Wflv'"m THE PRUSSTAN ARMY AND THE REVOLUTION or 1848 Thesis for the Degree of Ph. D. MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY FRED H. STENKAMP 1972 LIBRARY Michgan State University TMTTTTTTT 1932 5“ 1 This is to certify that the thesis entitled The Prussian Army and the Revolution of 1848 presented by Fred H. Stenkamp has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for _Eh.D._degree in 4131.013:— /9 DWI/7b MajJ/pfifessor Date a May 5, 1972 0-7639 ABSTRACT THE PRUSSIAN ARMY AND THE REVOLUTION OF 18MB By Fred H. Stenkamp This study analyzes the composition and mentality of the Prussian army and its corresponding reaction to the revolution of 18h8. It accepts, as given, the concepts of military professionalism as ckweloped by a handful of Prussian military publicists in the first tmlf of the nineteenth century and by Samuel Huntington in his The_ §2§ikflléflg_§hg_§t§§e. .All agree in insisting on the need for the tmlitical neutrality of the truly professional soldier. From this Imint of departure, analysis shows that the response of the Prussian anmrto the revolution of 18h8 is inexplicable in terms of a strictly Professional attitude. The aristocratic leadership and rural composition of the army was much more important in determining its response to the essentially urban revolution of 18h8. The study Shows that the Prussian army acted in 18h8 in the very way in which PUblicists said would be the result of implementing Burger reform Projects: The army showed itself to be something much different than 8-pure1y professional instrument of executive power. It developed its own politics. Although there was a nucleus of professionalized officers in the‘nWWK the study shows the officer corps to be rather more of a social status cxxrporation, organized for other than purely military pmrposes. ‘It shows that the common soldiers also were not always cngmnized or trained purely for the profession of arms. Moreover, in 18h8'the Prussian army was beset by some of the same political controversies within its ranks under the impact of revolution that cmcurred in the external world of Prussian and German society. Ikmocrats, liberals, conservatives, reactionaries, and purely pro— ‘iessional officers jostled for position Within the officer corps in a strange caricature of the external world. Among the lesser soldiers and especially in the Territorial Guard, the immediate impact of the revolution also revealed or created ferment. The officer corps of the army displayed a heretofore unknown talent among its officers in the art of political propaganda and maneuver, each faction appealing to various strata of Prussian civilian society. The winners in this struggle for position were those designated in the study as "old Prussians," officers who adamantly insisted on maintaining the army's lofty position in state: and society and on retaining the current institutional organization. The "old Prussians," successfully invoking "honor" as their political Slogan, succeeded also in closing the ranks of the army to the revolution through using all the means at their command; by dis- missals, transfers, threats, courts of honor proceedings, and propae ganda, they excluded, drove out, isolated, or shouted down those officers who sought to profit from the revolution in a manner inconsistent with the "old Prussian" norm. By the end of 18h8, the officer corps and men had developed an esprit de corps which no amount ofljberal or democratic propaganda could penetrate, an esprit which was instrunnental in the ultimate demise of’civilian revolu— tionary activity and.partly responsible for King Frederick William IV's resoluticui'to effect a coup d' etat at the end of the year. The quid pro quo for upholding the monarchy in 18h8 was independence for the army. The Prussian constitution of 18h8—1850 expressly exempted the army from its provisions. Since the army archives were destroyed in lQhS, the study has had to confine itself to extant printed sources, which include document collections, letters, diaries, memoirs, pamphlet literature, and newspapers. Methods of analysis used are historical and sociological. THE PRUSSIAN ARMY AND THE REVOLUTION OF 18MB By Fred H. Stenkamp A THESIS submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of History 1972 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to acknowledge Professor Hans Rosenberg of the University of California (Berkeley) who suggested the object of this study and helped to acquire for me research opportunity for it. I am especially indebted to Professor Paul Duggan of Michigan State University for his patience, his constructive criticisms, and his readiness to confer with me at odd hours and dates. To Professors Paul Sweet and John B. Harrison of Michigan State University I owe gratitude for their gentle and worthwhile suggestions and encouragement in this study and also in advanced graduate work. Naturally I take personal responsi- bility for the present copy of this study. I wish to thank also Professor Allan M. Schleich of The Creighton University and Professor Richard Sonderegger of Northern Michigan University as well as the graduate faculty of Michigan State University, The Creighton University, and Northern Michigan University, for encouraging me to resume my doctoral work. It was not psychologically easy for me to do so. 31a very personal sense, I wish to thank Marie O'Sullivan, who is no longer with me, for her inspiration. Lastly, but not least, I thank my typist, Mrs. Peggy Cloninger, for her forbearance and efficiency. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS PART I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION . CHAPTER II. PROFESSIONALISM AND THE SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF THE PRUSSIAN OFFICER CORPS CHAPTER III. THE CONSCRIPTS AND LANDWEHR. PART II CHAPTER IV. THE ARMY AND THE MARCH REVOLUTION . CHAPTER V. THE POLITICS OF THE PRUSSIAN OFFICER CORPS I. THE QUEST FOR POPULARITY . CHAPTER VI. THE POLITICS OF THE PRUSSIAN OFFICER CORPS II. CLOSING THE RANKS . CHAPTER VII. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY. iii Page ii . 25 .76 -95 .138 .180 .212 .229 TABLES Page TABLE 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 TABLE 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . 58 TABLE 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 iv CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This is a study of a social institution in confrontation with political turmoil. Every casual reader of German history of the nine- teenth century realizes the importance that the army played in Prussian society. Prussia was a military state founded by the Hohenzollerns and devoted to the interests of its military forces. A large share of Prussia's revenue went to her army. The kings were soldiers. The officers constituted the realm's first estate. Common soldiers ostensibly obeyed without question the commands of their hard—headed officers. Nearly every school—boy is familiar with Mirabeau's aphorism of the eighteenth century: "Every state has an army; but Prussia is an army that has a state.’ No one doubts that this was much unchanged in the nineteenth century. It is all the more remarkable, therefore, that only one professional historian, Reinhard H3hn, has investigated the Prussian army during the revolutionary crisis of 18h8.1 Other students of Prussia's military .. lReinhard thn . YEEEQEEEEEEIETHEI 1.1.921. 38.22%? 1.91; 12?}; lies: Clea Bersertaae as gas fiesta Eli-Aer; (Leipzig, 1938? Archival sources for this study are almost non—extant. The German army archives were almost totally destroyed in lQhS. However, nearly all of the sources which H8hn used are available. These included contemporary pamphlets, brochures, and newspapers. In addition, there are printed document collections, diaries, letters, and memoirs pertinent to this study. Some official regimental histories are also extant, but most of these are without value. Finally, there is a wealth of documented secondary material which may be drawn from with profit. organization in the nineteenth century have swept past the revolution of 18h8, using examples from that dramatic year of revolution in Europe only to document long—term tendencies of the army officers' corps.2 And even Reinhard Hahn confines himself essentially to an examination of civilian literature which proposed military reform and officer literature which opposed such reform. The general histories of the revolution are equally opaque about the army.3 The reader of such histories is made aware of the hostility between soldier and civilian, of the fact that the very presence of troops helped to precipitate the March uprising of 18h8 in Berlin, of the officer corps in the burgeoning spirit of reaction in late summer and more. Yet, with the exception of E. R. Huber's brief discussion,h the Prussian army appears on the scene in 18h8 as a kind of deus ex machina whose first great sin was that it was not democratic and whose second 2Chief among these are: Karl Demeter, Bas_deutsghe Heer_und_seine Qiiliéiece (Berlin . 19 30) and 12828; ieataeae Qitiaieahama 1.311. Cieaellaeaatt. und_Staat (Frankfurt a/M, 1963); Emil Obermann, Soldaten_- BHZEEE.‘ LMilitélristeaa THEE: arid. Qeaelgaetie in Qataealeai (Stuttgart, 1958); Gerhard Bitter, 8.118312841291122 arid Krieeshandwezly 126:8. Breakers deg-1 'Militarismusl in_Deutschland (A vols., Munich, 195hff.), especially vol. I. An exception is Gordon Craig, The_Pol£§ics_of.the_Prus§ian Army, l§£92l2E2_(NeV York, 1956) who, however, leans heavily on Han for l8h8. 3Chief among these are: Veit Valentin, Gesghighte_der deutsghgq Revglution_vog_l§g§:l§§2 (2 vols., Berlin, 1930-31); Rudolf Stadelmann, Friedrich Engels, Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany reprinted in Leonard Krieger (ed.), $HE.§§EE§Q Revolutions (Chicago, 1967). hE. R. Huber, Deutsche_Verfassungsgeschighte_seit_11§2_(h vols., Stuttgart, 1957-69), Vol. II, pp. 732-7h6. great sin was that it (sometimes) obeyed orders. Was the Prussian army a passive instrument of executive power? For the sake of the liberal or democratic cause in Prussia, and in Germany, it would have been better if the army had been passive, if it had been, in fact, a highly professionalized institution, a pure instrument of executive power. Instead, the Prussian army itself was beset internally with many of the same controversies which existed externally in 18h8. For the army was not organized as a purely professional group with a purely professional mentality. It was rather more a social and political organization. If the army had in fact acted in 18h8 along professional lines, there would be little purpose in this study. According to military publicists, the army was supposed to be an apolitical instrument of executive power, a "factor of order" in Prussian society. But can we take the publicists word for it, or was the Prussian army, as is more likely, guilty of the very sins against professionalism that the publicists argued would be the result of giving into BHrger demands for reforming the army? Instead of performing as a politically passive instrument of executive power, did the army not develop politically active forces of its own? Did civil-military relations conform to professional standards? The focus of the present study, therefore, is on civil-military relations in Prussia. What were the relations of Prussian military institutions to state and society as they were influenced by Prussia's peculiar social system and by the social composition of the Prussian military? In analyzing these relationships, we will inevitably need to consider the more general problem of how armies ought to act in revolutionary situations. What part of the Prussian army's actions were determined by the specifically Prussian political and social matrix to the exclusion of the dictates of modern military professionalism? The model of military professionalism--the ideal military type—-is adapted from Samuel Huntington's analysis in his, The_Soldier_and_the_State_and, where useful, from military publicists. How an army ought to act will be used as the basis for analyzing how the Prussian military in fact did act. Huntington's ideal professional soldier has expertise, respon- sibility to his client, the state, and a sense of responsibility to his fellow soldier-—in short, corporativeness. Above all he obeys and executes orders and, though he is typically a conservative, he does not interest himself in political questions except where policies directly affect his professional competence.5 It will become obvious below that this description of the ideal professional soldier did not fit the Prussian military establishment either before or during the revolution of 18h8. Assuming professional military logic as a given premise, this study will focus on the non—military response of the Prussian army to the revolution of 18h8. It will focus on the activities of the Prussian army in l8h8-18h9 which cannot be justified in terms of a professional military function. By using Prussian military publicists own definitions of professionalism as well as the model of military professionalism developed by Samuel Huntington, we will examine whether , Prussian military institutions in fact did operate on purely professional 5881111161 13- Huntington , The. 3.214.191; sad. the. 8.13.8129. The Thaw: ens Balitise 9.1: Qirilzflili’aezr Beletieria (Cambridge, MaSS- . 1957), pp- 1- 17 and Hessia- principles. Or can their response to revolution in l8h8 be understood ultimately only in terms of domestic, social, and political considerations which are external to the model of pure military professionalism? In both contexts we will have to consider the social composition of the officer corps, its relationship to rural society, the shifting balance of power between country and city, the cognate problem of the relation- ship between inactive officers and active officers, the problem of maintaining military discipline at the time of a revolution whose conflicts were internalized within the army as well as externalized in the larger society of Germany and Prussia, and the devices by which the army sought to appeal to different classes of Prussian subjects for support, the appeal to the shopkeeper's mentality, the army's subtle exploitation of class conflict between the bourgeoisie and the Prole— tariat the methods used in neutralizing dissidence and closing ranks during the revolution and the effect which this had on transforming the Prussian army into a much more tightly disciplined and much more class conscious institution than it had been at any time prior to 18h8. Prussian military institutions of 18h8 evolved out of the reform period of 1807—1815. Since this falls within the topic of this study, the military reforms will be sketched in here briefly. They included reforms of the officer corps, introduction of universal military training and the formation of a citizens' territorial defense force. Under the urgings of Generals Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Boyen, and others, King Frederick William III opened the officer corps to all social classes. Officership was said to be reserved for those possessing military talent. In addition, a principle of self-regulation was given the various units of the officer corps. Each regimental officer corps was given the right to co—opt its own replacements. Similarly, each unit was given a court of honor, composed of officers of the unit, and directed by a council of honor, also composed of unit officers, to regulate internal matters of the corps. Courts of honor were supposed to oversee the personal deportment of individual officers.6 More will be said of them below. Conditions of service for the rank and file were also reformed. The reformers induced Frederick William to terminate the canton system of the eighteenth century and to nationalize his army; foreign recruits and a long—term serving army of common soldiers were no longer desired. The reformers wanted a citizen army. To implement this required the transformation of subject peoples into citizens. Hence the peasants were emancipated from serfdom while a municipal ordinance gave rights of self-administration to urban Prussia. Hence, also, the reformers carried through the legal abolition of corporal punishments in the army for disciplinary reasons; citizen soldiers were to be treated as men of honor and dignity. In lBlh, the war minister, General Hermann von Boyen, extracted an army law from the king which generally regulated Prussian military organization until the 1860's. The army law stated the military obligation for every able-bodied Prussian male from age 20 to 39. 6Hans Rosenberg, Bureaucracy, AEiéEQEEQSY and_Autocragy. The -—-—-—--—~— —- Prussian Experience, léég:l§li_(Cambridge, Mass., I9ES), pp. 213:2l6; —------ Craig, Politics, p. A2. At age 20, every Prussian male was obliged to serve in the standing army for a period of three years. Upon completion of these three years, he entered the ready reserve for two more years. After his service, he passed into the Landwehr, a sort of territorial defense force.7 The Landwehr was an inspiration of Scharnhorst. He had conceived of a popular citizen's militia which was supposed to represent the nation in arms. The king and his more conservative advisors were absolutely opposed to such a radical concept and only when the uprising against Napoleon took place in 1813, was the king's hand forced. War Minister Boyen took advantage of the enthusiasm of victory over Napoleon in l8lh by having the Landwehr institutionalized in law. Upon passing through the regular army and ready reserve, the Prussian citizen entered the first levy of the Landwehr for a period of seven years. After those seven years, he passed over to the second levy of the Landwehr for another seven years. The first levy was in— tended to maneuver two weeks annually with the regular army. During times of war, it was designed to go into the field with the regulars. The second levy was to have one week of exercise in the field annually. During times of war, men from the second levy were to occupy the fortresses. Finally, all Prussian males not serving in the regular army or Landwehr were liable to service in the Landsturm, a sort of patriotic uprising.8 71311‘1- . pp. 69-71. 81am- It was Boyen's intention that the Landwehr should be a military institution separate from the regular army with its own officers and training inspectors. He believed that the Landwehr could and should serve to reconcile the Burger to the Prussian state. Thus university students and educated Burger who could afford their own equipment could enter the regular army as one—year volunteers in order to discharge their military obligation; ostensibly this was the only exception made to the universal obligation to serve. Upon completion of this one year service the volunteer passed into the Landwehr as an officer. Boyen also had a great faith in a voluntarism that would urge the Bflrger, of a week-end or holiday, to repair to the local Landwehr armory-—they were constructed throughout Prussia—-and participate in target practice and the like.9 In our discussion below, we will examine this institution more closely, as well as conservative distrust of the Landwehr idea. Similarly we will deal with the changes that occurred in this military organization both in its institutional arrangements and in its social composition in the years between the reforms and l8h8. It is necessary here to note briefly the relationship of the Prussian army to other elements in Prussia in order to set the stage for the following chapters. The officer corps of the Prussian army was intimately related to the other three ruling forces of the Prussian state, the king, the landed nobility, and the bureaucracy. 