WW1 PRUSSIAN 1895- 1915 BRAS BELT BUCKLE-"GOTT MIT UNS" (Original) SEE STORE

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19th century
[
edit
]
Bulwark of conservatism
[
edit
]
Expansion of Prussia, 1807–1871
The
Prussian General Staff
, which developed out of meetings of the Great Elector with his senior officers
[3]
and the informal meeting of the Napoleonic Era reformers, was formally created in 1814. In the same year Boyen and Grolman drafted a law for universal conscription, by which men would successively serve in the standing army, the
Landwehr
and the local
Landsturm
until the age of 39.
[54]
Troops of the 156,000-strong standing army served for three years and were in the reserves for two, while militiamen of the 163,000-strong
Landwehr
served a few weeks annually for seven years.
[55]
Boyen and Blücher strongly supported the civilian army of the
Landwehr
, which was to unite military and civilian society, as an equal to the standing army.
[56]
During a constitutional crisis in 1819, Frederick William III recognized Prussia's adherence to the anti-revolutionary
Carlsbad Decrees
. Conservative forces within Prussia, such as
Wittgenstein
, remained opposed to conscription and the more democratic
Landwehr
. Frederick William III reduced the militia's size and placed it under the control of the regular army in 1819, leading to the resignations of Boyen and Grolman and the ending of the reform movement. Boyen's ideal of an enlightened citizen soldier was replaced with the idea of a professional military separate or alienated from civilian society.
[57]
The storming of the Frankfurt barricades by Prussian-supported Hessian troops in 1848
By the middle of the 19th century, Prussia was seen by many German
liberals
as the country best-suited to unify the
many German states
, but the conservative government used the army to repress liberal and democratic tendencies during the 1830s and 1840s. Liberals resented the usage of the army in essentially police actions. King
Frederick William IV
(1840–61) initially appeared to be a liberal ruler, but he was opposed to issuing the written constitution called for by reformers. When barricades were raised in Berlin during the
1848 revolution
, the king reluctantly agreed to the creation of a civilian defense force (
Bürgerwehr
) in his capital.
[58]
A national assembly to write a constitution was convened for the first time, but its slowness allowed the reactionary forces to regroup.
Wrangel
led the reconquest of Berlin, which was supported by a middle class weary of a people's revolution.
[59]
Prussian troops were subsequently used to suppress the revolution in many other German cities.
At the end of 1848, Frederick William finally issued the
Constitution of the Kingdom of Prussia
. The liberal opposition secured the creation of a
parliament
, but the constitution was largely a conservative document reaffirming the monarchy's predominance. The army was a
praetorian guard
[60]
outside of the constitution, subject only to the king.
[61]
The Prussian Minister of War was the only soldier required to swear an oath defending the constitution, leading ministers such as
Strotha
,
Bonin
and
Waldersee
to be criticized by either the king or the parliament, depending on their political views.
[62]
The army's budget had to be approved by the Lower House of Parliament. Novels and memoirs glorifying the army, especially its involvement in the Napoleonic Wars, began to be published to sway public opinion. The defeat at
Olmütz
of the liberals' plan to unite Germany through Prussia encouraged reactionary forces. In 1856 during peacetime Prussian Army consisted of 86,436 infantrymen, 152 cavalry squadrons and 9 artillery regiments.
[63]
After Frederick William IV suffered a stroke, his brother
William I
became regent (1857) and king (1861–88). He desired to reform the army, which conservatives such as
Roon
considered to have degraded since 1820 because of liberalism. The king wanted to expand the army—while the populace had risen from 10 million to 18 million since 1820, the annual army recruits had remained 40,000.
[64]
Although Bonin opposed Roon's desired weakening of the
Landwehr
, William I was alarmed by the nationalistic
Second Italian War of Independence
. Bonin resigned as Minister of War and was replaced with Roon.
Bismarck
,
Roon
and
Moltke
in the 1860s
The government submitted Roon's army reform bill in February 1860. Parliament opposed many of its provisions, especially the weakening of the
Landwehr
, and proposed a revised bill that did away with many of the government's desired reforms. The Finance Minister,
Patow
, abruptly withdrew the bill on 5 May and instead simply requested a provisional budgetary increase of 9 million thalers, which was granted.
