Among the German states Prussia was the one in which the tyranny of this military system was most severe, but at the same time it was in some respects developed with a rigid grandeur and originality which made the Prussian army for half a century the first military power in the world, and a model after which all the other armies of Europe were formed.
Any one who had entered Prussia shortly before 1740, when under the government of Frederic William I., would have been struck the very first hour by its peculiar characteristics. At field-labour, and in the streets of the cities, he would continually have seen slender men of warlike aspect, with a striking red necktie. They were "canton" men, who already as children had been entered on the register of soldiers, and sworn under a banner, and could be called upon if their King needed them. Each regiment had 500 to 800 of these reserves; one may therefore assume, that by these, an army of 64,000 men, could, in three months, be increased about 30,000, for everything was ready in the regimental rooms, both clothing and weapons. Anyone too, who first saw a regiment of Prussian infantry, would be still more astonished. The soldiers were of a height such as had never been seen in the world,—they appeared of a foreign race. When the regiment stood four ranks deep in line—the position in three ranks was just then introduced—the smallest men of the first rank were only a few inches under six foot, the fourth almost equally high, and the middle ones little less. One may assume that were the whole army placed in four ranks, the heads would make four straight lines; the weapons also were somewhat longer than elsewhere. Not less striking was the neat appearance of the men, they stood there like gentlemen, with good clean linen, their heads nicely powdered, and a cue, all in blue coats, with gaiters of unbleached linen up to their bright breeches; the regiments were distinguished by the colour of their waistcoats, facings, and lace. If a regiment wore beards, as for example the old Dessauers at Halle, the beard was nicely greased. Each man received yearly, before the review, a new uniform, even to the shirt and stockings, and in the field also he had two dresses. The officers looked still grander, with embroidered waistcoats, and scarfs round the waist, on the sword the "field badge;" all was gold and silver, and round the neck the gilded gorget, in the middle of which was to be seen on a white ground, the Prussian eagle. The captain and lieutenant bore in their hands the partisan, which had already been a little diminished, and was called spontoon; the subordinate officers still carried the short pike. It was considered smart for the dress to fit tight and close, and in the same style the motions of the soldiers were precise and angular, the deportment stiff and erect, their heads high. Still more remarkable were their movements; for they were the first soldiers that marched with equal step, the whole line raising and setting down their feet like one man. This innovation had been introduced by Dessau; the pace was slow and dignified, and even under the worst fire was little hastened: that majestic equal step, in the hottest moment at Mollwitz, carried confusion among the Austrians. The music also struck them with terror. The great brass drums of the Prussians (they have now, alas, come down to the insignificant size of a bandbox), raised a tremendous din. When in Berlin, at the parade of the Guards, some twenty drums were beaten, it made the windows shake. And among the hautboys there was a trumpet, equally a novel invention. The introduction of this instrument, created everywhere in Germany astonishment and disapprobation, for the trumpeters and kettle drummers of the holy Roman Empire formed a guild, which was protected by Imperial privileges, and would not tolerate a military trumpeter not belonging to it. But the King cared little for this. When the soldiers exercised, loaded, and fired, it was with a precision similar to witchcraft;[[4]] for after 1740, when Dessau introduced the iron ramrod, the Prussian shot four or five times in a minute,—afterwards he learnt to do it quicker; in 1773, five or six times; in 1781, six or seven times. The fire of the whole front of the battalion was a flash and a crack. When the salvos of the troops, exercising early in the morning under the windows of the King's castle, roared, the noise was so great that all the little Princes and Princesses were obliged to rise.
