically they are closely tied in every detail of military organization. The whole of the Prussian military system, including not only the obligation to military service, but the rules for recruiting, organization, drill and uniforms, has to be followed in all the states; all the contingents are under the command of the emperor, and the soldiers have to swear obedience to him in addition to the oath of allegiance to their own sovereign. ”

“ Bad staff work, and tactics which can only be described as those of pique, precipitated the disaster, and in seven weeks the victorious Prussians were almost at the gates of Vienna.
The result of the war, and of the constitutional changes about this time, was the re-adoption of the principles of 1806-1813, the abolition of conscription and long service in favour of universal service for a short term, and a thorough reform in the methods of command and staff work. It has been said of the Prussian army that “discipline is—the officers.” ”

“ The genius of the nation has been directed to the perfection of military discipline and military weapons. The government is always prepared for war, and has been rarely averse to it. It has ever been ready to seize a province or pick a quarrel. The late war with France was as much the fault of Prussia as of the government of Napoleon. The great idea of Prussia is military aggrandizement; it is no longer a small kingdom, but a great empire, more powerful than either Austria or France. It believes in new annexations, until all Germany shall be united under a Prussian Kaiser. ”

“ Let us, then, march upon them, since forbearance will not check their infatuation. Let the Prussian army experience the fate which it shared fourteen years ago. Let us teach them that if it is easy to obtain an increase of territory and power with the friendship of the great people, their enmity (which can only be provoked by the neglect of prudence and reason) is more terrible than the storms of the ocean. ”

“ And the fact that even Napoleon could not, in the absence of a thoroughly educated staff and perfectly drilled army, obtain good results from the handling of such enormous forces, gives prominence to the value of the Prussian idea of placing greater reliance on an army drawn from the personal service of the people and made perfect in all its details from the ranks up, than on the genius of a single general. ”

“ Prussia, which has imposed its will, as well as its methods of thought and life on all the rest of Germany, is undoubtedly a military nation.
More than one hundred and twenty-five years ago Mirabeau, the great French orator at the commencement of the Revolution, said, "War is the national industry of Prussia." Later, Napoleon remarked that Prussia "was hatched from a cannon ball," and shortly before the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 the French military attaché, in reporting to his government, wrote that "other countries possessed an army, but in Prussia the army possessed the country." ”

“ The Prussian General Staff served its King and fatherland by hard, faithful work, and maintained Germany's ability to defend herself by labors extending over many years of peace, as was its duty, but it exerted absolutely no political influence whatsoever. Interest in politics, as is well known, was never particularly strong in the Prussian-German army. Looking backward, one might almost say, in fact, that it would have been better for us if those in leading military circles had concerned themselves a bit more with foreign policy. ”

“ The French army, considerably more numerous than any troops Prussia could bring against it, was already in Franconia, a few marches from the frontier. There was no time to put to good account the strong national feeling which had been excited. Prussia could rely upon its army alone, and though strong in the military reminiscences of the Great Frederick and admirably appointed, the Prussian troops had never seen war; the generals were old men wedded to obsolete traditions, while the King, in his anxiety to please Napoleon, had even gone so far as to discharge Mismanagement of Prussia. ”

“ The command of the Prussian contingent was given to General York, who was sent to Riga during the march to Moscow, and escaped the horrors of the retreat. When the fate of the campaign was decided, he left the French with his remaining 17,000 Prussian soldiers, concluded a treaty of neutrality with the Russian general Diebitsch, called an assembly of the people together in Königsberg, and boldly ordered that all men capable of bearing arms should be mustered into the army. Frederick William, in Berlin, disavowed this act, but the Prussian people were ready for it. ”

“ The Alps or Pyrenees, the Rhine and the Danube, the Dniester and the Po, might protect their several countries from invasion; but the levels of Prussia required a force always on foot, prompt and prepared. To frontierless Prussia a powerful army was as peculiarly essential as a Royal Navy is to the British Isles. In all the early difficulties of his predecessor's debt, the king had raised the Prussian army to upwards of forty thousand men; and, before he died, his muster-roll amounted to nearly eighty thousand of the finest troops on the Continent. ”

“ But when we see in every village round about—in every house, in almost every hovel—those hosts of Prussian spiked helmets gleaming in the sun—those Prussian bayonets planted before every door—those Prussian uniforms, studding, with variegated colour, every green rural scene; when we never cease to hear upon the breeze—wherever we may wander in the country—the clang of Prussian military bands, and the tramp of Prussian infantry; when we find the faces of Prussian military at every window, and observe Prussian soldiers mixing in every action of the common everyday life of the country ”

“ No man having a wife or child can be enlisted in time of peace without special authority from the adjutant-general’s office. The Prussian system is based upon the theory that military service is not a trade or craft, to be followed by a portion of the population, but a duty owed by every male citizen to his country. For further particulars of this system, see Landwehr. The Prussian system has been adopted by all other states of the German empire, and also by most of the other European nations.
Recruiting Flag. ”

“ In the three years Prussia had 180,000 well-drilled men and 120,000 reserves, quite a different proposition from the 12,000 men Napoleon thought he had to face on his retreat from Moscow, and which played a decisive factor in the overthrow of the dictator of Europe.
Through the wars of 1864 and 1866 to 1870, the Franco-Prussian War, the War Machine of Prussia was merged into that of the German Empire and is a record of increasing efforts, entailing unbelievable hard work and a compilation of the minutest details. ”

“ But cool reasoning on probabilities and situations is not to be expected from a Prussian more than from an Englishman—less, perhaps, from the former than the latter, since, in Prussia, patriotism is always associated with more or less of that military feeling and ardour with which a three years’ service in the army more or less inoculates all ”

“ No statesman could neglect to examine the causes of these stupendous events, and the institutions which had rendered them capable of realization: no soldier could abstain from studying the new conditions under which hostilities in the future must be conducted, and the numerous questions of warlike interest which modern science had introduced. It is not surprising that the Prussian system should speedily have become our model in the affairs relating to the army, and that the British nation should determine to make a searching inquiry into its military concerns. ”

“ The individual officers of the executive staff were the most highly trained in Europe, but there was no great leader to co-ordinate their energies. The total number of men assigned to the field army was 110,000 Prussians and Saxons. They were organized in corps, but their leaders were corps commanders only in name, for none were allowed any latitude for individual initiative. Ill-judged economies had undermined the whole efficiency of the Prussian army. Two-thirds of the infantry and one-half of the cavalry were allowed furlough for from ten to eleven months in the year. ”

“ There is no fear that Prussia will lose her legitimate influence in the federal government, even if the individual members of the cabinet are not on all questions at one.... Prussia’s territory making five-eighths of all Germany, she will always command the authority naturally belonging to her. Besides, the identity of the German and Prussian politics is guaranteed by the fact that the German Emperor and the King of Prussia happen to be one and the same person. I do not deny that the premier should be invested with more extensive prerogatives than are now his own. ”