The Prussian army suffered from the same deficiencies as the politics and administration of the state. Here also there was improvement in many particulars, but much that was old was carefully preserved; what once had been progress was now mischievous. This bad condition is acknowledged; none have condemned it more strongly than the Prussian military writers since the year 1815.
The treatment of the soldiers was still too severe; there was unworthy parsimony in their scanty uniforms and small rations, endless was the drilling, endless the parades, the ineradicable suffering of the Prussian army; the manœuvres had become useless "spectacle," in which every movement was arranged and studied beforehand; incapable officers were retained to the extreme of old age. Hardly anything had been done to adapt the old Prussian system to the changed method of carrying on war which had arisen in the Revolution.
The officers were still an exclusive caste, which was almost entirely filled by the nobility; only a few not noble were in the Fusilier Battalions of Infantry and some among the Hussars. Under Frederic II., during the deficiency of men in the Seven Years' War, young volunteers of citizen origin were made officers. Then they were, at least in their pay, and frequently in the regimental lists, represented as noble; but after the peace, however great their capacity, they were almost always kept out of the privileged battalions. This did not improve under the later Kings. Only in the Artillery, in 1806, were the greater number of officers commoners, but on that account they were not considered as equals. It was a bitter irony that a French artillery officer should be the person, as Emperor of the French, to think of shattering the Prussian army and its State into pieces, at the same time in which they were contending in Prussia as to whether an officer of artillery should be received upon the general staff, and that the citizen Lieutenant-Colonel Schamhorst should be envied this privilege.[[39]] It was natural that all the failings of a privileged order should appear in full measure in the Prussian corps of officers. Pride towards the citizens, roughness to those under them, a deficiency in cultivation and good morals, and in the privileged regiments an unbridled insolence. It is a common complaint of contemporaries, that in the streets and societies of Berlin people were not secure from the insults of the gens d'armes, who were the élite of the young nobility. Already did these arrogant men, at the beginning of the reign of Frederic William III., begin to be ashamed of wearing their old-fashioned uniform in society, and where they dared, lounged in with protruding white neck-ties, top-boots, and sword-sick.
In spite of these deficiencies, there was still in the Prussian army much of the capacity and strength of the olden time. The stout race of old subaltern officers had not died out, men who had shed bitter tears over the death of their great General in 1786; and still did the common soldiers, in spite of the diminished confidence in their leaders, feel pride in their well-tried war-like capacity. Many characteristic traits have been preserved to us, which give us a pleasing picture of the disposition of the army. When, in the campaign of 1792, a Prussian and Austrian, as good comrades and malcontents, were complaining to one another, and the Prussian did not speak in praise of his King, he yet stopped the other, who was repeating his words, with a box on the ear, saying: "You shall not speak so of my King;" and on the angry Austrian reproaching him with having said the same, the aggressor replied: "I may say that, but not you, for I am a Prussian." Such was the feeling in most of the regiments. The disgraceful prostration of Prussia was not owing to the bad material of the army, nor especially to the obsolete tactics. Nay, in the struggle it was shown how great was the capacity of both the men and officers who were so shamefully sacrificed. Amidst the lawlessness, coarseness, and rapacity which inevitably come to light among a demoralised soldiery, we rejoice in finding the most worthy soldier-like feeling often amongst the meanest of them. One of the many unworthy proceedings of the stupid campaign of 1806, was the surrender of Hameln. How the betrayed garrison behaved has been related in the letter of an officer. The narrator was the son of an emigrant, a Frenchman by birth, but he had become an inestimable German, of whom our people are proud; he had done his duty as a Prussian officer, but at every free moment he devoted himself to German literature and science; he had no satisfaction in carrying on war against the land of his birth, and had sometimes wished himself away from the ill-conducted campaign; but when a bad commander betrayed his brave troops, the full anger of an old Prussian was kindled in the breast of the adopted child of the German people, he assembled his comrades, and urged them to a general rising against their incapable commander; all the juniors were as indignant as himself; but in vain. They were deceived, and the fortress, in spite of their resistance, delivered over to the French. Fearful was the despair of the soldiers; they fired their cartridges into the windows of the cowardly commander; they shot one another in rage and drunkenness; they dashed their weapons on the stones, that they might not be carried with more renown by strangers, and the old Brandenburgers wept when they took leave of their officers. In the company of Captain von Britzke, regiment von Haack, were two brothers, Warnawa, sons of soldiers; they mutually placed their muskets to each other's breast, drew the triggers at the same time, and fell into each other's arms, that they might not survive the disgrace.[[40]]
But those who were the leaders, but not men, who were they? Experienced Generals from the school of the great King, men of high birth, loyal and true to their King, grown old in honours. But were they too old? They undoubtedly were grey-headed and weary. They had come into the army as boys, perhaps from the teaching of the cadet colleges, where they had been trained; they had marched and presented arms at the word of command; had kept line and distance in countless parades; afterwards they had kept a sharp look-out, that others might keep line and distance, that the buttons were cleaned, and that the pig-tail was the right length. In order to gain promotion, they had taken pains to learn at Berlin whether Rüchel or Hohenlohe was in favour. This had been their life. They knew little more than the spiritless routine of the army, and that they were a wheel in the great machine. Now their army was beaten, and the shattered remains in rapid retreat to the east. What remained now, what was left of any value to them?