But anyone who would have wished to form a right estimate of the soldiery should have gone to Potsdam. It had been a poor place, situated betwixt the Havel and a swamp; the King had made it into an architectural camp; no civilian could carry a sword there, not even the minister of state. There, round the King's castle, in small brick houses, which were built partly in the Dutch style, were stationed the King's giants,—the world-renowned Grenadier regiment. There were three battalions of 800 men, besides 600 to 800 reserves. Whoever among the Grenadiers was burdened with a wife, had a house to himself; of the other Colossuses, as many as four lodged with one landlord, who had to wait upon and provide food for them, for which he only received some stacks of wood. The men of this regiment never had leave, could carry on no public work, and drink no brandy; most of them lived like students at the high school, they occupied themselves with books, drawing and music, or worked in their houses.[[5]] They received extra pay, the tallest from ten to twenty thalers a month: all these fine men wore high plated grenadier caps, which made them about four hand breadths taller; the fifers of the regiment were Moors. Whoever belonged to the Colonel's own company of the regiment had his picture taken and hung up in the corridor of the castle of Potsdam. Many distinguished persons travelled to Potsdam to see these sons of Anak at parade or exercising. But it was remarked that such giants were scarcely useful for real war, and that it had never occurred to any one in the world to seek for extraordinary height as advantageous to soldiers; this wonder was reserved for Prussia. But anyone who staid in the country did well not to express this too openly. For the Grenadiers were a passion of the King, which in his latter years amounted almost to madness, and for which he forgot his family, justice, honour, conscience, and what had stood highest with him all his life, the advantage of his State. They were his dear blue children; he was perfectly acquainted with each individual; took a lively interest in their personal concerns, and tolerated long speeches and dry answers from them. It was difficult for a civilian to obtain justice against these favourites, and they were with good reason feared by the people. Wherever in any part of Europe a tall man was to be found, the King traced him out, and secured him either by bounty or force for his guard. There was the giant Müller, who had shown himself in Paris and London for money—two groschen a person—he was the fourth or fifth in the line; still taller was Jonas, a smith's journeyman from Norway; then the Prussian Hohmann, whose head King Augustus of Poland,—though a man of fine stature—could not reach with his outstretched hand; finally later there was James Kirckland, an Irishman, whom the Prussian Ambassador Von Borke had carried off by force from England, and on account of whom diplomatic intercourse was nearly broken off; he had cost the King about nine thousand thalers.
They were collected together from every vocation of life, adventurers of the worst kind, students, Roman Catholic priests, monks, and even some noblemen stood in rank and file. The Crown Prince Frederic, in his letters to his confidential friends, spoke often with aversion and scorn of this passion of the King, but he had inherited it to a certain extent, and the Prussian army have not yet ceased to take pride in it. It extended to other princes also, especially to such as were attached to the Hohenzollerns, the Dessauers, and Brunswickers. In 1806, Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick, who was mortally wounded at Auerstadt, carried on a systematic dealing in men for his regiment at Halberstadt; in his own company the first rank were six foot, and the smallest man was five foot nine; all the companies were taller than the first regiment of guards is now. But in other armies also there was somewhat of this predilection. At the end of the last century, an able Saxon officer lamented that the first and tallest regiment in the Saxon army could not measure with the smallest of the Prussians.[[6]]
Not less remarkable was the relation in which King Frederic William stood to his officers. He heartily feared and hated the wily sagacity of the diplomats and higher officials, but he readily confided his secret thoughts to the simple, sturdy, straightforward character of his officers, which was sometimes a mask. It was a favourite fancy to consider himself as their comrade. Many were the hours in which he treated as his equals many who wore the sash. He used to greet with a kiss all the superior officers down to the major, if he had not seen them for a long time. Once he affronted the Major Von Jürgass by using the opprobrious word by which officers then denoted a studious man; the drunken man replied, "That was the speech of a cowardly rascal," and then got up and left the party. The King declared that he could not allow that to pass, and was ready to take his revenge for the insult with sword or pistol. When those present protested against this, the King asked angrily how otherwise he could obtain satisfaction for his injured honour? They contrived a means of doing it by lieutenant-Colonel Von Einsiedel taking the King's place in the battalion, and fighting the duel in his stead. The duel took place, Einsiedel was wounded in the arm; for this the King filled his knapsack full of thalers, and commanded him to carry the heavy burden home. The King could not forget that as Crown Prince he had never risen in the service beyond a Colonel, and that a Field-Marshal was higher than himself. He therefore lamented in the "Tabak's Collegium,"[[7]] that he had not been able to remain with King William of England: "He would certainly have made a great man of me, he could even have made me Statholder of Holland." And when it was maintained in reply that he himself was a greater King, he answered: "You speak according to your judgment; he would have taught me how to command the armies of all Europe. Do you know of anything greater?" So much did this strange Prince feel the not having become Field-Marshal. When he sat dying in his wooden chair, had cast behind him all earthly cares, and was observing with curiosity the process of dying in himself, he desired the funeral horse to be fetched from the stable, and in accordance with the old custom of sending it as a legacy from the Colonel to the General in command, he ordered the horse to be taken on his behalf to Leopold Von Dessau, and the grooms to be flogged because they had not put the right housings on him.