9Friedrich Meinecke, Das Leben des Generalfeldmarschalls Hermann The officer corps belonged, with the king, to the "first estate in the land." The "king's coat" was the officer's coat, and the king was commander-in-chief (Qberster_Krieggherr) of the army. In our period, the king was Frederick William IV (l8hO—l859) the most perplexing of all Hohenzollerns, a romantic whose political views included a hazy desire to see Germany and Prussia reincarnate the medieval estates with society ordered in corporate hierarchies. This "Christian state" was to include a re—establishment of the Holy Roman Empire with a Habsburg on the throne and the King of Prussia as Heriditary Field Marshal. Few of his officers understood such a gothic impossibility. On the other hand, Frederick William himself understood few of his officers. Military affairs usually bored him, an unusual matter for a Hohenzollern. He thus left over military matters, in most instances, to his brother, Crown Prince William. But Frederick William was still commander—in-chief insofar as the army was concerned.10 The army's officer corps was also intimately related to the landed nobility of the Prussian state, specifically to the owners of the so- called "Knights' Estates" (Rittergfitterbesitzer) of East Elbian Prussia. The large land—owners concentrated considerable local economic and political power on their estates, but also nearly monopolized the important office of Landrat (County Commissioner) in the Kreis (County) government. They dominated the eight provincial diets of Prussia by a ratio of two to one. And they sent their sons into commanding positions in the civil bureaucracy and, most important to this study, into the ”Valentina Ileataehe 13.921.921.99. Vol- I. pp. 29—35. lO army officer corps.ll Lastly, the officer corps was related to the Prussian bureaucracy. The same social class dominated both officer corps and bureaucracy. Many civil servants were retired officers. And the bureaucracy was there, ever since its creation, chiefly to regulate the affairs of the Prussian state in order that the state might thrive and thus better support its military institutions.12 These relationships to the governing forces of the state were inimical to the development of professionalism as will be seen in detail in this study; they also help to explain the unprofessional behavior of the army in l8h8. The above ruling forces presided over a Prussian society that underwent considerable change in the generation since the Wars of Liberation. These changes include demographical change, industrializa- tion, and a growth in the political consciousness of the lower classes. Population in Prussia grew from 10,500,000 in 1817 to lh,000,000 in l8hh. This growth put extreme pressure on the land where, in the East Elbian parts of the monarchy, the small rural proprietor had all but disappeared. The population change was especially reflected in urban growth; by l8h8 Prussia had a number of relatively large cities-- Berlin, Breslau, Cologne, and others.13 p. 106, Theodore S. Hamerow, Restoration, Revolution, Reaction. Economics and Politics in Germany, 1815— 1871 (Princeton, New Jersey, 1958), p.59. 11 Industrial growth, which became marked in the l8h0's, did not keep pace with the population. As a result, unemployment, low wages, and high food costs made life more precarious for the little man in the "hungry forties."lh Attendant to the population growth and urbanization of Prussia was the upswing of political consciousness of the ruled classes. A small but growing factory bourgeoisie espoused the principles of class—conscious liberalism. Somewhat lower in the social scale, many BHrger intellectuals developed a radical-liberalism based on "natural law." And other BHrger intellectuals were formulating principles of socialism on behalf of a swollen artisan class; factory proletariat, as such, constituted only a fraction of the working class by 181:8.15 Uniting these various strands of political ferment among the urban classes of Prussia--and Germany-— was a rising consciousness of German disunity. German nationalism, a desire for political unity of the German people, was a common denominator in the aspirations of the urban classes. Some of these ideas were first expressed on the political stage in Prussia in l8h7. In that year, King Frederick William IV patched his gothic ideas of corporate bodies together and summoned the provincial diets to Berlin to sit together in a united diet. th-Ho Claphama The Ecgagriie Qarelqement of France am: (lament, 1&1221213 (hth edition, Cambridge, 1966), pp. 82-120. 15Hamerow, Restoration, pp. 18, 32, 10h; Leonard Krieger, The Gamer: Lise. 91.“. Feeeiaa- 11.18.2913: 0.: 2%. Ealitisel. Eeeiitiari (BOS ton . 19 57) . pp. 2h2—252, 2962303. 12 Meeting in April, l8h7, liberals in the united diet were quickly disabused of the notion that Frederick William IV contemplated constitu— tionalism for Prussia: "Never will I permit a written sheet of paper to come between our God in heaven and this land." The liberals demanded periodic meetings of the united diet, legislative authority, and a written constitution. It was in the control of finances that the liberals sought to force the king's hand. Until Frederick William gave way on the issue of the constitution, the liberals refused to sanction a loan for the construction of a railroad between Berlin and KSnigsberg. There matters rested. In June, 18h7, Frederick William sent the united diet home: No constitution, no railroad to K5nigsberg.l6 With the closing of the united diet, this description of pre— revolutionary Prussia may also come to a close. It is necessary, in the next section, to examine a facet of civilian—military relations which will bear on our general theme. Before examining the structure of the Prussian army and its confrontation with the revolution of l8h8, it is necessary to describe how a professional army ought to behave in society and how it ought to respond to revolutionary turmoil. The demands of the Barger from 1815 through l8h9 with respect to reforming military institutions will pro— vide a convenient vehicle for this description. It is a convenient vehicle for this description simply because a number of Prussian officers responded to Barger demands for reform of military institutions “Hamerow, ETEBQEQELQQ’ pp- 90-93- 13 with arguments which had a distinctly professional logic. Prussian officers, therefore give us many of the criteria with which to analyze how the army in fact responded to political upheaval. The central problem of the liberal BHrger——in the German sense of propertied or educated middle class—-was to accomplish the "civilianiza— tion" or eaheaeeaiaeaeat (YEE‘RHESQELLEREQH) o f the army; wh at th e Bfirger despised most was the aristocratic "caste spirit" he saw in— corporated in the military.17 All the liberal and democratic projects in l8h8 which sought to reform, reorganize, or neutralize military institutions addressed themselves to this central problem. These projects included the demands that the military swear an oath to the constitution, that the standing army be abolished or reduced to a training cadre, that it be transformed into a citizen army with popularly elected leaders (Bfirggfibggaffgung) or, more radical yet, be replaced by arming the populace itself (Volksbewaffnung). Other projects demanded that the too-narrow training in military schools be abolished, that the jurisdiction of military courts be restricted to purely military matters, that the regulatory courts of honor of the officer corps be abrogated, and that the rights of petition and free assembly be extended to off-duty soldiers. The BHrger also demanded the closing of the officer casino (before l8h8, the casino was only an officers' mess) because they viewed it as only an institution designed 17H3hn . Eerieaearieeliemht. pp- XXI . 27- Yerhflreetliehaaea in it S nineteenth century context had a two-fold meaning. In one sense, it meant simply the civilianization of the armed forces. In another sense, Verbfirgerlichung_had the connotation of changing the armed forces from their rural composition of noble officer and peasant enlisted man to an urban composition. 1h for the perpetuation of caste—spirit, the abolition of the secret conduct lists kept regularly on all officers because they viewed these as an inquisitorial method of keeping officers "in line,‘ and the removal of the requirement that the soldier wear his uniform during off-duty hours.18 These projects and demands were developed, for the most part, in debates in the smaller German states that had constitutions before l8h8—— in Baden, Bavaria, Hesse, Saxony-—and became, by l8h8, the common property of the German BHrger class in the big states, such as Prussia, as well. In l8h8, the politicians in the Frankfurt Parliament sought to implement the more practicable of these projects in organic statutes designed to create a new German army. If Germany was to be united with a liberal constitution, the Frankfurt Parliament also sought to give Germany an unified army.19 Slogans cannot create or reform military institutions and the plain fact of the matter was that Germany had no unified military force but only a series of state armies varying in organization, size, competence, and tradition. The Frankfurt Parliament, composed of deputies from all over Germany, having diverse outlooks and projects, had necessarily to settle on compromise solutions in the attempt to create a military system which could at once satisfy the need for national defense and the Burger aim 0 1“ Yeahfireerlieharie- -------------- — - --_.——----———_-—----—-——----- —— 1811931., pp. 16f, 32, ho, ’43, 52f, 73—77. Few agreed what was to be understood by the Prussian Landwehr of 1813. The Burger, in general, construed it as a voluntary and spontaneous uprising, and looked upon the Landwehr of 1813 as proof that standing armies were unnecessary for national defence. The other arrangements such as courts of honor, etc., will be treated in detail below. 1913131. . pp- 125-35. 15 Having created a Central Power consisting of an Imperial Vicar (Reighgverweser) in the person of the Habsburg Arch—Duke John and a cabinet, whose minister of war was a Prussian general, Wilhelm von Peucker, the Frankfurt Parliament sought to insure a modicum of control over the various German armies. On 16 July War Minister von Peucker issued a decree calling for all German armies to parade on 6 August in a ceremony of homage (Huldigung) to the Imperial Vicar. This was more a trial balloon than an attempt to secure control of the armies, since homage is not yet the same as an oath of obedience. It was also a failure since the German governments, and especially the Prussian king, Frederick William IV, forbade any ceremony of homage.2O The Frankfurt Parliament, nonetheless, went on with its constitution— making and a committee was organized to create organic statutes for a German military system.' In December, l8h8, the army draft law was ready. As Hohlfeld has remarked, the Frankfurt Parliament worked on this problem in an uncomfortable period—-while Windischgrgtz's army was advancing on Vienna, while Count Brandenburg and von Manteuffel wemapreparing and executing a coup d' etat in Prussia, while the democratic leader, Robert Blum was summarily executed in Vienna——in short, while the counter-revolution moved to crush the revolution. The Frankfurt army draft law was, thus, necessarily a compromise, intended, mostly, to attract the adherence of the Prussian monarchy. Accordingly, it was framed in parallel with the organization of the Prussian military system, all the more important since it was the unspoken assump- tion in Frankfurt that the king of Prussia should be elected hereditary 20Lbid., pp. 286-288. 16 German emperor.21 In broad out—line, the projected German army, based on universal service, was to consist of four "Banners" or levies. The first Banner, ' was supposed to be the arms school for ”the entire the "Ready Army,' people." The "Ready Army" was to be based on a very short term period of active service for conscripts with an extended furlough system. After service in the first Banner, the citizen—soldiers were to be enrolled in the first levy of the Landwehr, the second Banner, for a period of seven years. Like its Prussian counterpart, this levy was to assemble for periodic exercises. From the second Banner, the citizen— soldier passed to the third Banner, the second levy of the Landwehr. Like its Prussian counterpart, the second levy of the Landwehr was designated for fortress duty during times of war. Finally, all able- bodied male citizens not on active duty were required to do service in the fourth Banner, the Bargerwehr, a civic guard intended to preserve domestic peace. All four Banners were to be sworn to uphold the German constitution. The proposed law, obviously, was intended to reduce regular officers' corps to the role of military instructors, a Lehrstand, in the words of one Frankfurt deputy. To highlight this intention were the added provisions calling for the abolition of military academies while military training for officers should be made available in the universities.22 21Andreas Hohlfeld, Des. Eraahiar’aer. Balsam: and £8.13}. @221: an @818. kaiser: Heel; (Berlin, 1932), Pp- 12. 17- 2233;. , pp. 125-314. 17 It is a matter of common knowledge that the Prussian king rejected the constitutional projects of the Frankfurt Parliament. Yet the constitution and the army draft law are indications of the intent of German moderate liberals and are thus a measure of what would have happened had the revolution been successful. Attention should also be directed to the situation in Prussia in 18h8 where, unlike the Frankfurt Parliament, the Prussian constituent assembly was in direct confrontation with a state power apparatus. While Frankfurt had the task of creating a German military system, where none existed, the Prussian National Assembly, in Berlin, faced a Prussian military system and command apparatus that was, essentially, still intact. When the Prussian National Assembly met, King Frederick William IV had already promised, on the heels of the March uprising, that the army would be sworn to uphold the constitution which the Assembly and the crown were to contract. This satisfied the moderates in the Assembly, but not the left wing. The left held the position that a military oath to uphold the constitution was now meaningless. "Either it was there to remind the soldier of his duty, thus it contradicted [his] inner conviction, or it did not contradict and was [therefore] not necessary." (Deputy D'Ester). The left, thus, expressed the opinion that the true goal of the Bfirgertum‘was to change the mentality of the army, in short the goal of Verbiirgerlichung.23 23Hohn, Verfassungskampf, p. lh3. 18 To achieve this aim, a myriad of proposals were voiced in the National Assembly. The left demanded that the soldiers should have the right of petition and assembly when not under arms. Such rights, the democratic left believed, would drive liberal and democratic principles into the military forces. Further, the left demanded that the Prussian Cadet Houses be abolished so as to eliminate the source of the caste spirit of the officer corps. The left also sought to introduce the principle of popular election of officers, by the rank and file, into the military. And the left sought to place the military under the same civil and criminal law common to all Prussian citizens; the system of separate military courts would either be abolished or confined to the trial of strictly military offenses. The courts of honor, of course, were also to disappear. Finally, the left sought to effect the dissolution of the Royal Guard Corps; a monarch who pro- posed to be a people's king no longer needed such a unit.2h During the year of l8h8, none of the above proposals was imple- mented. They were, however, popular proposals in the urban parts of Prussia and were discussed repeatedly. One may therefore assume that had the left been able to secure control of events, that the Prussian military establishment would have been radically reformed or even dissolved. Practically speaking, only one innovation occurred in Prussia in l8h8 with respect to military institutions——the creation of the Bfirgerwehr. Those who were registered as bona fide Burger (those holding a patent, a Bfirgergrief) in Prussia were enrolled in the Bfirgerwehr as a result of the March revolution. The Assembly subsequently enacted a law regulating 2“I_pi_d. , pp. 1143-151. 19 the BHrgerwehr. Although basically an organization for the preservation of internal order, the Bfirgerwehr was also supposed to share in the task of national defense. The left envisaged the Bfirgerwehr to be a step in the direction of a general arming of the people (Volksbewaffnung) which would hasten the disappearance of the standing army. The usual democratic trappings such as the election of officers were therefore incorporated into the BHrgerwehr law. Even here the essential aim of Verbfirgerlighung of the army was foremost.25 This essential aim really resolved itself in the idea, propounded by the left, of changing the spirit or mentality of the officer corps. This was most vehemently expressed in the Assembly debates in May, 18h8, and sporadically throughout the summer. It came to a head in August of 18h8. In that month a regular army detachment shot and killed a number of Bfirgerwehr men in Schweidnitz in Silesia. Action on this outrage was taken immediately in the National Assembly on 9 August when it adopted a resolution proposed by a left wing deputy from Breslau, Stein: The war minister, in an order to the army, shall express his desire that the officers shall abstain from reactionary agitations, that they shall not only avoid conflicts of any kind with civilians, but also, by advances to the Burger and union with them, shall give evidence of their desire to cooperate, with honesty and devotion, in the realization of a constitutional legal system. The Assembly also adopted an amendment offered by the deputy Schulz (from Wanzleben) which provided that those officers who found the Stein resolution in conflict with their own political views should be honor— 25T_p_i_d_. , pp. 11:3-151. 2O bound to quit the service.26 Nothing better illustrates the desire of the democratic Prussian BHrger to transform the military establish- ment than this inquisitorial attempt to purge the officer corps of elements incompatible to the Bfirger mentality. The Prussian army had officers who responded to the civilian demands for reform. A handful of officers from the 1820's on, took up the pen to combat Bfirger reform proposals. By l8h8, the "mental powers" of the army had been mobilized, chiefly in response to the parliamentary debates on military reform that took place in the constitutional German states before l8h8.27 Writing in 1821, for example, Colonel Blesson argued that the army is not outside of Bfirger society but a special order (Stand) inside society, for which, thus, special regulations were required, applicable to the army but not to civil society.28 To this another writer, Decker, added that the army was a "factor of order" in society, and it was in the "nature of the matter" that it should appear, to the outsider, as a "state within the state." But, the writers, argued, this made the army a special "order" not a caste.29 Its functions were simply different from the functions of civilians. 26£bid., pp. 151-153. I use Gordon Craig's translation of this awkwardly worded resolution. Politics, pp. llh—llS. 27H0hn. Yerfaeearieehennia pp- 12” 1‘- 281bid,, pp. 22h; 25h. 29Ibid., pp. 22h, 257. 21 Lieutenant Colonel Karl Rudloff elaborated further on this point in a compendium which described, in detail, the legal position of the army in the state. For our purposes, however, Rudloff asserted that the chief legal duties of the army consisted in loyalty and obedience: "Honor comes after loyalty and obedience." And this loyalty and obedience are owed, ultimately, to the Commander—in—chief, the Supreme War Lord, the Prussian king. The army serves real persons and not the nebulous ideas of Fatherland or nation.30 The above was only one argument, however, against obliging the army to swear an oath to uphold a constitution. The principle argument had an undoubted professional basis. To oblige the army to an oath to a constitution, it was argued, was to place the army under a double oath, since the military was already under oath to obey the king. Under this double oath, circumstances could arise in which the soldier was ordered to perform a task in violation of his oath to the constitution. Which, then, was he to obey: the king or the constitution? If the conflict was clear, the soldier had only the alternative of resigning the service. This is precisely why the German BHrger made the demand for a constitutional oath——to remove from the king the power of violating the constitution. The military writers pointed out, however, that not all issues would be clear-cut. Must the soldier test the constitution— ality of each order given him? Would this not drive into the army a principle of deliberation about orders and thus create factionalism and mutual distrust? But the army executes, it does not deliberate. 22 An oath to the constitution would be the first step in the dissolution of the army.31 The military writers assumed as given the necessity for the existence of defense forces for both external and internal security-- an assumption which the BHrger shared. According to the military publicists, however, this necessity could not be met by any form of a citizen's militia, be it called a Bfirgerwehr or a general arming of the people. A citizen's militia lacked the necessary training, discipline, and cohesiveness needed for external defense-—the more so if its leaders were selected on the basis of popular election instead of tested military skill. Such a force could not be expected to uphold internal order either since its members could be expected to sympathize with their fellow BHrgers. Only a professional force was useful for this purpose.32 Having, to their satisfaction, established the argument for the maintenance of standing army, the military publicists found it easy to push away the other civilian proposals. Cadet houses were defended because they produced "usuable" officers for the army.33 Since the army was a "separate order,’ separate military courts were also defended "3,4 as lying in the "nature of the matter. The same reasoning held for the retention of the courts of honor: The officer's estate must be allowed to maintain its own internal integrity.35 The same was argued 3lipid,, pp. 207, 22h. 321bid,, pp. 258-259. 3"I.b_i_<.i_-. p. 239. 