[65]
William had already begun creating 'combined regiments' to replace the
Landwehr
, a process which increased after Patow acquired the additional funds. Although parliament was opposed to these actions, William maintained the new regiments with the guidance of
Manteuffel
. The liberal and middle-class
Landwehr
was thus subordinated in favor of the regular army, which was composed mostly of peasantry loyal to the Hohenzollern monarchy and conservative
Junkers
.
Moltke the Elder
[
edit
]
Moltke the Elder
, Chief of the General Staff from 1857–88, modernized the Prussian Army during his tenure. He expanded the General Staff, creating peacetime subdivisions such as the Mobilization, Geographical-Statistical and Military History Sections.
[66]
In 1869, he issued a handbook for warfare on the
operational
level,
Instructions for Large Unit Commanders
, writing, "The modern conduct of war is marked by the striving for a great and rapid decision".
[67]
Moltke was a strong proponent of
war game
training for officers
[67]
and introduced the breech-loading
needle gun
to troops, which allowed them to fire significantly faster than their adversaries. Moltke took advantage of the
railroad
, guiding the construction of rail lines within Prussia to likely places of deployment.
[68]
Because modern armies had become too large and unwieldy for a single commander to control, Moltke supported multiple and independent smaller armies in concentric operations. Once one army encountered the enemy and pinned it down, a second army would arrive and attack the enemy's flank or rear.
[67]
He advocated a
Kesselschlacht
, or battle of encirclement.
It was in Moltke's
Instructions for Large Unit Commanders
and his concept of separated armies that we begin to see the emergence of modern German doctrine. The system of moving units separately and concentrating as an army before a battle resulted in more efficient supply and lower vulnerability to modern firepower. To enable a successful flanking attack, he asserted that concentration could only take place after the commencement of a battle. This was a development of the Scharnhorst concept of "March Divided, Fight United."
A major consequence of this innovation was the commander's loss of overall control of his forces due to his available means of communication which, at that time were visual (line-of-sight) or couriers, either mounted or on foot. The traditional concept of the elimination of uncertainty by means of "total obedience" was now obsolete and operational initiative, direction and control had to be assigned to a point further down the chain of command. In this new concept, commanders of distant detachments were required to exercise initiative in their decision making and von Moltke emphasised the benefits of developing officers who could do this within the limits of the senior commander’s intention.
At the same time Moltke had worked out the conditions of the march and supply of an army. Only one army corps could be moved along one road in the same day; to put two or three corps on the same road meant that the rear corps could not be made use of in a battle at the front. Several corps stationed close together in a small area could not be fed for more than a day or two. Accordingly, he inferred that the essence of strategy lay in arrangements for the separation of the corps for marching and their concentration in time for battle. In order to make a large army manageable, it must be broken up into separate armies or groups of corps, each group under a commander authorized to regulate its movements and action subject to the instructions of the commander-in-chief as regards the direction and purpose of its operations.
Moltke's main thesis was that military
strategy
had to be understood as a system of options since only the beginning of a military operation was plannable. As a result, he considered the main task of military leaders to consist in the extensive preparation of all possible outcomes. His thesis can be summed up by two statements, one famous and one less so, translated into English as
No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy's main strength
(no plan survives contact with the enemy).
[69]
and
Strategy is a system of expedients
.
[69]
However, as can be seen from the descriptions of his planning for the war with Austria and the war with France, his planning for war was very detailed and took into account thousands of variables. It is a mistake to think that Moltke thought war plans were of no use (which a simple reading of "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy" would seem to indicate). He accomplished this by means of directives stating his intentions, rather than detailed orders, and he was willing to accept deviations from a directive provided that it was within the general framework of the mission. Moltke held this view firmly and it later became a fundamental of all German military theory.
Moltke originated the use of the colors blue for friendly forces and red for hostile forces in strategy or wargaming. Hence the term
blue on blue
fire in friendly fire situations.