But it was not cowardice that made them such pitiful creatures. They had formerly been brave soldiers, and most of them were not old enough to be in their dotage. It was something else: they had lost all confidence in their State; it appeared to them useless, hopeless to defend themselves any longer—a fruitless slaughter of men. Thus did these unfortunate ones feel. They had been all their life mediocre men—not better nor worse than others; this mediocrity now prevailed, as far as their narrow point of view reached, everywhere in the State. Where was there anything great or strong? where any fresh life to give enthusiasm and warmth? They themselves had been the delight, the society of the Hohenzollerns—the first in the State, the salt of the country; they were accustomed to look down upon citizens and officials. Besides their Prince and the army itself, what had they in Prussia to honour? Now the King was away—they knew not where—they were alone within the walls of their fortress; and they found little in themselves either to shun or to honour; they felt at best that they were weak. Thus, in the hour of trial they became bad and mean, because they had all their lives been placed higher than their merits. A fearful lesson may be learnt from this; may Prussians always think of it. The officers, as a privileged class, socially exclusive, with the feeling of a privileged position in the State, were in constant danger of fluctuating between arrogance and weakness. Only the officer who, besides his honour as a soldier and his fidelity to his sovereign, had a full participation in all that ennobled and elevated a citizen of his time, could in a moment of difficulty find certain strength in his own breast.
A period of intellectual poverty and mediocrity brought Prussia to the verge of destruction; political passion raised it again.
But here an account shall be given of the feelings of a German citizen on the fall of his State. He belonged to that circle of Prussian jurists of whom we have just spoken. What he imparts is already known from other records, yet his honest description will find sympathy from its judicial clearness and simplicity:—
Cristoph Wilhelm Heinrich Sethe, born 1767, deceased 1855. "Wirklicher Geheimer Rath," and chief president of the Rhenish court of appeal, descended from a great legal family in the dukedom of Cleves; his grandfather and father had been distinguished officials of the government; his mother was a Grolmann. The boy grew up in the enjoyment of wealth in his father's town; at sixteen years of age his father sent him to the university of Duisburg, and then to Halle and Göttingen; on his return he went through the Prussian grades of service in the government of Cleve-Mark, an excellent school. These western provinces—-not of very great extent—comprised a good portion of the strength of the Prussian State. This firm, vigorous population clung with warm fidelity to the house of their Princes; there was in the cities and among the peasants, who lived as freemen on their land, much wealth, and the High Court of Justice was one of the best in Prussia Sethe was "Geheimer Rath," happily married, with his whole heart in his home, when a gloom was thrown over his native city and his own life by the sound of war, the march and quartering of troops, exciting reports, and, finally, the occupation of the town by the French, who, as it is well known, allowed the sovereignty of Prussia to continue for some years, till the Peace of Amiens took away the last vestige of Prussian possession. Then Sethe severed himself from his home, and established himself in the Prussian administration of the newly-acquired portion of Münster.
He shall now relate himself what he experienced.[[41]]