23 for the retention of secret conduct lists; commanding officers needed to have records on the qualities of their charges. And since they added to theespirit de corps of the officer corps, the officer casinos were also to be retained. They provided a common meeting ground for officers and for inexpensive meals.36 Concomitant arguments were also made against extending rights of assembly and petition to the soldiers—-this would only legalize deliberation in the armed forces and thus hasten their dissolution.37 Since these questions will be repeated in other contexts later, it is unnecessary to catalog any further points as they developed before 18h8. What is important to observe, however, is that there was a clear thread of professionalism in the arguments of the military publicists. Such arguments, to be sure, did not find much hearing beyond the small circles of readers of military publications before 18h8. But one may observe with Reinhard Hthathat the "army" was "mentally armed" for the upheaval of l8h8——if by "army" is taken to mean the small circle of writers and readers of military publications. At the very least, there was a treasury of thought-out arguments for the officer who cared to mine them in l8h8. And the treasury was mined in l8h8. According to the army's own officer-publicists we arrive at the conclusion that the army was supposed to be purely an instrument of the executive, and, as such, ought to remain apolitical. We shall contrast 381.1331- , pp. 307-308. 2b the reality of l8h8 to that general theory in this study. In the next chapter we propose to examine the level of professionalism in the Prussian army officer corps. CHAPTER II MILITARY PROFESSIONALISM AND THE SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF THE PRUSSIAN OFFICER CORPS In the sense that most Prussian officers earned their living through military service, the Prussian officer corps may be said to be professional. Such a broad rendering of the term, professional, however, is scarcely useful and is misleading; one does not, for example, use the lable, "professional," to describe the services of a chimney—sweep simply because he earns a living in that manner. The concept of profession includes expertise, responsibility, and corpor- ateness. In the military vocation, the officer may be said to be pro— fessional if he possesses and expands his knowledge of military science with a view to the "organizing, equipping, and training" of combat forces, of planning——in peace—time and war—-the activity of these armed forces, and directing their operations. Further, the officer must possess a sense of responsibility to his client, the state, in the use of armed forces. And, finally, his sense of responsibility must also be directed toward fellow members of his own vocation; there is a corporate character implicit in any true profession.l Military professionalism, so understood, did not exist before the nineteenth century. Before the French Revolution, Officership was lHuntineton. 8.2151131: and. Slate, pp- 1-17- 25 26 ascribed to birth. In Prussia, the Junkers had an almost exclusive monopoly on officer positions. Talent and expertise played no role in the recruiting and precious little in the advancement of officers. Professionalism entered the Prussian army only after the collapse of the old Prussian state and its army following the disaster at Jena— Auerstadt in 1806. This was accomplished at the urging of a small group of dedicated and talented officers-~Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Grolman, Boyen, and Clausewitz, to name the more important figures in the reform movement. On 6 August, 1808, the reformers extracted from King Frederick William III a Fundamental Order which ordained that: A claim to the position of officer from now on be warranted in peace—time by knowledge and education, in time of war by exceptional bravery and quickness of perception. From the whole nation, therefore, all individuals who possess these qualities can lay title to the highest positions of honor in the military establishment. All social preference which has hitherto existed is herewith terminated in the military establishment, and everyone, without regard for his background, has the same duties and the same rights.2 From 1808 on, any man of seventeen or over who had served three months could in theory take examinations at the regimental level for the rank of cornet or subaltern (Portepeeféhnrigh), provided that there were vacancies in the unit applied for (fourteen vacancies were authorized for each infantry regiment and eight for each cavalry regiment). For a cornet to advance to the rank of second lieutenant, he had also to 2Rudolf Vaupel (ed.), "Die Reorganization des preussischen Staates unter Stein und Hardenberg," Zweiter Theil: "Das preussische Heer von Tilsiter Frieden bis zur Befreiung, l8OT—l8lh," Publikationen aus den preussischen Staatsarchiven) Band 9h (Leipzig, 19387} p. 533. Huntington, -----.- —- 3.9.1.4121; and Slate, Pp- 30-31- 27 pass an examination before a central board, normally sitting in Berlin. And, as we have seen, a self-regulating principle was also adopted in the regiments; before the young man could become an officer, his fellow officers had to co—opt him into the regiment.3 To professionalize the officer corps, it was necessary, obviously, to facilitate the schooling of officer candidates and officers. The cadet houses of the eighteenth century continued to train sons of officers who had fallen during the Napoleonic wars. In addition, schools were created on the division level for the instruction of officer— candidates—-the cornets. And, finally, a War Academy was founded, located in Berlin, whose purpose was to give to selected officers advanced courses in military science and cognate studies. From the most able officers in the War Academy were recruited the members of the Great General Staff.h These were auspicious beginnings. Professionalization of the Prussian officer corps, however, was hardly a success by l8h8. The officer corps of 18h8, except for a change in social composition traceable to the Fundamental Order of 18h8, was not a body of men to which Huntington's yardstick could apply. As a body, the officer corps was distinctly not professional. Apart from the technical services, only a small number of officers could honestly claim that they had seriously and successfully applied themselves to the study of military science and theory and these few were looked down upon, derisively, as book-worms and impractical, sometimes by the very officers 28 who boasted about the professional attainments of the officer corps.5 As a matter—of—fact, the vast majority of Prussian officers by no means found the officer's examination easy; passing the examination after sleepless nights of cramming, however, made them believe that they had a "well—earned right" to wear their splendid uniforms. The obvious disdain that the typical officer had for education, for intellectual activity, and professional improvement was noted by a French observer in l8h0, who remarked that "after the young man becomes an officer, all study of military science ceases; he lives socially and reads what goes with that."6 This atmosphere of disdain for intellectual activities was, of course, contagious. In many cases, an officer other- wise capable of improving his mind and military knowledge, was hooted I T at for being 'eager," for being a "striver,' and normally gave up his ambition.7 Such social pressure clearly arrested the development of professional expertise. Social pressure also worked to the disadvantage of general education among the Prussian officers. Arid intellectual companionship drove many an officer into more intimate contact with civilian reading and discussion groups, although, some, such as the sensitive--if second—rate——poet, Lieutenant von Gaudy, left the service because of the lack of intellectual 5 (Anon- ), Iieheaataiaae sides; areaaaiachea (1112123118. (Hamb we, 181+ 8) . pp. h8f. 6 “Wm ) . 12a. areasaiaelie aeldateathaa- Ezeaafiaiasae easiest. Yen. einem_Rei§endgn_(Leipzig, l8hl), pp. 68f. 7Prinz Kraft zu Hohenlohe—Ingelfingen, Au§_meinem Leben (h vols., Berlin, 1897f), Vol. I, p. 70. 29 companionship.8 MOst intellectually alienated officers, however, remained with the service, finding intellectual outlets outside their regimental circles. In Berlin, for example, Lieutenants de la Chevallerie, von Kall, and Canabaeus were frequenters of the reading rooms of the Zeitugggiflalle, a newspaper that became pronouncedly democratic in l8h8.9 Others were to be found in the salon of Varnhagen von Ense. And in the Western Provinces, a number of officers flirted with proto—communist or socialist reading circles--notably the lieutenants Anneke, Willich, Beust, and Korff.lo If many officers had reason to be mentally alienated from the officer corps, they also had reason to be socially alienated. For the officer corps was more a social class than a professional group and the demands of class obstructed professional growth. The officer corps l l was openly referred to as an 'estate,' specifically the first estate in the land. A11 officers wore the "king's coat." Since the officer wore the "king's coat," he was supposedly capable of being presented at court——he was "Hofféhig." Even the highly placed professor was ostensibly ranked socially behind the lowest Prussian lieutenant. For this reason, higher noblemen of Prussia, Germany, and even other Euro— pean states were eager to wear the Prussian uniform. Hence there was a total of hl princes, 18 of whom held general rank, 11 dukes and arch- 8Julius von H ar tmann . EEHQQEQILLQQQEEQE’EI’ Estate arid. Aaiehiae deS. Generals den Qayallerie (Berlin, 1882), I. Theil, pp. 156f. 9Adolf Wolff. 1121113121: hsiaLatiaaazghtaaih ( 3 vols- . Berlin, 185h), Vol. I, pp. 91-93. 10W- Korff . 8.01129 Elissa: sin. hhzeaeeaieh’aliehsr. Baggage! (Mannheim . 18h7), p. ho. 3O dukes, 9 of whom were generals, and 298 barons and 196 counts in the officer corps.ll In order to emphasize the exalted standing of the officer corps, the Hohenzollern monarchs themselves never appeared in public without an officer's uniform. In addition, the Hohenzollerns also appointed dignitaries and potentates of foreign lands to be honorary regimental chiefs.l2 With such a glittering array of socially highly ranked personalities in the officer lists, it was natural to call the officer corps the first estate in the land. In order to maintain the fiction that all Prussian officers belonged to the same social level, some of the lesser (if usually wealthy) nobility were also made honorary chiefs of regiments. Von Boyen, von Krauseneck, von Pfuel, von Mfiffling, von Thile, von Wrangel, von Zieten, von Nostitz, von Columb, von Natzmer, and Count zu Dohna had reached this category by 18147.13 For the Prussian system sought to emphasize the social and political pre-eminence of the officer corps in the state. The king frequently used officers as diplomats: urea-fie 61281221922111.8129 eel: hiaielieh Basaaaiashea erase ail: sea {aha 1.21:1. Dishes. den Ansiearieiiiiazliiatea eel: (haematite: SIEEESLHPF subaltern-Offiziere_(Berlin, 18h7). Much of what follows is based on Franz C. Endres, "Soziologische Struktur und ihre entsprechenden Ideolo— gien des deutschen Offizierkorps vor dem Weltkrieg," Archiv ESE Sozial- Eaaeriaehei’g. Vol LVIII (1927), with modifications. """""""""" 1232252222.QEEEEAEEZLAEEQ: l8h7. The Electoral Prince of Hesse, Prince Frederick of the Netherlands, the Arch-Duke John of Austria, the Heriditary Grand Duke of Hesse, the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, the King of Wurttemberg, the Duke of Wellington, the Grand Duke of Baden, King William II of the Netherlands, Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, the Crown Prince Alexander of Russia, the Arch Grand Duke of Saxon-Weimar-Eisenach, the King of Hanover, Prince Carl of Bavaria, the Crown Prince of Bavaria, the Duke of Brunswick, the Duke of Nassau, as well as six Hohenzollerns were each honorary chiefs of Prussian regiments. These, of course, were not in the table of organization for seniority ranking. 13mm- 31 "That in counsels the feeling of a soldier should also speak out is an indispensable necessity in Prussia," Frederick William IV wrote.lh Retired officers were often given the important civil post of Landrat, especially in the western provinces, but in East Elbia as well.15 Thus the officer corps often had direct, as well as indirect, connection with caste rulership in the Prussian state. Retired officers were also often given positions in the civilian bureaucracy in order to supple— ment their pensions; at least 1088 retired officers were placed in postal, revenue, police, and customs service in the years between 1825 and l8h3.l6 There was a direct attempt, in short, to cultivate an aristocratic spirit in the officer corps-—an attempt to show that the officer belonged to the first estate in the land. Those retired officers who had civilian positions remained under the benign jurisdiction of the military courts as well as under their unit's court of honor; hypothetically, the officer corps, tn gggggge, thus had a considerable influence over civil administration; the retired officer, employed as a civil servant, was expected to behave in confor- mity with the officer corps' unwritten code of honor.17 If membership in the first estate in the land was supposed to give the officer a high social standing in Prussia as well as fringe benefits that gave him privileges above the rest of Prussian society, so, too, did membership in the officer corps confer unique judical rights on the 15Huber, Deutsghe'Verfassungsgeschichte, Vol. I, p. 180. 160m: J any . Qaaehiehta; 4.8.1; hginielieh Brenaaiaehan Anne. (2. vols., Berlin, 1928-1933), Vol IV, p. 1&2, note. 17Meinecke, Boyen, Vol. II, p. 213 and notes. 32 officer. For the individual officer had a unique legal position in Prussia as well as legalized privileges. Legally, military personnel were under the jurisdiction of two courts. In civil matters, they were under the usual civilian courts while in criminal and injury matters, they were under the jurisdiction of military courts. In civil matters, officers were under the jurisdiction of the QQQQgQriQQt (Superior Court) of the provinces in which they were garri- soned. This meant that the officer had the same legal rights as the nobility of the province. A cashiered officer, on the other hand, was put under the jurisdiction of the court to which he had belonged before entering service.18 Hypothetically, that could mean that if a noble officer was cashiered, he lost nothing so far as his legal rights were concerned since he might possibly still retain the rights of the nobility, especially if he came from high or wealthy nobility; a cashiered non— noble officer, on the other hand, lost his privilege of belonging to the legally exempt. Membership in the officer corps obviously gave officers of the lesser noble and non—noble calsses a high legal standing in civil matters so long as they did not transgress the law with the same impunity as could, perhaps, the higher nobility. The same could be said for the officer's standing in criminal matters. In criminal and injury cases, military personnel were under the jurisdiction of military courts. In criminal cases, the military courts excluded all other courts and were therefore the highest courts 18AllgemeiQeQ LanercQt er die preQQQischeQ Staaten (Berlin, 1825), Theil 2, Titel 10, para 65- 66. Karl G. Rudloff, Handbuch der preQQQchQQQ und Justizverwaltung. Mit GeQQQmngQg.Sr. MQjthat deQ Konng (3 Theile, Berlin, 1826), I. Theil, pp. 29- 32, 138. 33 in the land. Thus, if a civilian broke a law before entering service, the military court would take over the proceedings from the civil court; if the civil court had already passed sentence, the military court had to change this into military punishment. In riots, civilian police authorities normally had jurisdiction and right of investigation. However, if a military person was involved, the military courts were supposed to investigate. And although the military courts tried the accused soldier——officer and common soldier-—against the General Laws of the Prussian States, the great elasticity in military punishments—- in one case, punishment for civilian-military scuffles could bring the military offender two weeks to six years' imprisonment——and the fact that military offenders were tried by military courts iQ_QQmQ£Q_in which the judges usually had no legal training gave no assurance to civilians, soldiers, or officers that law enforcement was equitable.19 Moreover, the fact that no officer could be punished without first being dismissed from service also helped make equality of justice a chimera. Finally, in a case among civilians, an officer who was called upon to testify as a witness did not even appear in the civilian court; he merely gave his testimony to a military court which then turned the testimony--ostensibly in authentic form—-over to the civilian courts.20 No cross-examination of the witness occurred; the king's officers, so 19Ibid., pp. lh5, lh7, lh8, 16h. Hugo von Hasenkamp, KriQfiQcypg natal: clan 3.- 11213.11 133.115., 2:0.- {ali 1.215.. 1.6.- Mai 1.511111 and 2.7.- Ssntanhan 1.52:5. erlaaaanen preaaaiaehan Mi 1.115121: - Sinai: - and. ahaeneaniehfliehen (Ea-sates, Yarnndnanean. and hahinetta - Cranen (Leipzig, 18'16) . PP- 10-12- 2ORudIoff, Handbuch, I. Theil, p. 170. 3h was the assumption, were honorable men. It is obvious that the Prussian judicial system was designed to protect the honor or appearance of the officer corps as well as to maintain its social predominance in the state. Although it is professionally valid to argue that the soldier should give up his civilian rights upon entry into the army, objections to pro- posals in l8h8 demanding that the army be placed under common law and under the jurisdiction of civilian courts for all strictly non—military matters also neatly covered the officer's social status. For in pre— March Prussia, the officer obviously did not give up legal rights so much as he gained legal rights. The caste character of the officer corps in the Prussian state was further accentuated by the institution of the court of honor, which had regulatory authority over the unwritten code of honor of the officer corps. The role of the courts of honor, ostensibly, was to allow the various unit officer corps to maintain their external appearance——their honor--before the public and before the other regimental officer corps. The officer corps were supposed to cleanse themselves of impurities that might damage their honor. According to the instructions of 1808, supple— mented by the instructions of l8h3, the officer was supposed to conduct himself in a manner befitting his exalted station. Not only was he to avoid excessive drinking, the contraction of debts, etc., but he was also to avoid keeping company with "dissolute females" and "people of ill repute." In practice, this meant that the officer was to avoid being seen in public with anyone not of his social rank; what he did behind curtains was normally of no concern to the court of honor, so long as it did not reflect on the honor of the corps. According to ex- 35 officer Friedrich Wilhelm Held, Berlin journalist and self-styled demogogue in l8h8, The officer corps has large claims to honor, that is, to external apparent honor. The officer may gamble, may participate in Bacchanalia, may maintain a dancing girl as a mistress, may contract debts, in short may live as immorally as possible, but only among his peers. He may have no association with Burger, with students, merchants, etc., because his honor, that is, appearance, would suffer from that. . . Genuine honor. . . is laughed at and scorned as pedantic.21 However exaggerated this may be, it is certain that very little of the officers' private lives was aired in public. Caste honor (as well as censorship) forbade public exposures of regimental affairs and of regimental officers. As Wilhelm Rfistow wrote, there was a "philistine horror of publicity" in the officer corps.22 Hence, in order to avoid public trials, officers were placed under the jurisdiction of military courts. For this reason also, many units even had a special "slush fund" to help younger officers to stay out of debt.23 Likewise, the commanding officer of a unit could turn down requests for a court of honor proceeding if he thought that too many of these would put his unit in a bad light QiQ Q'QiQ_the other officer corps. And most officers preferred to keep the regimental secrets "in the family" lest their own units be suspect of indiscipline and hence fall into disgrace and, as a result, be short—changed in any royal favors, including promotions. 2111299129211? Zeitane 1:111; eaiihiaehe Biliahe d_e.s_ Tallies (Berlin) . #159, 10 October, l8h8. On the courts of honor, Meinecke, SgyeQ, Vol. II, pp. 511-519. 22Wilhelm Rfistow, Der deutsche Militarstaat vor und wahrend der 23An officer wrote confirming this to the Kfilnigche_ZeitQQg, l. Beilage, #236, 2h August, l8h8. 