[
citation needed
]
Wars of unification
[
edit
]
The battle of Königgrätz, 3rd July, 1866
, by Georg Bleibtreu
The Prussian Army crushed
Danish
forces in the
Battle of Dybbøl
during the
Second Schleswig War
(1864), allowing Prussia and Austria to claim
Schleswig
and
Holstein
, respectively. Disputes orchestrated by the
Prussian Minister President
,
Otto von Bismarck
, led to the
Austro-Prussian War
(1866). The needle guns of the Prussian infantry were highly successful against the Austrians, who were defeated at
Königgrätz
. Under the leadership of Moltke, the Prussian Army then proved victorious over
France
in the
Franco-Prussian War
(1870). Unlike the Austrians, the French had the powerful
Chassepot
rifle, which outclassed the
Prussian needle gun
. However, the Prussian artillery was effective against the French, who were frequently flanked or surrounded by the mobile Prussians. Patriotism in Prussia from the victories began to undermine liberal resistance to absolutism.
[70]
The battlefield successes of Prussia allowed the
unification of Germany
, aside from Austria, in 1871 and the crowning of King William I of Prussia as
William I, German Emperor
. The Prussian Army formed the main component of the
Reichsheer
, the army of the
German Empire
.
Imperial Germany
[
edit
]
Kaiser
Wilhelm II
reviewing Prussian troops, by
Carl Röchling
The
Imperial German Army
inherited much of the traditions and concepts of the Prussian Army, which was its largest component army. According to article 61 of the Imperial constitution, the Prussian military code was to be introduced throughout the
German Reich
.
[71]
The Bavarian, Saxon and Württemberg kingdoms continued to use their military codes. The conservative leaders of the army took an ever-increasing role in both domestic and foreign policies.
By the end of the 19th century, most Prussian officers could be divided into two groups: those who argued for boldness and self-sacrifice, and those who advocated technology and maneuver in order to minimize casualties.
[72]
First encountered during the
Franco-Prussian War
, new technological military innovations such as the
machine gun
increased the power of defensive units. For the Prussians, who advocated offensive operations, infantry attacks would risk becoming sacrificial assaults.
With regard to a possible future two-front war,
Alfred von Schlieffen
, the Chief of the General Staff from 1891–1906, had suggested a deployment scheme which became known as the
Schlieffen Plan
. Modified by
Moltke the Younger
, its intention of quickly defeating France proved impossible to achieve. In the actual event of the first world war; on the
Western Front
, the German advance stalled into
trench warfare
after the
First Battle of the Marne
. On the
Eastern Front
, however, the Prussian operations succeeded in encircling and smashing the Russians at
Tannenberg
. Though developing
infiltration tactics
as a way of re-introducing maneuver to modern warfare, they were unable to achieve a decisive breakthrough in their
German spring offensive
on the Western Front in the last year of the war, and the Germans lost the war of attrition.
The Imperial German Army was replaced after World War I with the volunteer
Reichswehr
of the
Weimar Republic
. Although the
Treaty of Versailles
attempted to disarm Germany, the
Reichswehr
discreetly maintained many of the traditions of the Prussian Army. The
General Staff
was camouflaged as a non-descript
Truppenamt
(troop office), while the War Academy was replaced with decentralized divisional schools.
[73]
Hans von Seeckt
, the head of the
Reichswehr
, designated the new military's battalions as successors of the traditions of Prussian regiments.
[74]
During the
interwar era
, German officers contemplated how to apply maneuver warfare after the experiences of the
Great War
. Innovations in
armor
and
airpower
were adopted to infiltration tactics, resulting in the doctrine known as
Blitzkrieg
.
[75]
[76]
Characteristics
[
edit
]
Since the 17th century, the army of Brandenburg-Prussia was characterized by its initiative, maneuverability, and aggressive command at the
operational
level of war. The Hohenzollern state often had fewer resources and manpower than its rivals, and thus the Prussians focused on quickly achieving a decisive victory to avoid a war of attrition.
[77]
The Prussians practiced what became known as
Bewegungskrieg
, or
war of movement
, in an attempt to
strike at the flanks
or rear of the enemy.