[[8]] Such was the Prince whose example was followed by the whole nobility of his country and in his army. Already under the great Elector had a sovereign contempt for all education displayed itself but too frequently in the army; already had such a repugnance to all learning been instilled into the early deceased Electoral Prince Karl Emil, by the officers around him, that he maintained that he who studied and learnt Latin was a coward. In the "Tabak's Collegium" of King Frederic William, still worse expressions were at first applied to this class of men. With the King himself there was undoubtedly an alteration in the last years of his life, but this tone of indifference to all knowledge which did not bear upon their own profession, remained with most of the Prussian officers till this century, in spite of all the endeavours of Frederic the Great. In 1790 the people still used the term, a Frederic William's officer, for a tall thin man, in a short blue coat, with a long sword and a tight cravat, who was spruce and earnest in all his actions as in service and had learnt little. About the same time Lafontaine, chaplain to the regiment Von Thadden, at Halle, complained of the little education of the officers. Once after giving them an historical lecture, a valiant captain took him on one side and said, "You tell us things that have happened thousands of years ago, God knows where; will you not tell us one thing more? How do you know this?" And when the chaplain gave him an explanation, the officer answered, "Curious! I thought it had always been as it is now in Prussia." The same captain could not read writing hand, but was a brave, trustworthy man.[[9]]
But King Frederic William I. did not wish that his officers should remain quite uninformed. He caused the sons of poor noblemen to be educated at his cost, in the great cadet institution at Berlin, and practised in the service under the care of able officers; the most intelligent he employed as pages, and in small services as guards in the castle. As a rule, in Prussia, no poor nobleman had to provide for the advancement of his son; the King did it for him. The nobility, it was said, were the nursery for the spontoon. As soon as the boy was fourteen years old he wore the same coat of blue cloth as the King and his Princes; for as yet there were no epaulets or distinctions in the embroidery,—only the regiments were denoted by marks of distinction. Every Prince of the Prussian family had to serve and become an officer, like the son of the poorest nobleman. It was remarked by contemporaries that in the battle of Mollwitz ten princes of the King of Prussia's family were in the army. It had not previously been the custom anywhere, or at any time, that the King should consider himself as an officer, and the officer as on an equality with the princes.
By this comrade-training, the officers were placed in a position such as they had never had in any nation. It is true that all the faults of a privileged order were strikingly perceptible in them. Besides their coarseness, love of drinking and gluttony, the rage for duelling, the old passion of the German army, was not eradicated, although the same Hohenzollern, who had himself wished to fight with his Major, was inexorable in punishing with death every officer who killed another in a duel. But if such a "brave fellow" saved himself by flight, the King rejoiced if other governments promoted him. The duel was not then carried on in Prussia according to the usages of the Thirty Years' War: there were more seconds, and the number of passages was fixed; they fought on horseback with pistols and on foot with a sword. Before the combat the opponents shook hands—nay, they embraced each other, and exchanged forgiveness in case of death; if they were pious they went beforehand to confession and the Lord's Supper; no blow could be given till the opponent was in a position to use his sword; in case he fell to the ground or was disarmed, generosity was a duty; if anyone wished for a fatal result, he spread out his mantle, or, if like the officers after 1710 he wore none, he traced with his sword on the ground a square grave. After the reconciliation followed a banquet. Frequent and unpunished was the presumption of the officers toward the civilian officials, and brutal violence against the weak. Even the sensitiveness of officers for their honour, which then developed itself in the Prussian army, had no high moral authority; it was a very imperfect substitute for manly virtue, for it pardoned great vices and privileged meannesses. But it was an important step in advance for thousands of wild disorderly men.
Through it, was first brought forth in the Prussian army a devotion on the part of the nobles, perhaps too exclusive, to the idea of a State. It was first in the army of the Hohenzollerns that the idea penetrated into the minds of both officers and soldiers, that a man owed his life to his father-land. In no part of Germany have brave soldiers been wanting to die for their banner; but the merit of the Hohenzollerns, the rough, reckless leaders of a wild army, was, that while they themselves lived, worked and did good and evil for their State, with unbounded devotion, they also knew how to give to their army, besides respect for their flag, a patriotic feeling of duty. From the school of Frederic William I. sprang forth the army with which Frederic II. won his battles, which made the Prussian State of the last century the most terrible power in Europe, and by its blood and its victories excited in the whole nation the enthusiastic feeling that within the German frontiers was a fatherland, of which every individual might be proud, and to struggle and to die for which would bring the highest honour and the highest fame to every child of the country.
And this advance in German civilisation was contributed to, not only by the favoured men who, with gorgets and sashes, sat as comrades with the Colonel Frederic William on the stools of his "collegium," but also by the much tormented soldiers, who were constrained by blows to discharge their guns for their Sovereign's State.
But before speaking of the advantages of the government of a great King, we will give a narrative, by a Prussian recruit and deserter, of the sufferings occasioned by the old military system, in which the life of an insignificant individual is delineated.