36 Many regimental officer corps preferred, therefore, to tolerate their own deviant members, rather than cause an uncomfortable scandal; the honor of the unit demanded a "knightly" and homogeneous appearance. So, for example, in 18h3, Major Wegener refused to grant a court of honor pro— ceedings which Lieutenant Korff wanted to initiate against officers who had attended a farewell party for the division Auditor (legal advisor) Marcard in the Minden, Westphalia, garrison. Marcard, Korff alleged, was a drunkard and was immoral and hence unfitting company for officers. Major Wegener, however, told Korff that he wanted the whole matter to stay within the officer corps of the reserve battalion of the 15th Infantry Regiment.2h It was probably for such reasons that there remained a considerable number of non—conformist officers in the Prussian army up to l8h8 and perhaps even thereafter. A battalion or regimental commander could thus turn down requests for courts of honor proceedings; however, should he desire a court of honor proceedings, sufficient officers were usually at hand who would turn in denunciations against an alleged offender rather than risk having unfavor- able "observations" made on their conduct report. And the boasted comradely spirit of the officer corps did not always exclude the desire to see a few vacancies in the seniority lists, especially after 30 years of peace when promotions had come to a near standstill. For a court of honor could vote to dismiss or cashier officers. And if the cashiered officers, together with wives and families, should thus lose their legal rights in Prussia, that was of no concern to the court of honor. A court of honor could even declare that an inactive or retired officer —-— 2hHaaenkanp 1212.21.12. P- 32; Korff, Ehree erieheueher: Ereeeee, pp- 5-11; See also Wulflng. Alienate ereier; Offihiere eee eer. ereeeeieehee Araee neeh. eer. Metereeeee’eiee (Cologne. $81387, pp. 11-12- 37 should move away from a particular garrison area; whether the inactive officer could afford to move wife, children, and furniture was also of no concern to the court of honor. Indeed, Number 3 in the DQQtQQQQ WQQrzzQitQQg_in 18h8 made this quite clear when he wrote: "Whether such a judged officer is of good reputation or not in the other classes, worries quite as little as the slogans that have now again become fashion: Junkerdom and Pedantic [ngf] extravagances."25 The courts of honor, quite obviously, could be sources of fear to many career officers; an officer would have to possess considerable moral courage to dare run afoul of them. This fear was the undoubted reason for the anonymity of so much of officers' literature in l8h8. Such social corporativeness, in any case, had little bearing on the corporativeness that Huntington cites as one of the marks of professionalism. As can be seen from the foregoing, the aristocratic or "feudal" honor of the officer corps could interfere with, or regulate, the individual officer's private life insofar as the officer's private life became a public matter. But nowhere was this more glaring than in the limitations placed on an officer in choosing a wife. No officer was allowed to marry without the consent of his commanding officer, of his officer corps, and of the king. If his officer corps did not accept the proposed woman as being fit to be an officer's wife (she had to be noble or at least of good birth; a woman, for example, whose father was a shopkeeper and waited on his customers personally, was unfit to be an officer's wife.), the officer could not marry her and remain an officer. —- -— ----------_-v——---—--—-------—-—-‘—--—---‘---------—-- 259eeteehe Tehrzzeiiensa #9, 1 September. 18183- 38 It made no difference whether the woman in question was pregnant or not; to protect the honor of the officer corps, the law made it illegal to list an officer's mane in the baptismal record as being the father of an illegitimate child. If the officer was honorable enought to marry the woman he had made pregnant, a court of honor proceeding could force him out of the service while the king, as well, reserved the right to declare the marriage null and void.26 How much this code of honor con- tributed to the moral standards of individual officers cannot be deter- mined; what is certain is that the honor of the officer corps was rated much higher than the conventional or personal honor or morals of its individual members, to say nothing of those who were not members. It is not to be wondered that many non-noble officers would resent such inquisitorial interference in matters that should have been left private. Or that most BHrger preferred not to take up military life as a career. The code of honor of the officer corps, as expressed through the courts of honor, could obviously seriously disable an officer in a legal and personal sense, if he ran athwart it. But the code of honor could go even further. Perhaps nothing illustrates more flagrantly the officer corps' exalted position in the Prussian state and its mentality than that expression of "feudal" honor, the duel. Since the councils of honor, which conducted investigations necessary for courts of honor pro- ceedings, were normally under the control of the superior officer, the officers of a particular unit could or would not always recognize that the 26Rudloff, HQQQQQQQ, I. Theil, pp. hl—hh, 63..Allgemeines Landrecht, Theil I, Titel 2, Para 932; IQi_Q., Theil II, Titel I, Para 3h. 39 council of honor could give satisfaction for an alleged insult or injury an officer may have received. The insulted officer might have felt compelled to duel despite the recommendations of the council; his comrades, he might feel, expected him to duel and he would be unworthy of the honor of the corps if he did not.27 Thus, although the Hohenzollerns tried to abolish dueling, they continually met with resistance from the officer corps. Few superior officers, and, in the end, the Hohenzollerns too, wanted to see an officer unduly punished for defending his "honor." Indeed, failure to comply with the compulsion to duel was admitted as part of the grounds for the dismissal of Lieutenant Fritz Anneke in l8h5. Hence the court of honor ordinances of l8h3 prohibited duelling in one phrase and, by ordering the councils of honor to referee unavoidable duels (including those between officers and civilians), sanctioned it in another phrase.28 Whereas civilians were forbidden to duel, and, if a death occurred in civilian duelling, the survivor was then subject to the death penalty, the officer could receive only five to ten years' fortress arrest for killing a fellow officer in a duel. In contrast, for killing a civilian in a duel, the officer could receive two years' fortress arrest; the law made it almost legal for officers to hack down "insulting" civilians, provided only that the civilians were "capable of giving satisfaction"——those lower classes not "capable of giving satisfaction" were either in danger of being hacked down without further ado, or turned over to the criminal courts. As Hugo von Hasenkamp put it, the value of the life of a civilian in relation to the value of the life of an officer in Prussia was thus legally estimated as standing 27Hasenkamp, Kritik, p. 36. 281.1131- : PP. 39440; Demeter, has. eeeEeehe fleet, pp. 1211‘ f- ho in a ratio of 2:5 or 2:10. In cases of duelling between two officers where there was no death, both officers were liable to receive disciplinary punishment (fourteen days house arrest) but were not necessarily removed from the service so long as they did not by—pass the council of honor; if two civilians duelled, however, they were liable to criminal prosecu— tion with possible loss of noble title (A threat that does not seem to have been carried out.) and ten years to life imprisonment. Finally, since the honor of the corps could compel an "insulted" officer to duel with a civilian, it thereby could compel the civilian to break the law and duel as well. In such cases, the punishment of the civilian was supposedly measured by the punishment given the officer, since the military courts were superior to the civilian courts. On the other hand, if a civilian challenged an officer to a duel, the civilian received full punishment. The law made it easy for officers to insult civilians, but difficult for civilians to challenge officers.29 The enormity of these discrepancies illustrates where the officer corps fit in Prussian society. If an officer refused to duel, he could be forced to leave the service. Released from the service, he could be thus deprived of the rights which his legal estate normally should have given him. In other words, if he did not duel, he was also punished as a civilian for not violating a law that was binding on civilians. The duel obviously made glaring the legal and social separation of the officer corps from Prussian society. The liberals in the united diet of l8h7 made this bitterly clear. The Rhenish industrialist Hermann von 29Hasenkamp, Kritik, pp. 37— hO; AllgemeineQ LandrecQt, Theil II, Titel 20, Para 687, Titel 20, Para 688; Rudloff, HQQQQQQQ_, I. Theil, pp. 72, 208. ul Beckerath stated then that, If the duel is declared to be a basic pillar of the officer's estate, I ask you then: Can a reconcilia— tion between the military and the bourgeoisie be thereby furthered? Can we regard the duel as a basic pillar of the bourgeoisie? The basic pillar of the bourgeoisie is respect for law; But the law says: "Thou shalt not kill:"30 That such inequities were not simply hypothetical was also illustrated in practice. In 18hh, a Lieutenant Leithold accused a lawyer of léié. / ‘ I o a o I 0 mQjQQtQ_in Kdnigsberg, challenged hlm, and killed hlm In a duel. Cltlzens of the city were up in arms demanding that the lieutenant be punished, King Frederick William IV intervened in favor of the officer and admon- ished the Bfirger in Kanigsberg that if they persisted in defaming the army, he would punish K8nigsberg in that he would remove his favor from it. And the commanding general in Ksnigsberg, Count zu Dohna, instructed the officers of the garrison to boycott ostentiatiously the area where the alleged insult had occurred.31 Quite apart from the duel as an expression of an officer's defiance of the law and of the Ten Commandments, as an expression of individual sovereignty, indiscipline, and insubordination, the duel itself was also an expression of the aristocratic spirit which the officer corps carried. In the years from 1832 to 18h2, under the old provisions regarding dueling and especially under pressure from King Frederick William III, 29 cases of duelling were punished, an average of 2.6 per year; five duels had fatal results. With the ordinance of l8h3, the ”Valentin. heateehe herele’eieis Vol- I. p- 7'4- 31IQQQ , p. A3; Craig, EoQQchg, pp. 90f. h2 annual average of duelling officially recorded from l8h3 to 1856 rose to h.6§2 The incidence of duelling clearly illustrates the exalted position that the officer corps had in state and society. The superior position of the officer corps in state and society was also reflected in other contacts between civilian and officer corps. For the officer corps was a legal person and could act as such, as a plaintiff against civilians. For this reason, the fiction of spiritual unity in the officer corps was rigidly maintained; it is a fiction which has mesmerized Observers into believing that the'army" had Q_political opinion rather than many opinions. In l8h3, an anony- mous brochure, "Supplementary Reminiscences of the Jubilee Celebration of the Albertines," was published in K8nigsberg. The brochure allegedly contained some sour remarks on the conduct of several officers at the celebration. The army corps commanding general, Count zu Dohna, called for the garrison officer corps to protest. After the cavalry and infantry officers had protested, a Major Enke appeared before his artil- lery unit and invited the officers there also to express their indig- nation. Neither the subordinates nor Major Enke had read the pamphlet; nonetheless they complied. The Kanigsberg Inquisitoriat, however, informed General Count zu Dohna that no action could be taken against the writer since he was anonymous. Moreover the entire officer corps had not been insulted, but only two unnamed lieutenants. However, if the lieutenants of the garrison protested action could be taken against the publisher. Dohna had the lieutenants assemble in the Casino the ”Demeter. Dee eee’eeehe heel; P- 296- h3 next day in order to sign the protest. All but one complied; the welfare of one publisher, more or less, was not worth risking the dis— pleasure of General Dohna, who seemed to know when lieutenants should consider themselves insulted. Major Enke told the one officer who refused to sign, Lieutenant Hugo von Hasenkamp, that "signing the protest was a pure 'formality' and that a refusal to sign was tantamount to compromising him and the commanding general." Confusing legal and military considerations, Enke said that Hasenkamp's refusal to sign was "unmilitary." For his refusal to sign, Hasenkamp was transferred back to his parent unit (an intended demotion) in order to "avoid friction" in the Kgnigsberg garrison; through his independent action, he had destroyed the "unity" of the officer corps there. Those officers who gave Hasenkamp a farewell dinner were forbidden to talk in public about the dinner afterwards, and the officers were forbidden, as well, to be present at the post-carriage to say goodby to Hasenkamp, lest the Kbnigsbergers be led to believe that the officers were not, in "unity," behind their commander. In any event the protest was considered legitimate; the publisher of the brochure received two months imprison— ment for printing an alleged insult of two unnamed lieutenants, a brochure which few, if any, lieutenants had read or were even allowed to read.33 The incident obviously shows that the officer corps was a legal person and, as such, could initiate legal prosecution of civilians. And the incident dramatizes the fact that insulting the officer corps was tantamount to insulting the king-~it was i§§§_@§l§§§éx The incident 33H use von Has enk amp . Berle sens eel: Erihee neieee Aeehri’e’ee eee de_MilitgrdienQQ (Leipzig, l8h5), pp. l—15; Valentin, SQQQQQQQQQ dQQ eee’eeehee Berele’eien. Vol- I. p- 5 0- hh also illustrates the position of the officer corps in the state. For, like the king who was himself an officer, the officer corps while it acted as a legal person in a prosecuting sense, could never itself become a defendant. As an anonymous officer wrote in l8h8, the "army [officer corps] is the state in the same sense as Louis XIV could say of himself, L'etat, c'est moi."3" And, finally, the incident demon- strates that the "opinion" of any unit's officer corps, as it was publicly expressed, was often the opinion of the commanding officer; the pronunciamentoes of l8h8 must often be understood in this sense. The officer corps, in terms of its position in the state, was thus supposed to be an exclusive and privileged group. Its esprit de corps, based in part on its position in the state, was distinctly aristocratic, just as its position in the state was aristocratic. One could hardly call the officer corps a "purely military" organization. "Purely military" arguments in favor of retaining separate military courts and the courts of honor do not very well mask social and political reality. The distinctive position of the officer corps in the state was further emphasized by the uniform the officer wore. The uniform made the Prussian officer stand out in society and in the field. Through nuances in leggings, in cuffs, in lapels and epaullets, he was connected with the "knightly" tradition of the regiment to which he belonged. Indeed, the particular splendidness of a regimental uniform or of its 3'4 (Anon. ) . Behennerlieee einee (Airliners... p. I I I- AS accessories was often expressly calculated to bring highly ranked nobility into the unit——an effort to increase the aristocratic respect— ability of the regiment. The Twelfth Hussar Regiment, for example, is said to have attracted a large number of counts because of a glittering uniform, while the Tenth Hussar, which was in the same brigade and in the same garrison, had a less "knightly" uniform and hence a less "respectable" officer corps.35 Unlike in France, where the uniform was usually worn only when the officer was on duty and hence signified only that the wearer was a pro- fessional man, the Prussian officer was obliged to appear in public at all times in uniform. For the uniform signified that the Prussian officer not only belonged to a supposedly professional group but also to a social class. The uniform, in any event, was not really designed for the profession of arms. Very few, if any, officers saw that with the innovation of the TQQQQQQQQr_during the French Revolutionary Wars, the brightness and splendor of the Prussian officer's uniform no longer made it a militarily useful garb and that it made the officers-- and their men--targets for enemy sharpshooters. But a resplendent uniform, adorned with the inevitable sword, gave the officer a certain "dash" for which many expected due admiration. Because the uniform was supposed to be worn at all times, the officer could only appear in public in places where the uniform was suitable; the "king's coat" was not to be besmirched through association with classes socially unfit to wear it. As will be seen below, these classes were wide in membership. And because the uniform made the officer obvious, the system tried to make the officer modest and retiring; h6 he was supposed to comport himself in such a way as not to cast bad reflections on his estate. In effect, most officers behaved coldly and correctly to lesser people in the Prussian monarchy, but the numerous exceptions when officers displayed overt arrogance to civilians betray the obvious caste spirit behind such demeanor. On the other hand, there is evidence that many officers, especially in the Rhineland where the uniform was not held in high esteem by civilians, had civilian clothing, and purposely wore them in order not to be conspicuous when they called on civilians who may not normally have been considered "fit" company for Prussian officers.36 Bfirger arguments that soldiers be allowed to wear civilian clothing when off-duty can hardly be said to have endangered the profession of arms. The "feudal" spirit of the officer corps found its most significant expression in the hopes of the officer candidate to become a cavalry officer; horsemanship was, after all, a chief attribute of the cavalier. Hence, although the cavalry was still a useful arm in the first half of the nineteenth century, it was much overrated with respect to the other branches; "The cavalry is the arm of victory in the Prussian army," cavalry Lieutenant Colonel von Willisen naively proclaimed.37 Unimportant nuances were made between curassiers (heavy cavalry) and dragoons (also heavy cavalry), while the Uhlans still relied on the 36Walter van Bremen (ed- ) . Qenhefireieheit en. eee eeeeeeieehee generals. eel: Interleeeie Insane ten. Ereneeehr (Bielefeld/Leipziea 1901), pp. 9h-95, 111-112. 37Wi lhelm I . hi lithris Che S_eh1:i_f;’eee eeiIene liaise: Eilhelne eee SrgQQQQ_MQjQQt§t_(Auf Befehl Seiner Majestat des Kaisers und Kdnigs herausgegeben von aniglichen preussischen Kriegsministerium) (2 vols., Berlin, 1897), Vol. I, p. 373. William's sarcastic marginal comment to this statement: "Why say thereby that the infantry and artillery are not arms of victory?" hT questionable value of the lance. The "better" "feudal" families sent their sons to cavalry regiments and they chose the heavy cavalry over the light cavalry, the cavalry over the infantry, and the cavalry and infantry over the technical branches—-the engineers and artillery-— which they left almost completely in the hands of non-noble officers. "Clumsy artillery" was the term that young cadets derisively used to their comrade cadets who chose (or were obliged to choose) the "un— knightly" technical branches of service.38 Horsemanship was thus a leading attribute of the officer—-aristocrat. Although the mania for horses had not risen to the bizarre heights of pre—World War I years, it nontheless had a visible effect on the pro- fessional virtuosity of the officers of non-cavalry units. Instead of devoting time to the study of modern warfare, many officers were in— clined to make sure they appeared as accomplished riders. For example, Prince Kraft zu Hohenlohe—Ingelfingen, an artillery officer in the Royal Guard, remarked that as a student at the War Academy in Berlin, he did nothing but "ride much and amuse" himself after lectures. Hohenlohe claims he rode as many as five horses a day, but also un— justifiably complains that the War Academy offered him nothing "practical" (technical?) when he attended the school in the early 1830's.39 The non—cavalry officer obviously felt the need to prove himself to be as accomplished as the cavalry officer. Even a non—military soul and awkward horseman like King Frederick William IV felt obliged to give 38Geors J ung . IBer; hearse: Qeieiseee- Frine heteeseeee ear: Di e heeeeehe gentrekeeeele and die Eneeeeieehe Arnee (Berlin, 18183) . P ~— -11 , note. Cf. Demeter, SQQ QEEE§§Q§.HEEEA p. 6. 39Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen, 8E§.TEEE§E.L§R§EJ Vol. I, pp. l60ff. h8 lip service to fine"knightly" vogue of the horse, frequently exclaiming to his senior officers that he "came into the world with boots and spurs" and "that he was especially versed and at home in military things, in diplomacy, and in the breeding of horses [EEEESEEEEHBJ’H a statement which, in its own cryptic way, sums up the Prussian spirit."O So closely identified was the horse with the aristocratic mentality that one democratic engineer officer made the preposterous proposal in l8h8 that the cavalry should be abolished; the infantry, he opined, was a reflection of a democratically organized society'""1 The aristocratic mentality of the Prussian officer corps was especially pregnant in the social composition of the officer corps. Despite the Fundamental Order of 1808, over two—thirds of the officer corps still recruited itself from the old eighteenth century noble- officer families. Here the caste spirit of the officer corps found its essential core. The "feudal" families prided themselves as being "vassals" of the Hohenzollern monarchy; their uniformed sons thus held a privileged right to be the king's officers. Frederick the Great had believed that the nobility made better officers than did the Barger because the nobility had more "honor." "OIn General- Lieutenant Karl von Prittwitz' s manuscript published under the title, Karl Ludwig v. Prittwitz, BeEllE.l§H§.' MQQQQQQQQ, MilitaQ QQd MarzrevolutioQ. Bearbeited und herausgegeben von Gerd Heinrich. Dr. Heinrich and the Historische Kommission zu Berlin were kind enough to let me read the manuscript. "1(Wilhelm Rastow), Stehendes Heer und Volkswehr, ein Beitrag zQ der BewafoQQgsfrage dQQ_SQgenwart -- von einem deutschen Offizier (Mannheim, l8h8),p .h, 123. h9 The noble officer, Frederick opined, could not return to his family if he violated the honor of the family escutcheon, whereas the Burger officer, even if he had been cowardly on the battlefield, could often count on being accepted in his family and on being able to pursue a normal Burger profession. Despite the noble officers' shameful capitulations of fortresses to the French in 1806—1807, the Hohenzollerns of the 19th century shared Frederick the Great's estimation of the old Junker families, even if this meant a circumvention of the Fundamental Order of 1808. The Crown Prince William, for example, proposed that the state should provide Gymnasium education for the poorer Junker families in Prussia in order that officer candidates from these families could pass the officer examination. The Junker, William remarked, had an "inner fusion with the Prussian army" and if they were not helped, the army would be in "danger of losing that sentiment" which the Junkers had upheld for more than a Saeculum."2 Although no Gymnasium education -----.-— was given gratis to the Junkers, there were some deliberate if covert evasions of examination standards in their favor. Already in 1808, Frederick William III had admonished the examination commissions that "knowledge and scholarship are not the only qualification which mark a useful officer; presence of mind, ready perception, precision, correct— ness in his duty and propriety in his deportment are essential qualities which every officer must possess.""3 Moreover, examinations for the technical services, the candidates for which were largely non—noble, "2Wilhelm I, Militaringe gghrifteQ, Vol, I, pp. 61-6h, h9h-h96. “Demeter, 12618. (19.19.8311? Pleat, P- 80- 50 hh were more demanding than were those for the cavalry and infantry. And in any event, in the latter branches, selection through cooptation served to exclude non-noble officers. But the Hohenzollerns' estimation of the honor of the Junker officer was partly justified, at least in the sense that the honor of the Junkers sometimes meant unwavering loyalty to the pre—March political and social system and also unswerving bravery under fire. For example, when von Holzendorf heard that his son had been killed in the uprising on 18—19 March, 18h8, he declared: "Then he is no longer my son!" Only after he learned that his son was not a revolutionary but had been killed accidentally, did he weep bitterly over his loss."5 In the sense of being authoritative, moreover, the Junker was uniquely suited to command. From birth to maturity, he was taught to believe that there were two classes in the world: The Junker who commanded and the other people who obeyed. Very few Junker officers really understood that their authority to command was supposed to be a function of their service rank and not of their class. Nothing in their training and experience suggested such a distinction. The Junker officer was born in a class separated from lesser men, was further separated from civilian society when he entered the cadet house at age 13, and, from 1819 to 18h8, found an increasing number of noble officers as comrades when he entered a regiment at age 17 or 18. His world, in short, was rural, masculine, and noble; it was composed of ""See the complaints which officers sent to the HfiQiglich_prizilegirte Berlinische. Zeituna 1:99. 8.281832%" 211% aeleha’aaa 8.8491129, 2. Beilage, #116, 20 May, 18h8 (Hereafter cited as qusisghe_ze;§QQg). 1‘ SStade 1ma-nn, Eaaia-la uric}. RQLILEEEQQ Escalate, P- 1 FT. 51 the uniformed and uninformed. The officer candidates who came out of the cadet houses received preference in the regiments as future officers. From 1815 up to the 1830's, the cadets were almost exclusively drawn from noble families. In 1808, Frederick William III had ordered that the sons of officers who had fallen in battle should receive preference in the cadet houses. These must have been almost exclusively noble since few non-noble officers had been in the Prussian army at the time of the battle of JenaeAuerstedt in 1806 and the large number of non-noble officers who came into the army during the Wars of Liberation were too young to be married or were not ranked high enough to be able to afford marriage and thus have sonsfl6 Even after the sons of non—noble officers began trickling into the cadet houses, the preponderance of noble cadets pre— vailed; in 18h8, the ratio of noble cadets to non—noble cadets was 2 to l, which bespoke almost exactly the ratio in the officer corps itself. The chorus of Junker complaints that followed War Minister General Hermann von Boyen's refusal to fill sixty empty positions in the cadet houses in the 18hO's testifies to the "inner fusion" of Junker families with Prussian Officership.)47 It is obvious that Burger demands in l8h8 that cadet houses be abrogated completely were directed, not so much against the military as such, but against the social system which the cadet houses perpetuated. A nobleman's possessions of a notoriously one-sided disciplinary 1‘6Demeter, Baa 16192819112 13231;, pp- 16-17- l”Meinecke, BoyeQ, Vol. II, pp. 551-552. 52 training in the cadet houses, however, was not the only criterion that made an acceptable officer candidate in the regiments. A regimental officer corps had the right to choose its own replacements through coop— tation. The desire was present, in most units, to appear as respectable as possible, to have as many officers from the traditional warrior families as were available. The officer lists for 18h? reveal that a total of h,1l6 noble officers could find their family names repeated in the lists. Just 1,102 nOble names, repeated 2,3,h, and even 39 times in the lists, make up a total of h,ll6 officers. Indeed 5h noble names alone account for 8h? officers. Among these officers from the traditional officer families of Prussia were 16 von Alvenslebens, 19 von Arnims, 21 von Belows, 19 von Kamekes, 30 von Kleists, 16 von Puttkammers, 19 von Schmelings, 39 von Wedells, 18 von Winterfeldts, 17 von Witzlebens, h.h8 and so fort The similarities in the above names indicate both close and distant relationships. In addition to this, most noble officers in Prussia were related to other nobles through marriage. Thus, through marriage, von Natzmer was related to von Diest and to von Quast, von Griesheim to von Korff, von Schach to von Benningson, von Gravenitz to von Lutzow, von Pfuel to von Luck, to von Sohrs, and to von Goertzke, and so forth. Large numbers of Prussian officers, it must be argued, were interrelated, and this interrelationship also had much to do with whom a specific officer corps might co—opt as a fellow officer. For an officer corps 1‘ alias-.331. Quantiezlia’eaa 18 1+7- 53 to reject an officer candidate who already had a relative in the service could easy be construed as an insult to the family name, especially if that family name had the prefix "von." So, for example, von Fransecky entered a regiment because his brother was already there."9 Von Manteuffel's father placed his son Edwin in the lst Guard Dragoon regiment because his former ward, Count Hermann Lynar—Lubbenau, was in that regiment.SO And the Royal Hussar Guard Regiment could hardly reject young von Colomb without running the risk of insulting his father, General von Colomb.51 Indeed, the "military" and aristocratic spirit of the Prussian officer corps often manifested itself in a form of nepotism; esprit de corps in the Prussian officer corps was to a large extent esprit de famille. Esprit de famille, however, did not necessarily mean homogeneity of political convictions within the family, nor did it always result in expected adherence to duty. Field Marshal von Gneisenau's son had a much more provincial and conservative political conviction than did his German nationalist father.52 And Captain von Natzmer of the 2hth Infantry Regiment, though a member of an influential military dynasty in Prussia, was nonetheless found guilty of deserting his post in the Berlin armory in June of l8h8. Contrary to Frederick the Great's opinion 1 of Junker family "honor,' it was largely begagse of family connections and "9Bremen (ed.), Dgnkwurdigkeiteg_Fransegfiy, p- 63. SOKarl H- Keck , 12818; 1192931 ass. Qeasteltewiaaeeaalla Elixir: 1:05}. MQQQQQfg-g]; (Bielefeld/Leipzig, 1890), p. 72. 51Otto Hoetzsch, "Die Stellung des Generals von Colomb zur . Revolution in Posen und zu Willisen 18h8," geitngriQQ er_Q§§qggggainge GengiQQ§e_(Vol. h, l913—191h), p. 369. 52See the anti-German nationalist sentiment of young Gneisenau in a letter he wrote to the N§E§.E£§E§§i§£§§.ZEEEEQEa Beilage, #2h, 28 July, l8h8 (Hereafter cited as HrgQgggyggyg). 5h pressure that Natzmer's punishment was commuted. Von Natzmer was given a chance to regain his "spurs" as an enlisted man in the Prussian military operations in Baden in 18h9 and he subsequently retrieved his officer's patent.53 It is not known that a non—noble officer received any such chance to retrieve his "honor." An ex-Prussian officer, Wilhelm Rustow, who was forced to leave the in 1862 that the Prussian officer corps was an "establishment for the about 16,000,000 a relatively small grouping, totaling approximately lh2,000 in all, was represented, in 18h7, by h,307 positions of a total of 6,316 in the officer corps, or 68.2% of the total. Reckoned from a ratio of lh2,000 to 16,000,000, there should only have been about 57 or 58 noble officers, or about .009% had the Fundamental Order of 1808 --‘—-------n—----~--_-----—~a—u--~—~---“---n—“----—---—---------—------—-- --—----- --------——------— 1862), pp. 8-5h. I use Rustow' s analysis for What follows, but have changed the figures so that they may apply to the officers' lists of l8h7; Rfistow used the lists for 1861. Rustow also gives the figure of 68,000 nobles for Prussia in the year 1861, a figure impossibly low even for that late year. According to Georg von Viebahn, there were 7,093 noble clans (GesQQlegQQgQ) in Prussia. Viebahn estimates an average of four families for each clan and five persons for each family, making a total of lhl,860 persons who belonged to the nobility in Prussia. Included in this number were the higher, titled nobility, the "knight's estate" owners, the immensely numerous and impoverished Junker, and the nearly peasant-like Szchlachta of Posen and West Prussia. Georg von Vi eb ahn sagas; ass. galltsaaiatea aria riciacllieaeri Qaataealanaa- In Verbindung mit den Herrn Oberberhauptmann von Decken,Specia1— kommissar Beutner I. , Obforstmeister Maron, Hofgartner Jager und Regierungs— Assessor Beutner II. unter Benutzung amtlicher Aufnahmen herausgegeben (3 vols., Berlin, 1858—1868), Vol. II, pp. 306—309. 55 been the sole criterion for the selection of officers. However, Rustow allows that not all classes of the population can provide intelligent and capable officers. Taking the Prussian three-class suffrage of l8h9 as a yard—stick, in which 153,808 voters were in the first class, h09, 9&5 in the second class, and 2,h09,950 in the third class, Rustow argues that officer material could probably come only from the families of the first two voting classes, since these represented, by and large, property and education in Prussia in the middle of the nineteenth century. These families amounted to approximately 2,500,000 persons, represented by the 563,753 voters in the first two classes. Rustow places the nobility in the second voting class, which is much too favorable to the nobility since most had neither property nor education.55 From this total of approximately 2,500,000 persons, the lb2,000 nobles, when reckoned from this reasoning, should have placed approximately 353 or 35h officers in the army instead of the h,307 which unofficial chicanery achieved. This chicanery, Rustow argues, brought about the fact that at least one— quarter of the ndble families in Prussia lived directly off the army budget, which was over one—half of the state budget, and to which their more affluent relatives, the large estate owners, because of tax privileges, contributed very little. Indeed, these latter profited from a large military establishment in that it provided them with a market where they could sell their mounts and grain. Prussian nobles, quite obviously, had a vested interest in placing their sons in the officer corps as well 55Elsewhere Rastow says that the Junker had an education that made them fit only to be Headmast- Rustowa Ezeaaaiaaae Ages, 13- 8- 56 as in maintaining an army geared to uphold the existing social and political system as their political activity in l8h8 demonstrated. No amount of "purely military" argument against Burger reform proposals could obscure the existence of this military-agricultural complex. The preponderance of the nobility in the officer corps was more than reflected in the rank structure. The non-nobles who remained in the officer corps were often left behind in promotion above the rank of major, a fact that probably discouraged many non-nobles, if they took the trouble to study the officer lists, from choosing a military career. On first glance, the percentage of non—nobles in the positions of staff officer to general officer in 18h7 seems to be a bit more favorable to the non—nobles than was the over-all average; approximately 33.29% of these were non-noble as against 31.8% non—noble in the officer corps in all ranks.56 But if the rank of major is left out of the account, where uh.h8% were non-noble, only 16.5% of the officers from lieutenant colonel through the general ranks were of non~noble birth Exactly six non—nobles had reached the lowest general rank of major general. Table 1, derived from the officer lists of 18h7, illustrates this. 56These seem to have been mostly veterans of the Wars of Liberation who had achieved this grade through 32 years of peace. According to one ex-engineer officer who wrote a Berlin newspaper in May, 18h8, "dozens" of engineers--mostly non—noble--were suddenly promoted to major in l8h1 (probably as a result of pressure from Hermann von Boyen then entering his second term as war minister), but none of these promoted were given the salary of major. Yossische_zeitqu, 2. Beilage, #116, 20 May, l8h8. 57 TABLE 1 Noble Non—noble All officers 9307 2209 or 31.80% 2nd Lieutenant 2370 1028 30.22% 1st Lieutenant 667 302 31.16% Captain 66h 377 33.0h% Maj or 302 212 Ah . h8% Lieutenant Colonel 56 22 28.20% Colonel 98 32 2h.60% Major General 71 6 7.79% Lt. General 61 0 0.00% General 17 0 0.00% General Field—Marshal l (The Duke of 0 0.00% 57 Wellington) Had the Fundamental Order of 1808 been applied rigorously, there should only have been one or two noble general officers. Had Rustow’s yard—stick been applied, there should have been only about eight or nine general officers. Had the promotions of non-nobles been on a parity with the over—all ratio of non—noble officers, there should have been around 50 non-noble officers of general rank. Instead, less than two—hundred nobles, in key command posts, dominated the first estate in the land. Supposedly the non—noble officers who achieved general rank were subsequently ennobled, presumably to enhance their aristocratic qualities. However, the six non-noble generals noted above had not yet reached this blissful status; so far as can be determined, Lieutenant—General Karl von Reyher, who worked himself out of the enlisted ranks to become a general, and who was subsequently ennobled, was the only officer to whom official apologists could point as evidence that generalship was open to ”liege ans: Qaez’aiezliate. 181:7. 58 talent and that non—noble generals were ennobled. It is obvious that many non-noble officers would have been favorably inclined toward certain phases of the revolution if they could find better career chances as a result. That, of course, the military publicists could better promise than could the Frankfurt Parliament or the Prussian National Assembly. The urge to emphasize the respectability of the individual units was to be found, further, in the distribution of non—noble and noble officers throughout the regiments. The officer lists of l8h7 reveal that the non—noble officers were represented, almost overwhelmingly, in the technical services-—the artillery and engineers. The noble officers, on the other hand, were clustered around the Guard regiments, the heavy cavalry, the light cavalry--since these were the most aristo- cratic and "knightly" branches—~and the infantry, in that order. Table 2 will bring this out more clearly. TABLE 2 Branch of Service Noble officers Non—noble officers Line Infantry 2129 760 or 26.30% Guard Infantry A61 8 1.70% Line Light Cavalry h72 95 l6.h6% Line Heavy Cavalry 330 A6 12.25% Guard Cavalry 211 h 1.86% Line Artillery 188 628 76.96% Guard Artillery 62 38 38.00% Engineers 52 155 7h.87% 58 Of course there were local exceptions to the rule, but the "feudal" spirit of the officer corps explains these exceptions. Where there was SBIbid. 59 a large number of non—nobles in a cavalry or infantry regiment, this was usually so because these regiments were located in garrisons deemed undesirable by the nobility. The noble officer preferred to be in Berlin or Potsdam where he could reflect in the shining light of his War Lord and where he could be seen in court society. Failing that, the noble officer preferred a garrison in a small—~perhaps dreary by other standards--town in East Elbian Prussia (but not Polish Posen) Where he could traffic with his relatives, owners of large landed estates. The typical Prussian officer felt extremely uncomfortable in Westphalia or in the Rhine Province, perhaps because the people there were more mature politically and socially than in East Elbia, or perhaps because there was a large Catholic population and a dearth of social intercourse with people of the same social rank. Even where the officer tried to Cultivate associations with the "better" classes of the population in the Rhine Province, for example, he was often rebuffed because of the Stiffness that had been hammered into him in the cadet houses.59 A n0n~noble officer, Lieutenant Julius Hartmann, wrote from the Rhine Province in 181+5: "I would not like to be an officer in garrison here. The general respect which our estate enjoys in the eastern provinces, t he obligingness with which every circle and every family receives him t hél‘e, is very much absent here."6O Hence, officer corps in the Rhine “ \ \ ---—-- — Era. 59(An0n- ) . Ealéeteataaa- Eaaaafieiagae 1111819112, pp- Tlff- Valerian Off? Pfeil said that in the Rhine Province, "in many families. . . the allql cer is never called anything other than a potato-hungry Prussian, of the son of the same family who is fulfilling his military obliga— t o 1011, it is said: "He is with the Prussians." De}; 112519219981;- Ei_n_e_ 6OHartmann, LebereQiQQQQQQgeQ, I Theil, pp. 197—208. 6O Province, in Westphalia, and also in Posen, had to settle for non—noble offi cers and even for officers of deviant political opinions in order to have full complements in the regiments, while in East Elbia, the officer corps were usually well over complement. So, for example, the 25th Infantry Regiment in Cologne-Deutz had 3h noble officers and 1&5 non—noble officers, whereas the 21+th Infantry Regiment, garrisoned in East Elbia, had 72 noble officers and only 13 non—noble. Similarly, the 2nd Dragoon Regiment, stationed in East Elbia, had 28 noble officers and only 2 non—noble, whereas the hth Dragoon Regiment in the Rhine Province had 19 noble officers and 8 non—noble. The fact that the COInInissar of Spirit in the Prussian army, Crown Prince William, was honorary chief of the 2nd Dragoons may also help to explain the discrep- an Cy - 61 Ironically, although Prussian policy makers clearly regarded a. Volcanic France to be the greatest potential enemy of Prussia and Gemany, the aristocratic mentality of the officer corps contributed to a I‘elative undermanning of the western frontier; according to the social c:I‘j—‘teria that classified "good" officers in the Prussian system, many of the allegedly worst officers were in the west.62 Obviously the watch at the court was more important than the watch on the Rhine. Indeed, t 0 be transferred to the western provinces was usually looked upon as a. - S :L gn of royal disfavor. For example, General Karl von Wedel writes o f his transfer in 1830 to the Fortress Saarlouis on the French frontier a. t the time of the July Revolution in Paris, that "my transfer to such \ \m — - 6131ar1a- arr: Qaaztiezliata, 18h?