[78]
The Prussian emphasis on decisive battles instead of wars of attrition led to its being inexperienced in
siege warfare
, at which the Prussians have been considered incompetent.
[79]
The Great Elector
practiced many of the concepts applied to the Prussian Army in later centuries, including flank attacks at
Warsaw
and, at
Fehrbellin
, the willingness to attack when outnumbered.
[80]
The elector advocated campaigns that were "short and lively".
[81]
During the 1740s, Frederick the Great issued a series of new regulations and documents regarding his army's experiences during the first two Silesian wars and how they would relate to future wars. The doctrines he espoused focused on speed and offense. Lighter and faster cavalry were preferred over heavy cavalry; while hussars were treated as luxury troops by Frederick William I, his son made them an integral part of the army. The artillery was to use light three-pound guns which made up for their lack of power with versatility.
[82]
After being outmaneuvered by the Austrians in the Second Silesian War, Frederick began emphasizing an overwhelming attack instead of a war of attrition. Rather than frontal attacks, the Prussian king tried to apply the
oblique order
, by which his army's strongest wing was focused against the enemy's weakest wing or flank, while restraining his own weaker wing.
[83]
Frederick the Great summed up the Prussian style of war at
Leuthen
, advocating an attack on the enemy "even if he should be on top of the
Zobtenberg
".
[84]
The Prussian emphasis on attack was well-ingrained in its officer corps.
Flies
unsuccessfully went on the offensive in the
Battle of Langensalza
, despite being outnumbered by the Hanoverians and having
Falckenstein's
troops nearby.
[85]
Similarly,
Kirchbach
was willing to endure excessive casualties at
Wörth
without waiting for reinforcements.
[86]
Moltke wanted a quick campaign in
Bohemia
against Austria so that Russia or France would not become involved in the Austro-Prussian war. Although Moltke considered Prince
Frederick Charles
' march through Bohemia to be too slow,
Hans Delbrück
found the "Red Prince's" eventual attack at
Königgrätz
to have been in the Prussian tradition, "which, by daring to lose a battle, wins it".
[87]
Otto von Bismarck
, a civilian, wearing a cuirassier officer's metal
Pickelhaube
The Prussian-style war of movement and quick strikes was well-designed for campaigns using the developed infrastructure of Western and Central Europe, such as the
wars of unification
, but failed when it was applied by the
German Army
to the
Soviet Union
and
North Africa
.
[88]
The Prussian and later German systems were regarded as weak in
intelligence
,
counterintelligence
, and
logistics
, but during the First World War the German Army was often able to lay its hands on British and French battleplans. If the enemy successfully endured the initial operational attacks, the Prussian system had great difficulty in
Stellungskrieg
, or
war of position
, though during the First World War those were not as pronounced.
The Prussian Army is often considered to have used the flexible command of
Auftragstaktik
(mission tactics), by which subordinate officers led using personal initiative. This developed out of the relationship between the
Junker
aristocracy, who made up most of the officer corps, and the monarchy. In return for political support from the nobles, the monarchs granted them greater privileges on their estates and greater initiative on the battlefield. According to the theory of
Auftragstaktik
, the commander would issue a mission to his subordinate officers, who were to pursue the directive as they saw fit. Gneisenau was an early proponent of
Auftragstaktik
,
[89]
and Moltke interpreted the theory as "the higher the authority, the shorter and more general" the orders;
[90]
considerable leeway was granted to subordinates in order to pursue the goal.
[91]
19th-century historians saw
Leuthen
as one of the best examples of
Auftragstaktik
[92]
and an early example of
combined arms
.
[93]
Often stereotypically associated with the Prussian Army was the
Pickelhaube
, or spiked helmet, in use in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Victorious battles were celebrated through
military marches
, such as the
Hohenfriedberger Marsch
, allegedly written by Frederick the Great after
Hohenfriedberg
, and the
Königgrätzer Marsch
, by the march composer
Piefke
. The Prussian
Großer Zapfenstreich
military tattoo is still in use by the modern
Bundeswehr
. The
Iron Cross
was adopted by the German Empire and its successor states, and is also still used as a symbol of the
Bundeswehr
.