[The Prussian Landwehr or militia] is not of modern origin; in its form at least it is but a revival of the old feudal military organization, so far as that consisted of raising the country en masse, instead of keeping up a permanent, trained, and limited military force. Landwehr or Landsturm[2] was the old German name for this feudal array, before the system of standing armies was begun in Europe by Charles VII. of France, with his Scotch regiments. It was possibly the failure of the trained Prussian armies—long reputed the models of military discipline—in the attack upon France in 1792, and still more signally at Auerstadt and Jena, which partly led to the revival of the Landwehr as the peculiar national force of Prussia. The means by which Stein, and after his expulsion, Scharnhorst, called it into activity, was a master stroke of policy under the existing difficulties of the country. The following outline may be sufficient to explain its effects upon education.
The condition which Napoleon had exacted at Tilsit—a reduction of the standing army from 200,000 to 40,000 men—would have lowered Prussia at once to the rank of a second-rate power. It was adroitly evaded by the plan of keeping only 40,000 men in arms at one and the same time, disbanding these as soon as they were disciplined, and replacing them constantly by fresh bodies. Thus the whole population of the country was ready to rise in 1813, after the crisis of Napoleon’s retreat from Russia. The plan was chiefly due to the genius of Scharnhorst, whose early death deprived Prussia of her greatest scientific soldier. The Landwehr then proved itself a most efficient force, though its success was promoted by the national enthusiasm, which must prevent our taking such a period as a criterion of its permanent military working. Since that time it has continued to be the national army of the country.
We were assured that this peculiarity of the Prussian army system, by which almost every man in the country serves in his turn in the ranks, has had a tendency to improve the education of the officers. It seems to have been felt that the officers would not retain the respect of intelligent privates unless they kept ahead of them in education. And this impression appears to have been the cause of the royal edicts passed in 1816, by which it was required that every Prussian officer should pass two examinations before receiving his commission, one to test his general education, and the other his professional knowledge.
[II. HISTORICAL VIEW OF PRUSSIAN MILITARY EDUCATION.][3]
[The Prussian system] of military education stands in close connection with the general education of the country, just as the Prussian military organization is the peculiar creation of that country’s history. And the greatest improvements in the army and in its scientific teaching have been made at those remarkable periods when we should most naturally have looked for them—the time of Frederick the Great and the Liberation war of 1813-1814.
The leading principles of Prussian military education consist, first, in requiring from every officer in the army proof of a fair general education before his entrance, and of a fair military education afterwards. Secondly, they encourage a higher military education in a senior school, which has almost exclusively the privilege of supplying the staff.
In this requirement of a fair education, both general and military, universally from its officers, Prussia stands alone among the great military nations of Europe, and this honorable distinction is in a great measure the result of the diffused system of education throughout the country, and of the plan adopted by Stein and Scharnhorst, to make the officers the leaders of the army both in education and in military science.
[The military schools] of Germany may be said to have begun with the Reformation wars. Some such were founded by Maurice of Saxony, the great political and military genius of Germany in that century; the example was soon imitated in Baden, Silesia, and Brunswick, and a curious sketch of military education, by the hand of Duke Albert of Brandenburg, has been lately published from the Berlin archives, in which theology and mathematics hold the two most important places.
[The first school of any real importance] was founded in Colberg, by the great elector, Frederick William, in 1653. This had considerable success, and both his successors, King Frederick and Frederick William I., improved it greatly, and finally transferred it to Berlin. It was the time (about 1705, 1706,) of the great advance in military engineering under Vauban and Coehorn, and a school for engineering was founded, in which some of their pupils had a great share. The first Prussian trigonometrical survey also dates as early as 1702; that of England was not begun till 1784. It may indeed be said that the scientific arms began to take a more favorable place in the Prussian army about this time. They have held, and even still hold in some respects, a less distinguished position in Germany than in France, England, or Sardinia; and the first instance of an artilleryman being made a general, was in the reign of Frederick William I.
On Frederick the Great’s accession he found several military schools in existence. These had been chiefly founded by his eccentric father, who had a passion for Cadet Houses and cadets, and their object is said to have been to supply an education to the nobility, who at that time were very ill-taught in Germany. After Frederick’s first wars, his own attention was much occupied by the need of a better military education, and he continued to work at the subject very zealously till his death. His example on this point, as that of a great military authority, is most instructive, since his object was at first only to educate cadets before their entrance to the army, but was afterwards extended to completing the education of officers already on active service. His views on the last point were carried out by Scharnhorst. They were the germ of the present Prussian military education.