- in 62See Prince Karl's estimate of officers in the Rhenish garrisons Demeter, 128a (191123.902 fleet. p. 257- 61 a removed place was looked upon as a disfavor for which no grounds were known. . ."63 Such was the unprofessional attitude of those in whom the preservation and defence of Prussia was entrusted. Where non—noble officers were to be found in the Guard regiments, this was usually meant as a sop to the Fundamental Order of 1808, or, more often, as the table shows, these were in the Guard artillery--a Burger arm, which noble officers commonly felt to be below their social rank. General von Strotha is supposed to have said before the revolution that he "regretted that there were not more nobility in the artillery; to be sure, not just impoverished nobility, but also wealthy nobility, because without them, nothing can become of the artillery."6" It is unclear whether Strotha meant to enhance the artillery socially or militarily, but doubtful whether he was capable of making such a distinction. The cleavage between noble and non—noble officers was not the only social cleavage in the officer corps. The statement attributed to von Strotha is testimony that there was also a social cleavage among the noble officers of the Prussian officer corps-~that is, a cleavage between wealthy and poor nobles and between higher and lesser nobles. This -“_--—-.—-----_ -- --- ------ -‘—‘ 6"Heinrich v. Poschinger (ed. ), UQQQQ Friedrich Wilhelm IV. DQQk- QQQQngQQteQ dQQ_MQQQQQQQQ_OQto FQQQhQQQQ v. MQQQQQQQQQ_(3 vols., Berlin, l901ff. ), Vol. I, p. 23, note. Prince Kraft zu Hohenlohe—Ingelfingen wrote in 1897 that the artillery, "since its origins as such, since the beginning of the century [st], was handled as an upstart; only in the last few years did a few personalities, by exception, succeed in working themselves up and become fully recognized also in the presence of officers of the infantry and cavalry." QE§.@EEE§E.EE§§EA Vol. I, p. 137. 62 cleavage, too, expressed itself in the distribution of officers in the officer corps. For wealth——private wealth——and high social rank were desiderata in the Prussian officer corps; the officer corps was not entirely an "Institution for the care of Junkers" in the sense that Rustow expressed it. This was particularly so in the Royal Guard and in the cavalry, where the officer was often expected to be a gentleman of affairs. So, for example, a regimental commander in the Guard cavalry often insisted that the officer candidate in his regiment be able to show a considerable amount of private wealth before he could be accepted as an officer in the regiment.65 This was true, also, for other Guard units as well. An unimpeachable source, in this connection at least, the reactionary KQQQQQQQQQQg, wrote in 18h8 that the high salary paid them that allowed Guard officers "to eat ice cream at Kranzler. . ." was not so important as the ". . . significant supplements which their parents, who for the most part are wealthy, send them"66 Thus, a mediatized nobleman, Prince Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen, had to send his second " because son, Prince Kraft, to the Guard artillery, "much to his pain, his first son was already in the Guard cavalry, and he could not afford to place another son there.67 That the lavish outlays for uniforms, court functions, balls, and operas were bad for the morale of more impecunious officers in the Guard is also evident. Although a higher salary was given to Guard officers than to Line officers (for social u 6SRustow, PQQstische Armee, pp. hS-h6; (Anon.), goldatggghgm, Franzosische QEEEEQEJ p. 68. 66Kreuzzeitung, $11M, 10 November, l8h8. 63 reasons), one officer, a Lieutenant von Gaudy, was "driven to the Line" in the 1830's because of large debts he had incurred in trying to keep up with the respectable ice-cream eaters in the Guard.68 But private wealth, too, was often required, as well as noble parentage, in order to gain entrance into the Line cavalry. The cavalry officer was obliged to provide his own mounts; this quite naturally crowded the poorer nobility into the infantry and the infantry had hence also to be called "knightly," in order to protect the collective egos of the poorer nobility who had no horses. Naturally, non-noble officers seldom had a chance to make claims to the more "knightly" arm. Including the Guard and Line cavalry, there was a total of 1013 noble officers as against only th non—noble in 18h7; the right to carry the title "Rittmeister" (cavalry captain) instead of simply "Hauptmann" (captain) was a social asset that few non-noble officers were given. It need not be wondered that the most bitter opposition to the revolution of 18h8 came from these services. Little can be said about the social origins of the non-noble officers in the Prussian officer corps. Most of the non—noble officers were very likely the sons of those non—noble officers who entered the service during the Wars of Liberation; other non-nobles would have found it difficult to enter the cadet houses, which provided the most certain way to a career as an officer. A few may have come from the more well—to—do Barger classes, from the families of state and city officials, and from the families of non-noble large estate owners in East Elbia. The son 68Hartmann, LQanserinneQQQgQQ, I Theil, p. 156. 614 of a peasant or of an artisan had little chance of becoming an officer. Very few came from the western provinces; Rhinelanders, for example, had very little taste for Prussian military service. Even in the re- cruiting of non—noble officers, the officer corps tended to be exclusive. It is, of course, in the nature of a military organization to be exclusive, separate from civilian society, but as was natural in Prussia, the system overshot its mark. The exclusiveness of the Prussian officer corps was consciously cultivated. The uniform itself set the officer apart from other Prussians. Each unit had a court of honor designed to watch over the exclusive honor of the officer corps. Senior officers were expected to control the behavior of younger officers when off duty. The practical necessity of younger officers to eat in the unit Casino further separated them from civilian contacts; the Prussian system deliberately kept the salaries of junior officers low in order to oblige them to eat inexpensive meals in the Casino with their comrades. With some exceptions in the western provinces, officers who were married were expected to entertain not only their comrades, but also superior officers as well. The expenses for such entertainment must certainly have curtailed these officers' financial ability to establish contact outside of their uniformed environment. As has been seen, it brought the officer's family under the control of the officer corps; the officer's wife had to be socially acceptable. Pertinent here is the intention of the system to cultivate the exclusivity of the officer corps; for the exclusivity of the officer corps was directly related to the maintenance of corps spirit. The system consciously sought to discourage individual or independent 65 thinking among the officers, and to keep them away from outside in- fluences. The officer was supposed to think in terms of the corps; " was seriously meant. Even the slogan, "all for one and one for all, in self-training, this ideal was stressed. Thus, in the 2hth Infantry, for example, the commanding officer refused to allow several interested officers permission to play with the war game that King Frederick William III had given the regiment. The war game was available for use only when the entire regimental officer corps participated; that was His Majesty's intention when he gave the war game to the regiment, the officer explained.69 Even if it interfered with professional train— ing and betterment, the attempt was to condition the officer to be dependent on his officer corps in both personal and professional life. The individualist doctrines of nineteenth century liberalism could hardly find a more clear antithesis than the corps spirit of the officer corps. But in connection with the latter, some remarks should be made, namely with respect to the political mentality of the officer corps. Though they normally remained aloof from politics, many officers tended to look down on the king's civilian political advisors and officials. This attitude naturally engendered the belief that the officer could handle political and administrative matters better than the civilians. In 18h7, for example, General von Natzmer observed that "Prussia should "70 have only military diplomats. And an inactive lieutenant, Ludwig von 69Franz von Zychlinski, Geschichte des 2hten Infanterie—Regiments. 70Gndomar Ernst von Natzmer (ed.), QQQQQ_QQQ_MQQQQ§QQQQQQ. QQQky wurdi akeiten as. 21213 Tisha @618. Qeaeaala (3.151111% 15031 blame-:- 4.11%. <18}; Z212. Eaieiaieh Eilhslm Il- I.- T.<-:;i_l.= Lag-1w: (Gotha, 1888): PP- 169-170- 66 Blum, boasted in 18h8 that inactive officers best filled civilian positions in the state service, "for who was capable as a soldier will also be capable in any other position."71 It was only natural that the political spirit that existed in the officer corps would tend to be conservative and royalist. The Hohenzollerns saw to that. For the Prussian standing army was not a popular army as was boasted but a dynastic instrument. The Hohenzollern spoke of "My Army," "My Regiments," "My Guards," "My Officers." And hence the political creed expected of the Prussian officer: He was the executive instrument of the dynasty. He formed the pillar of iron that supported the dynasty. This mentality was most pronounced in the Royal Guard, but it existed in the Line as well. The Prussian system made it a matter of honor that officers should hold only certain political opinions. This was done through example and through the unit courts of honor, whose purpose was slightly revised in 18h3. In 18h3, it was declared as ruinous to honor, "such a manner of living which, through an incorrect choice of association, can be prejudicial to the good name of the brotherhood [Gengssenschafg]," whereas the previous prescriptions, which were still tacitly followed, had only stated criteria such as "indecent associations of the officers with dissolute females" or "association with people of ill repute" to be ruinous to honor. The new ruling Hugo von Hasenkamp rightly pointed out, no longer had purely social overtones; a political implication was 7112211229116. Heat-Zei’aaris. #93. 8 July, 18h9. 67 also involved. It could be understood to mean that officers were to avoid the company of any person who did not harbor the political views that the king was said to harbor.72 And so, in fact, was it understood. In l8h5, Lieutenant Fritz Anneke was placed before a court of honor in Wesel for alleged communist activities. He was accused and dismissed from the service for having participated in discussion groups and for reading Friedrich Engel's and Moses Hess' "notorious" QEEEAlEEEE£EEEEy§§§L and the "atheistic," democratic TQQQQQEQQ_ZQQQQQg among other equally grievous offenses. An apparently trumped up charge that Anneke had refused to recognize an obligation to duel clinched the proceedings against him.73 Whether such sins seriously affected Anneke's ability as an officer will not be examined here. But subsequently, a comrade of Anneke, Lieutenant Korff, was also arraigned on the charge that he had given a non—commissioned officer a copy of the GQQQIQQEQQQQQQQMQQQQ (which was a censored, hence permitted publication) to read. However, the non—commissioned officer denied this before the court of honor. In addition, however, Lieutenant Korff was also accused, and subsequently dismissed from service, on the charge that he had spoken with Anneke while the proceedings against Anneke were under way. That Korff was of the same general political convictions as Anneke need not be denied; Korff admitted that himself. But Korff was dismissed from the service, officially, because he had cultivated association with Anneke beQQQ Anneke had been tried by the court of honor. In other words, from this ruling, a fellow officer, Anneke, was not company fit for an officer 72Hasenkamp, K_Qi_t_i_k_, p. 31 73Jos eph Hans en (ed- ) , 831918.929 13.1.1183: arid. Alger; 2.911: Qaaehieate is}; Eclitiaeaen. Bereaana, 33.19.11.559. (2 vols-a Cologne, 1919), Vol- II» pp- 3852?. 68 because of his unorthodox political views. The ruling against Korff ended with the simple assertion that Korff did not show enough "tact" in his associations.7h Likewise, a one-year volunteer, Friedrich Hammacher, was given "three days strict arrest" for "tactlessness” for having spoken with Anneke, and upon his release from active service, was turned over to the Landwehr as an enlisted man instead of, as was normal for a one—year volunteer, as a Landwehr officer; Hammacher, so his AtQQQQ stated, had "become doubtful recently."75 In all, twelve officers were removed from the service by 18h8, all for having had 76 connections with Anneke. An officer, obviously, was not supposed to consort with another officer if the latter had unconventional opinions. It would be extravagant to insist that the officer corps had a strongly developed political spirit if judged from these examples. The officers of the Wesel garrison did not particularly like Anneke, but, for the most part, they did not seem to have had anything against him. Nor did Korff's comrades particularly dislike Korff. They did what the division Auditor, Marcard, and the division commander wanted them to do: They voted to have Korff dismissed from service and sub— sequently avoided all contact with him and with Anneke, though Anneke was still listed as "Lieutenant a.D. (Lieutenant out of service)," which normally should have meant that he still had "honor" and was still acceptable company for an active officer. But "the officer corps of the 7th Artillery Brigade," Anneke wrote, "was morally broken after such 76Hansen, BQQQQQQQQQ EQQQQQ, Vol. II, pp. 385f, SOS. 69 a measure. . . They broke off all connections; they knew me no more."77 "Honor," in short, could be used as a tool to enforce political conformity or acquiescence in the officer corps. It is well to keep this in mind when examination of the turbulent months of 18h8 is undertaken. For if the Prussian army was "morally armed" with professional literature, it is safe to say that the army was even more heavily armed in a political and social sense to combat the revolution. After the above analysis of the Prussian officer corps it is clear that the Prussian officer corps falls far short of any useful definition of military professionalism. The officer corps was a socio—political class and, with some exceptions presently to be noted, not really a professionalized body of men. Given the above as characteristic of the officer corps as a whole, it must still be said that there was a growth of professionalism in the Prussian army after the reform period. It was slow and barely traceable. The War Academy may be identified as the breeding ground of professionalism in the Prussian army. Ever since it was founded in 1810, however, the War Academy was beset with controversy. What type of education should officers receive? On the one hand were the advocates of a strictly polytechnic, professional schooling, who wished, there- fore, to have excluded from the curriculum anything not relevant to military purposes. On the other hand were those officers, in the tradition of the reformers, who believed that an officer's education should also include the more broadening arts and sciences. In effect, the contro- versy was never settled and the War Academy tried to be at once a pro- 77Frit z Anneke , EELS. 18:22: 131 Rasaaaiaehsa 118.926: aaaaiflit (Mulhe im . 18h8), p. 10. TO fessional school and a quasi—university. The curriculum consisted of professional courses dealing with military tactics, military history, strategy, topography, cartography, unit managment, and the like. But it also included non—military courses such as physics, chemistry, French language, survey of philosophy, general history, German and foreign literature, natural science, and Hegelian philosophy.78 There is no way to measure its performance as a liberal arts school; certainly Prussia produced officers in the nineteenth century who were possessed of a broad, even humanistic, education, though these were comparatively few. It is thus a relatively moot point that the school may have produced officers with too much broad education to meet the more narrow requirements of the military profession. There is, similarly, no adequate measure of the War Academy's performance in turning out officers with a genuine professional outlook. But there are some indications. The chief of these lie in the production of military literature. A publication of E.S. Mittler und Sohn, publishers of much of the military literature produced in Prussia, the {QQQQQI_QQQ Aria dawns. Ems Eaten: 9.1.“. 11811;, (zeitaaaaiilt 13111; @1912, Eiaaariaaaafia QQd_GQQQQQQQ§Q QE§.E£1282§)a reviewed titles in the following categories from 182M to 1861: I. Historical works. A. 21 larger works over ancient war history. B. 15 larger works over medieval war history. C. 65 larger works over modern war history. 1. 8 (32 campaigns) of the seventeenth century. 2. 32 of the eighteenth century. 3. 25 of the nineteenth century. 78Louis von Scharfenort, BQQ_k§QQgQQQQ_pgggggigghe_KQQegsakademie, 1611‘qung (Berlin, 1910), pp. 1—65. 71 D. 93 descriptions of battles, 38 sieges and blockades, 10 river crossings, 33 special histories of single corps, 55 memoirs or essays (Denkschriften), 55 biographies, II. Actual military science including over 600 works on artillery, engineer, infantry, cavalry, horses, General Staff, sea—power supply and quartering, instructions and schools, regulations, training, field service, maneuvers, exercises, marches, general conduct of war, general tactics, and more. III. Auxiliary sciences, including over 80 works in geography, mathematics, physics, ballistics, and chemistry.79 Serial publications such as the MQQQQQQQfWQQQQQQQQQt_and, of course, the literary response of Prussian officers to civilian reform proposals before l8h8 add to this military literature. Most of this literature must be attributed to the fact that Prussia had an institute of military science incorporated in the War Academy. Most difficult to assess is the impact of Karl von Clausewitz on the professional growth of the officer corps. As a director of the War Academy from 1818 to 1830, he advocated the elimination of non—polytechnic subjects from the curriculum, but his superiors did not agree to this. His duties as director related to administration, not to curriculum. His written works, edited by his widow after 1831, were appreciated only slowly. His masterpiece, QE.W§£A was unfinished and Clausewitz himself doubted that his readers would always be able to see the distinctions he made between war on an absolute and abstract level and war in reality. 79Thedor Freiherr von Troschke, DQQ M111thr—L1tteratur seiQ dQQ -‘---.—- --------—- ( ..... -- __- __-_-- _- --_ Berlin: 1870) pp. 90-118. 72 His insistence that war—~and hence armies—-must be controlled by political goals is, and was, easily lost to the reader. We know that the great captains of the wars of German unification had mis—read Clausewitz as did, for example, Helmuth von Moltke, as shown in his conflict with Bismarck in the War of 1870.80 Probably very few officers read more than excerpts from Clausewitz and then simply to cram for the General Staff examina- tion. While preparing for such an examination, Lieutenant Julius Hartmann wrote his father: I have not yet got down to studying, but I do hope to catch up with it and familiarize myself with Clausewitz again; one finds there always much fogd for thought, at the same time with ready results. 1 From a man who found it more important to be seen attending opera in Berlin than to attend to study, this is testimony to the importance of Clausewitz: He gave "ready results" to cramming officers, thus became a common intellectual bond among the more professional—minded. Military literature, of course, is the product of a professional elite for the edification of the professional elite. In Prussia, this elite came, almost exclusively, from the more gifted officer—student in the War Academy who subsequently entered, usually, the General Staff. Many also found duty assignments in the war ministry, the.Adlg§gg§gg, or in command positions. Or they were assigned to teaching in the cadet schools, the division schools, or the War Academy itself. Among these officers there was a genuine sense of accomplishment and a feeling BOCraig. 119112192. pp. eon—216. BlHartmanna Eeeeaeeaiariemsaeas I Theil» P- 208- 73 of solidarity with one another; the private letters of a von Moltke, von Roon, Hartmann, and Fischer could be cross—indexed with reference to the admiration they held for each other or for common acquaintances who had received similar educations.82 There was, in short, a kind of esprit de corps within an esprit de corps, recognizably professional in nature, a by—product of successful application to the study of military science. Few of the officers who achieved this goal found the way easy. Social considerations and obstructions impeded the growth of profession- alism, problems which have been considered in detail above. Financial problems were also difficult, both for the Prussian state and for the individual officer. The Prussian state was hardly wealthy and could, therefore not always subsidize the aspiring officer: only fifty officers were admitted annually to the War Academy. But the state did make it possible for the occasional, talented but impecunious officer to advance in a professional career. One should consider the career of Albrecht von Roon, a man of obscure social origin, who started with absolutely no financial resources, relying on the small salary of a junior officer supplemented by an occasional gift of socks and underwear from relatives. Through Spartan efforts, Roon worked his way through the military schools, entered the General Staff, and, upon publishing a geographical study, could finally count on a fairly comfortable income. By l8h8, Roon had 820n Griesheim, Moltke's opinion in Helmuth von Moltke, Gesammelte ggflgiften_und_Qenkwfirdigkeiten_(8 vols., Berlin, 1891—1893), Vol IV, pp. 122, lh8; Roon's opinion in Albrecht von Roon, Benkwfirdigkeiten (2 vols., Gerlin, 1905), V01. I, p. 15h; Hartmann's Opinion in Hartmann, Bebenr Serinnerungen, Briefe und Aufsatze des Generals der Cavallerig. II Theil, -- ‘----—-- -—_ -—-—-- --- -------- .u—- -----.—C— --- ---—---- 7h the rank of major, a wife, and six children; by contrast, many officers in his own age had scarcely made it to first lieutenant and could count on retiring from the service as men who could not afford families.83 The officer corps was full of such military celibates. Or, to name one more example of the possibilities open to an officer aspiring for a professional career, the example of Helmuth von Moltke. Moltke entered Prussian service from the Danish army in 1822. Like Boon he went through the schools and entered the General Staff. To achieve entry into the Staff, Moltke undertook the translation of Gibbon's work on the Roman Empire both to demonstrate his breadth and to earn the necessary money to insure acceptance. He was nonetheless still obliged to borrow money so that he could afford to buy horses and pay for stall rent in Berlin. Otherwise he could not become a Staff officer. Moltke did not doubt that he was making a proper investment even if he had to impoverish himself in doing 80.8LL Similar examples of officers taking advantages of career opportunities through professional study could be shown in the careers of a Fransecky, a Hartmann, a Griesheim, a Stosch, and more. Prussia had a growing nucleus of professionally—spirited officers by l8h8. The professionally orientated officers, however, were in no real commanding position in the Prussian military system. If the General Staff may be said to have been the stronghold of professionalism, it must also be pointed out that the General Staff did not have the command 83Roon, Denkwfirdigkeiten, Vol. I, pp. 1-86. 8hEberhard Kessel, Moltke_(8tuttgart, 1957), pp. 78, 9o. 75 position in l8h8 that it won during the wars of unification. In l8h8, the General Staff was not even competing very well for power with the War Ministry, the Adiutagggg, or the Military Cabinet of the king, all institutions guided by officers whose professional orientation was on a lower level. And the plain truth was, study and professionalization were still regarded with suspicion and distrust in the Prussian army. We must still conclude that the Prussian officer corps was not a pro— fessionally orientated body. It had, of course, a military function which consisted chiefly in the role of command. For officers constitute the supervisory leadership of an army. It is necessary, therefore, before moving into 18h8, to consider the nature of the forces that the officers supervised—-the conscripts and Landwehr. CHAPTER III CONSCRIPTS AND LANDWEHR Ordinarily it is not useful to apply the concepts of professionalism to the trade which conscripts and non-commissioned officers ply. They lack two of the three basic criteria of professionalism. While they may be corporate, they do not share in responsibility nor, apart from routinized drill, do they have expertise.1 Even so, in a consideration of the professional level of the army, it is of importance to examine the origins, training, and organization of men in order to test whether such dispositions effectively implement the aims of professional military organization. Examination of these dispositions indicate that the latter was only partly true of the Prussian organization. Before considering the organizational problems of the ranks and of the Landwehr, however, it is useful briefly to explore a social problem in connection with these people insofar as they came from those parts of Prussia which had experienced the military organization of the eighteenth century--namely East Elbian Prussia. In eighteenth century Prussia, the rural masses had provided the core of the rank and file. Prussia was divided into a number of cantons, each supporting a regiment with men. An elaborate furloughing system had evolved so that the men had only a few months per year of active service. Nevertheless, the cantonist was habituated into a royalism that lHuntington, ‘éaliier; 8;ch Slate. pp- 17-18- 76 1: “.33“- LA} I . 77 transcended his submission to his local seignor. At the same time, he was constantly reminded of his duty as a soldier, even while on furlough. He recognized in his commanding officers the same social class as he recognized in his seignor. Landwehr men in the nineteenth century who came from this stratum thus found little changed in their military obligation except that they often had non-noble officers and they had a shorter period of exercise during the year. In this stratum there was much of that voluntarism which Boyen had hoped to find in the Landwehr; these men readily took to holiday target shooting and other spare—time exercises. Eighteenth century military organization excluded the Burger of Prussia, both from the ranks and from the officer corps. For this and other reasons, a sizable portion of the soldiers of the eighteenth century was recruited abroad. The practice developed of allowing these people extended free time during the year while their officers pocketed their pay. The soldiers were placed on Freiwékhter_status meaning that they were allowed to pursue their trades in handicraft industry where they were quartered. Military discipline thus easily slid over into early factory discipline, a phenonemon which undoubtedly passed Prussia through the difficulties of industrial organization in its early stages.2 The phenomenon is difficult to trace in the first half of the nineteenth century because of the relative backwardness of Prussian industry. We do know, however, that there were no large—scale labor difficulties in ---- ‘P—-_— . .. .1. l 5‘ 78 the transformed industries of Prussia to 18h8. But the uprising of the Silesian weavers in l8hh shows that discipline in the traditional indus— tries was disappearing. An integral goal of the reformers after 1806 also was to bridge the separation of town from country characteristic of the eighteenth century. The legislation which changed the class character of land owner- ship is one indication of this. So, too, was the Fundamental Order of 1808, which opened the officer corps to men from the Burger class. And Boyen meant to overcome this separation of town and country even further with the army law of l8lh which ordained a universal obligation to serve and also created the Landwehr. Universal military service was supposed to apply to all insofar as service in the regular army was concerned. And Landwehr duty was supposed to reconcile the Burger to the state and to military institutions. Possibly an honest implementation of Boyen's law for a generation class would have been swamped both in the training of civilians as in the expansion of the officer corps which such a system would have necessitated. But Boyen's law was never really so implemented. In the first place, the universal desire for peace and repose after the heroic era of liberation drained away enthusiasm for military service. The fact that peace had returned, seemingly permanently, removed the pressing need for a large military establishment. Financial problems, too, made SLu2h a law impracticable of implementation; Prussia was not a wealthy .StéitEL And finally, in the atmosphere of restoration and reaction after LIECLES, political reasons could be found to pervert the implementation of T9 Boyen's law. For example, the Duke of Mecklenburg, commanding general of the Royal Guard, complained that the Landwehr idea was tantamount 3 to arming the revolution. And few of the older officers had any confidence in an army that was not based on long-term service; the three year service was too short to insure a reliable force. These arguments and fears died only slowly. As a result of all these considerations, Prussia had something considerably less than the universal military service called for in Boyen's law; although Prussia's population grew from about 10,500,000 in 1817 to about lh,000,000 in l8hh, the size of the regular army remained at a fairly constant 120,000 in strength.h This being so, Prussian authorities had a considerable body of able-bodied citizens from which to choose those who actually were drawn in. It was inevitable, therefore, in view of the rural composition of the officer corps, that the rank and file would also be of rural origin. In the first half of the nineteenth century, even a faithful application of Boyen's law would have produced an army predominantly rural in extraction. Prussia was, in l8h8, still five—seventh's rural.5 From a standpoint of social welfare it may also have been desirable to provide gainful employment to rural Prussia via military service; pOpulation pressure on the land grew in intensity in the years before 3Ritter, EEEEEEEEQEEa Vol. I, p. 138. hActually 119,877 in 1817 and 121,720 in l8hh. Meinecke, Boyen) Vol. II, pp. h92-h93. SStadelmann . S_az_ial.e_ arid. 3391321333? Qeaefiieats, p- 22- 80 18h8, and compulsory military service was one way to alleviate it. But more important, however, were the prejudices of Prussian officers in favor of the country recruit. Boyen himself showed this prejudice when he organized recruiting districts so as to place the military obligation more heavily on the villages than on the towns and cities. For example, the population of Landwehr recruiting areas should each 1 have been about 77,000 based on 1817 population, had the areas been a— A- --q i uniformly apportioned. Instead, the recruiting areas varied in size from h6,000 to 101,000 in population; in other words, rural areas had up to twice the liability for military service of urban areas. The rural areas, and especially East Elbia, were heavily drawn from in both regular army and Landwehr recruiting. Boyen was sure that the countryside produced healthier specimens for military duty than did the city, a belief which can in no way be substantiated by evidence.6 Most noble officers shared this rural bias. In all justice to the benighted peasant, however, it must be pointed out that the Burger did little to offset this belief. The Burger had a definite aversion to military service and did his best to avoid it. One account demonstrates that people in the Prussian military system did what they could to accomodate the Burger; in the Prussian Rhine Province, one Burger after another was rejected for military service for alleged reasons of physical unfitness; the Burgers found it easy to bribe army mustering doctors 6Meinecke, B_gy_e_n_, Vol. II, p. 189. 81 who, in the Prussian system, were ranked among the common soldiers.7 their fellow Burger did little toward accomplishing such an end. To our knowledge, only a very few of the deputies who sat in the Frankfurt Parliament or in the Prussian National Assembly in l8h8 could claim to have served in the army. It is unfortunate that official statistics are unavailable, but it must nevertheless be asserted that the Prussian army had a higher percent of men of rural extraction than even the fact that Prussia was five-sevenths rural would have indicated. This is of important consequence since rural Prussia simply did not share the German nationalist enthusiasm and liberal mentality of urban Prussia. Despite these problems and considerations, the Prussian system did make an attempt to give military training to a larger population, in part as a grudging concession to Boyen's law and, more important, because it was necessary to have a trained nucleus for the Landwehr. In order to accomplish this, the three—year compulsory service was reduced so that more men could be trained over a period of time. Since 1833, the term of service in Line regiments was reduced to two years by administrative provision. This provided immediately a larger ready 7It was remarked, in 1826, that not one son of a rich merchant from Elberfeld, Barmen, and area had fulfilled military obligations. In the 1850's, 150 youths were convicted of offering bribes to avoid military service. Even service as one-year volunteers was shirked until the authorities began to apply pressure. In 1851 only nine volunteers came :from.the area in and around Dusseldorf; in 1853, only five. After Irressure was applied, however, these numbers began to grow: In 185A tkuere were 31, in 1855 there were A2, and in 1857 there were 56 one—year vnalJinteers from the Dusseldorf area alone. Friedrich Zunkel, Der 82 reserve, since these reservists now served three years instead of two before passing into the Landwehr. Ostensibly, at least, this increased the strength of the Line with trained soldiers by one-third. It also increased the training tasks, at least of the junior officers and non- commissioned officers in the Line. Whether such increased training tasks improved their professional capabilities is a moot point. Crown Prince William personally and vehemently disapproved of reducing the three year service to two years, in the belief that men trained for two years were not as reliable as those trained for three. Prince William was more interested in having a military force conditioned for purposes of defending internal order than he was in an army capable of national defense.8 Although admittedly an army consisting of men serving a longer term should be more reliable (in a political sense), it is nonetheless difficult to see why two years of service would produce men measurably inferior to those serving three years. William.believed that three—year service would serve to divorce men more thoroughly from civilian habits and sympathies, all the more important because of the "liberal and communist danger."9 And he was concerned lest two years of service would not habituate men enough to military life and thus not incline some of them to re-enlist for an extended tour and become material for non-commissioned ranks.lO Considering the political leader— ship of Prussia, these are assuredly valid professional arguments. But 8Wilhelm I, Militaaiaelie 8.911291%, Vol- I. p. 190. 913111;; Valentina 1291111831162. 32191112199, Vol. I. p. 80. ”Wilhelm 1. Mili’géziaelie fishnifiteai Vol. I: p. 190- 83 they lose much of their weight when consideration is given the Royal Guard, William's own military and parade machine of the 18h0's. The Royal Guard maintained the legal three—year term of service for its conscripts. Guard officers and non—commissioned officers thereby had a lighter training load than did the Line. The previous chapter should explain why this was done unless one is prepared to argue that the men of the Line were less willing and less able to defend royal prerogative than was the Guard. More will be said about this below. To be sure it may very well make good military sense to have an elite force in the army, one more intensely trained than the rest. If that had been the rationale for the privileges and special position given the Guard, criticism would be captious and out of place. But the Guard's special privileges had no real professional foundation. The Guard was organized for social and court functions. Parades and honorific tasks constituted its main tasks. It was for these tasks that men were recruited and trained. In order to explain this it will be necessary to describe briefly, Prussian recruiting patterns. Prussia was divided into eight administrative provinces, each of which might logically have supported an army corps including Line and Landwehr units. But administrative logic could not square the varying population sizes of the eight provinces with the fact that Prussia had nine army corps, including the Guard. There was, thus, an overlap between civil administration and army administration, as some army corps were obliged to recruit in several administrative provinces. A .nLunber of soldiers, thus, were obliged to serve in provinces away from ‘tllexir homes.ll In addition, some unit transfers were effected, though ‘— _- - ¢---—---—-----—-_------------—--—-.—----------—. ------—-- llMeinecke, Boyen, Vol. II, pp. 122-123. 8h not, as it has been asserted,l2 because of a desire to separate army further from society but from the genuine human and political desire to Prussianize the conscripts-~to make Rhinelanders acquainted with Brandenburg, Pomeranians with Westphalia, etc. To be sure, the effegg was to create a further alienation of civilian and soldier: East Prussians did not usually fraternize well with Rhinelanders. But such “i transfers of units were seldom in any case because of financial iT.A-m- .-._-_ stringencies.l3 And, indeed, Prince William, to cite one, was opposed to such troop exchanges because they produced hardships for married officers and non—commissioned officers.lh Since the Garde du Corps constituted an army corps without any corresponding administrative province, it found its replacements dis— tributed through the eight provinces of Prussia. No figures are avail- able to show whether the Guard's recruiting was equally distributed through the eight provinces. It was well-known, however, in fact a matter of public notoriety, that the Guard grabbed the more robust and taller specimens of Prussian humanity.15 The Line was allowed what was left-over, often, indeed, poor left-overs, physically speaking. l2Craig. 11911213; . p. 92; Valentin, 122228.222 1121211121211. Vol. I. p. 60. l3Meinecke, Boyen, Vol. II, p. 526. “William I. 11111112212222 8.221;!‘222, Vol- I, pp- ’43-“- 15The democratic Kladderadatsch_lampooned the "Langen Kerls" by .planting a letter in its columns: "Anzeige: Wird unser altes Militar Ixicht bald zuruckkehren? Oder glaubt man wirklich dass die durch .Eirtfernung der Garden entstandenen schmerzlichen Lucken durch Leute clieaser GrBSse erffillt werden k8nnen? [Signed] Therese Werner. Louise C%e- 75tetteehejleh£rZetttne. #1. 7 July. 18t8; KISEEéEllflflsa Beileae. #25. 29 July. lBhB; terllnleehe.leehztetten.ten.tteeteer tnt.selehrten. Seeeee_(Berlin), Beilage, #173, 27 July, 18h8. Hereafter cited as 76See, for instance, the pamphlet prepared by the Patriotic Veeeie_to counteract the attempts at fraternization which the democrats had undertaken in the Prussian army; the pamphlet informs the soldier that he will be sworn to the constitution. Ae_dee_Hee§ (Berlin, 18h8). 170 Against the liberal and democratic demands for military reorgan— ization, professionally-minded officers among the "old Prussians," basing their arguments on the writings of pre-March military publicists, adopted arguments from the "purely military" standpoint. These argu- ments have already been examined elsewhere.77 By their very nature, however, they supported the institutional arrangements of the pre— March system. But even officers who might be classified as quasi-liberal or moderately conservative, gave support to arguments taken from military reasoning. For example, an infantry officer, Lieutenant E. von Sydow, wrote that he understood the "well meaning" demands for reform of the army to mean demands for more defense for less expenditure. Von Sydow thought that the attacks on the army were due to unclear and erring notions about the military and did not really stem from rancor. Sydow agreed that the army needed reform, but argued that this must be carefully thought through. He also agreed that a limited election of sub-altern officers in the Landwehr would not hurt its military efficiency but argued that this was problematic at best.78 But the "old Prussians" did not stOp simply at criticizing plans for military reform; they also made of the existing system a virtue, 78E- von 53’ dew . Steten des Fleet. .lttteeetteaet tee Ielhetetettntna- I“.1139. teeeneetel; teetetfirlé e13: 'Etelieeee ele tetttea 2.1.1.1.; Eehttneae eet QEEEEEEEE (Berlin, l8h8). Apparently writing before the armory in Berlin was stormed on 1h June, Sydow lauded the Burgerwehr, and even thought it was a little bit too active, due, he believed, to presence of too many "spectre seers" in its ranks. It is impossible to escape detecting a well-meaning attitude to the Prussian liberals' cause in von Sydow's didactic arguments. 171 which liberal—minded officers did not. In his "German Central-Power 1 and the Prussian Army,' a brochure most representative of the "old Prussian" arguments, Griesheim boasted that Prussia had the best military system in Europe, "led by an officer corps which no other [officer corps] excels in intelligence, courage, and general as well as soldierly education." Even the fact that the Prussian army had no service regulation was elevated into virtue: Prussia "possesses no so-called service regulation in which its 'spirit would be laced into Spanish jack boots." Griesheim's polemic likewise insisted on the fundamental incompatibility of Prussia's "heroic" and martial tradition with Frankfurt's plan for an imperial German army, and lamented that the Frankfurt Parliament's draft army law was calculated to "destroy the Prussian army as such." The king's words, "Prussia is henceforth merged into Germany," Griesheim brushed aside as "over- hastyz" "the Prussian army can and will never merge into a German imperial army. . . Much more, the German imperial army must merge into the Prussian army."79 Griesheim's broadside was only the most effective example of a growing stream of praise that gushed from the pens of military men, from the teeteehe letteetttnaa from the lteeeeeetttna. end from the proclamations of the denunciatory organizations that called themselves Patriotic or Prussian. The Prussian army's desultory activity against Denmark was exalted as "heroic;" the suppression of the Poles in Posen the same. Of all the "elements that uphold the state," only the 79(Griesheim), ESEEEEETQEHEAE; pp. 9—10, 12-19, 27-29. 172 army stood there, "pure," and "upright," "unblemished" by the "rust of thirty three years of peace." How accurate this excessive praise was has already been seen. The vaunted mental or spiritual unity of the army--of the officer corps—~proved to be a myth not only in the unofficial politics of Prussian officers as it was reflected in petitioning, demonstrations, associations, and literary production, however. The officers who entered the official political stage either as appointees of the king or as elected representatives in Frankfurt or Berlin also displayed a disunity in objective and spirit. Most characteristic in this con- nection is the way officers in political roles met conflicts between the demands of the political roles and the demands that their duty as soldiers was to obey orders or adhere to the spirit of the "old Prussians." This conflict was present when officers acted as respon— sible ministers in Prussia and it existed for the handful of officers elected to the Frankfurt Parliament and the Prussian Assembly. In actuality, only one officer, Lieutenant General Count von Brandenburg, bastard son of King Frederick William II and uncle of Frederick William IV, placed his role of soldier simply and unequi- vocably above his role as responsible minister and he may here be used as a model; although Brandenburg had differences of opinion with the king, these were not publicly revealed. Hans Viktor von Unruh, who was president of the Prussian Assembly when Brandenburg was appointed minister—president in November, writes that Brandenburg viewed the formation of a ministry "not as a political act but rather as the 173 execution of an order given by the king." When Brandenburg ordered the recess of the assembly, Unruh tried to remind him that since this was a ministerial act, the assembly was justified to discuss whether the ministry was entitled to take such a step. Brandenburg answered this with all the simplicity of the apolitical soldier: "That is a royal order therefore above all doubt!"80 The earlier war ministers were not so straighforward. In April War Minister von Reyher cooperated, if unwillingly, with Camphausen's ministry in the question of Posen and a projected break with Russia, much to the indignation of the king, the camarilla, and the Guard.81 Probably for this reason, he was replaced by Lieutenant General von Kanitz, who became intrim war minister. In June, l8h8, Lieutenant General von Schreckenstein replaced Kanitz. Perhaps no man more rep- resented the chronic ineptitude of officers to be politicians. Caught between the persistent interpellations of the Assembly on the one hand, which vexed him no end, and the admonitions of the king on the other hand, Schreckenstein managed to maintain popularity with the "old Prussians" of the officer corps and the KieEEieiieeg_only at the expense of failing to establish himself as a meaningful political figure to the Assembly. In private conversations, he was gruff and had an exaggerated aristocratic demeanor to most civilians. In cabinet meetings, he joined chorus with the civilian ministers 8‘3st Vi ktor ton Unruh, thteeee e118. Eneteeeee eeteetel: Qeeehtette (Magdeburg, 18h9), p. 116. BlBrendenhurs . @331 la Etteetteh Etlhelae .lL tetetkeeheel. alt Retell: Qamheaeee. pp. 110—1. 3- 17h against the ubiquitous Potsdam camarilla. But in the Assembly, his speaking ability was limited to spasmodic assurances to the Assembly that he would do his duty without ever telling the Assembly what his duty was; all other forensic matters he left over to the officer who represented him, General von Brandt. Even in the first debate over the Stein motion on 9 August, he failed to mount the speaker's rostrum and when the Stein affair came to a head on h—7 September, he only made a perfunctory announcement in which he told the Assembly that he was in favor of doing his duty. Indeed, the liberal civilians in the ministry gave more persuasive and informed arguments in defense of the officer corps than did Schreckenstein. Although he was the hope of the "old Prussians," Schreckenstein resigned along with the rest of the ministry in September when the Assembly voted its lack of confidence in the ministry. Despite the king and despite the camarilla, Schreckenstein in fact acted along parliamentary principles in the end although he had done nothing to win the Assembly's confidence and had shown no grasp at all of constitutional or parliamentary principles; even so, he would not assume responsibility of being minister, despite the king's wishes, when he did not have the confidence of the Assembly. No officer disappointed his class and his king more: "I gave him a chance to be immortal," Frederick William is said to have remarked in later years: "But he scorned it."82 Yet, in one sense, he served his class well. For it was Schreckenstein who adamantly blocked all attempts by the ministry and BQBrendt . the. ten teten. Clee tenetele. Pp- 2 02-208; eteeeetemtteehe teetette. pp- 1035-1102- 175 the Assembly to reorganize Prussia's system of local government. The Kieie government, headed by the EEEQEEE: was too important a political system for the Junker class for Schreckenstein to give over to democratic or liberal reorganization. As war minister he was also all too aware of the relationship of the Leeiiet_to Landwehr mobilization.83 But Schreckenstein's services in this matter were eclipsed in the heat of debates over the Stein affair. The most perplexing and the officer worthy of the most sympathy among the officers on the official political stage in 18h8 was Lieutenant General von Pfuel, who succeeded Schreckenstein as war minister in September, 18h8, and took over, as well, the portfolio of minister- president. A veteran of the Wars of Liberation, penetrated by the spirit of the reform era of 1806—1819, Pfuel was recognized as an innovator in army gymnastics and as an accomplished military writer. In the army, he was often regarded with suspicion, for he was geeiei and easy—going; he was, for example, favorably inclined to both the letter and the spirit of Boyen's Landwehr law. The king regarded him as a good diplomat; he was sent to represent Hohenzollern interests in Switzerland in 18h7-18h8, appointed military governor of Berlin before the March days in an effort to placate the "good" BHrger, and sent to Posen to take over General Karl von Willisen's position and to draw a line of demarcation between Germans and Poles in that province. 83St ehr . Eneeeeteehe Reteltttee. p- 3 5 7; Kurt Utemenn . lien. tenet“. um_die_p£egseische_Selbstveieeiieeg_im_Jahre 18h8, Hieiorische Studieq, Heft 325 (Berlin, 1937). pp. 37-38, sh-SS. 61-62. 8"Natzmer, unper_den_a9penppiiern, I Theil, p. 153 and note. Brandenburg, kgpig Friedrich Wilhelms IV. Briefwechsel mit Ludolf QBEBBEEeen. pp. 9 —§9T ----------------------------- 176 His attempts to conciliate the German Burger does not indicate, however, that Pfuel was not a soldier. When attempts at conciliation and placation did not succeed, Pfuel did not hesitate to use armed force as a last resort. Thus, in the days before 18 March, he tried every means possible of pacifying excited Berliners without blood-shed, .85 The same was also true in Posen, where he banned the practice of "branding" Polish prisoners with indigo (for which he had unfairly received the name of "Pfuel von H8llenstein" from Karl Marx), but did not hesitate to have such prisoners' foreheads shorn, thus to identify them; nor did he hesitate to employ armed forces against the insurgent Poles.86 Likewise, as minister, Pfuel was quick to authorize the use of armed force to quell disorders in Silesia in October, and he also recommended the use of troops in Berlin if the Bhrgerwehr should fail to maintain order.87 In some respects, it looked as though left deputy Georg Jung was right in terming his ministry the "Ministry of Armed Reaction, when Pfuel stepped before the Assembly in September. But Pfuel was everything but a reactionary. He began his ministerial period by cooperating with the leader of the Center, Hans Viktor von Unruh, and, to the consternation of most of the "old Prussians," liquidated the Stein crisis by issuing an edict to the -‘-.- - 86Hoetzsch, "Die Stellung des Generals von Colomb," pp. 358-361. 87Brandt, Aus dem Leben des Generals, pp. 297ff; Karl Haenchen (ed.), Revolutionsbriefe 18h8: Ungedrucktes aus dem Nachlass Koanig_ Ittettteh Itlhelte II- ten. Ieeteeee (Leipzig. 1930) . pp 178- 180 177 officers in a phrasing that satisfied all factions in the Assembly. Moreover, Pfuel argued to the king that the constitution (Chartre Waldeck) would have to be accepted exactly as it came out of plenary sessions. He also threatened to resign his ministry if the king ' and made good persisted in deriving his authority from "God's Grace,’ his threat when the king rudely and arrogantly addressed well-wishers on his birthday, 15 October, using this formula.88 Remaining in his offices until 31 October, Pfuel, as deputy in the Assembly, even voted yes to the Assembly's motion that Prussia should undertake to have the German Central Power support the Viennese radicals against the forces of Windischgrfitz. And Pfuel did not hesitate to evade the rioting mob outside the Prussian Assembly's building, by joining the Assembly's most outspoken foe of the army, left deputy Jung, and his wife for a cup of tea until the crowds dispersed—-something for which the "old Prussians" never forgave him.89 Finally, because he well knew that General von Brandenburg had been appointed minister— president in order to stage a coup d' etat, Pfuel, as responsible minister, refused to counter—sign the royal order that appointed Brandenburg; Pfuel's minister of interior, Eichmann, supplied the counter-signature, a demonstration that Prussian officers were some- times more friendly to legality and liberty than were Prussian 'bureaucrats, of whom Eichmann was a leading representative.90 Pfuel 883333., pp. 191-192, 199, 211—216; Unruh, shiggen, pp. 75-76. 89See Brandt's description of the expressions of horror and dis- 'be1ief'in General von Rauch's voice when he heard of Pfuel's visit with Juns- Brandt. Ate alert teten tee. tenetels... p- 308- 9OAaron Bernstein, Aus dem Jahre l8h8, Hieieiieehe_Eiieeeieegeg. Fortsetzung_de£_Meggfiegef(BerIIn:_1873)a p. 117. --- ~~----- 178 clearly placed his political responsibilities above his role as officer. The same problem faced the officers who were elected as deputies to Frankfurt and to Berlin. Those elected to Frankfurt were, in general, among the more educated and intelligent officers of the army. These included General Maria von Radowitz, General von Auerswald, Rittmeister von Boddien, Major Teichert, and Lieutenant Bock. Although these men acted somewhat as a drag—chain to the schemes of the Frank— furt academicians with regard to the unification or formation of a German imperial army, they worked in a spirit of compromise and were instrumental in the formulation of the final draft law, which pro— voked the general consternation of a large number of Prussian officers, including Prince William, Griesheim, Hoepner, and Brandt, to name but 91 a few. Only one of the Frankfurt officers, Lieutenant Bock, placed his role as a politician above his duty as a Prussian officer, however. On the grounds that the Prussian government was exceeding its legal rights, Bock refused, at first, to obey the royal order of May, 18h9, which was given to Prussian deputies at Frankfurt, to cease deliberating with the German Parliament; Bock considered himself in a political capacity in Frankfurt and not in a military capacity.92 In the Berlin 91Wilhelm I, MiliEEEEEBElIEEEJ Vol. II, especially page 25; (Hoepfner) . teteeehttnaee 2.1.1. ten; eel; Itethfjletel: Ietteeelteneenmltna ear; teeethene v.0 rlteserieee Entree: einee Qeeete the: site Clett.~'=».e.l.1_e Iehttetteeetne ('1? erlin . l 8h8); (Grieshe im) . Inttteehe tenetheeeen. then een. Firitturf tee Iehe-tteeehteeee eel: Betehe-Vereenirrihine zu eteert CleeetZ. Elle: ete teeteete Ieht-Ietteeetee (Be—flin. 18183) 7 - Brandt . lite eeni tetee ees. tenetele. Pp- 2631”- 9212etteete Ieht-Ietttne. #101. 5 August, 1819. 179 assembly, Rittmeister Schimmel, much to the despair of the Wehif Zeiieeg_staff, acted similarly. Schimmel refused to recognize the legality of Brandenburg's order to recess the assembly until the assembly could take time to deliberate on the order.93 In the realm.of politics, thus, Prussian officers displayed a thoroughly confused picture in l8h8. Because of the social composition, lack of homogeneity and uneven levels of education of the officer corps, Prussian officers' political efforts were characterized by tendencies that diverged in several directions. Because of the favorable position of the "old Prussians," however, the Prussian officer corps came out of the revolution of 18h8 with an overriding mentality in opposition to the revolution and in opposition to the ideas of liberalism and democracy. This was so because the "old Prussians" were directing their attentions on internal matters in the officer corps as well as on the external political world. They were also immunizing the officer corps and army to revolutionary infection. This will be examined in the next chapter. 93I_b_id_., #20, 25 October, 18178, #31, 2 December, 18178, #35, 16 December, l8h8. CHAPTER VI THE POLITICS OF THE OFFICER CORPS II: CLOSING THE RANKS A problem common to European armies in revolutionary periods is the problem of remaining a reliable instrument of policy. An army disintegrated or torn apart by revolutionary ferment is obviously not such an instrument. Since it is the aim of at least the extreme revolutionary elements to attempt to win over the armed forces to the revolutionary cause, or in any event, to neutralize the armed forces, any attempt to immunize the armed forces from revolutionary ferment has necessarily political implications. This was especially so in l8h8-18A9 where the failure of the revolutionary forces to win over the Prussian military establishment was a direct factor in the revolution's essential collapse; although the March revolution had shaken the unity of the military establishment, it remained, in its essentials, intact. From March, l8h8, a number of possibilities were open to the army—— or, rather, the officer corps. The army could, in the first place, simply disintegrate and dissolve. This was the apparent wish of many highly placed Guard officers in March who saw their status threat— ened. Paradoxically, it was also the wish of a number of democratic officers, as we have seen. It was not, however, a serious proposition to the great bulk of officers. A second possibility, that of placing 180 181 the army in the vanguard of revolution and modernization, occurred to only a few Prussian officers as a desirable course. The third possi- bility, the one adopted, was to oppose the revolution and to support the dynasty; the quid pro quo for supporting the dynasty was the placing of the officer corps into a status of independence as a force in Prussia. But in Opposing revolution external to itself, the army needed also to oppose revolution that had crept into its own ranks. During the period of uncertainty from March to August or September, there were officers who sought to take advantage of the revolution to set through reform projects of their own with respect to the structure of the army. Without sorting out democrats and liberals and their relationships to the revolution external to the army, we can deal here with two classifications of officers and their material desires within the army. In the first place were those who sought an enhanced status for the professionally schooled officer. In the second place were those who otherwise looked for better career possibilities. The view point of a number of lower staff officers have been given in the preceding chapters with respect to the first category. When von Sydow called for a dissolution of the Guard and the elimination of high expense accounts for higher officers, he was evidentally not so much concerned with saving the taxpayers' revenues, as he announced. Much more, he was angling for a redistri— bution of army expenses so as to enhance the career possibilities of the more professionally talented officers. The Guard officer or general officer thus was threatened in his interests in a very substantial way by his own comrade in arms. With the Royal Guard 182 dissolved, the displaced officer, should he choose to remain in the service, would have had to take his career chances in the same lists as the Line officer, at the same pay, and in the same social status. It is not to be wondered that the Guard officer was leery of the professionalized upstart, whom he often believed guilty of democratic notions. A similar inference can be drawn from the projects of those officers who proposed methods for quicker promotions in the junior ranks or equalization of pay or outright blanket pay raises. The revenues of Prussia simply would not have been adequate for such innovations. The money would have had to come from existing alloca— tions at the expense of the privileged stratum of the officer corps and military administration. A hope for the improvement of career possibilities was thus a common denominator among Prussian officers. In the long run, the "old Prussians" were more adept in promising such improvement to the junior officers than were anyone else, either within the army or outside of it. MOst professionally minded officers as well as the run-of-the-mill careerist found a better chance for improving their careers in opposing the revolution in all its works. Since revolution had entered the fortress, it was necessary to close the ranks to the revolution; the army must be made and kept immune from revolution. This was true for the common soldiers and Landwehr as well as officer corps. Immunization from revolution included physical separation of men and officers from revolutionary ferment and a concomitant heightening 183 of a sense of unity within the establishment. Where physical separation was impracticable, an intensified corps spirit was inculcated. For the men, this meant the creation and maintenance of a unit esprit de corps. For officers it meant the acceptance of a norm upheld by the Guard and other "old Prussians." Since corps spirit found its highest manifestation in the socially prominent, it was the norm set by the Guard which was inculcated into officers. Since the Guard had the highest embodiment of "honor," its concept of this caste notion was also construed as the proper norm. "Honor" was the chief slogan used in closing the ranks of the officer corps to revolution; "dishonorable" was anyone not conforming to that "honor," whether politically or socially. It is necessary, hence, to determine to what extent the esprit of the Guard and its concomi— tant concept of honor penetrated the other groupings, corporate and individual, of the officer corps. In order to determine this, however, brief examination of the process by which the neutralization or immunization of soldiers and Landwehr were accomplished is called for. For this process throws light on the general mentality of the Prussian officer, as well in a military as in a social and political sense. The soldiers and Landwehr men presented only a temporary problem,