It is curious to observe that the Austrian Succession War and the Seven Years’ War, the first great wars since Louis XIV., and which broke the Thirty Years’ Peace of the eighteenth century, are periods at which scientific military education made a great step in Europe. A Treatise of Marshal Count Beausobre’s on the subject first showed the existing want; it is entitled “Utilité d’une Ecole et d’une Académie Militaire, avec des Notes, ou l’on traite des Ecoles Militaires de l’Antiquité”. It attracted great attention on its appearance. Most of the military academies properly so called, date from about this time. The earliest warrant for Woolwich, dates in 1741. The Theresianum of Maria Theresa was begun at Vienna about 1748. The first French school was the celebrated engineer school of Mezières founded in 1749. This was soon followed by the old military school of Paris in 1751, and by the school for artillery at La Fère in 1756. Frederick’s own Ritter Academie dates from 1764.
Frederick began this institution with his usual energy, immediately on the close of the Seven Years’ War. “My fire is quenched,” he writes, “and I am now only busied in improving the practice of my men. * * * * The position of the common soldier may be left as it was before the war began, but the position of the officers is a point to which I am devoting my utmost care. In order in future to quicken their attention whilst on service, and to form their judgment, I have ordered them to receive instruction in the art of war, and they will be obliged to give reasons for all they do. Such a plan, as you will see, my dear friend, will not answer with every one; still out of the whole body we shall certainly form some men and officers, who will not merely have their patent as generals to show, (die nicht blos patentirte Generale vorstellen,) but some capacity for the office as well.” He had, in fact, seen with great admiration the improved military school recently founded by Maria Theresa; and as it is best on such points to let this great authority be heard for himself, we shall quote his own words:—
“In order to neglect nothing bearing on the state of the army, the Empress founded near Vienna, (at Wiener Neustadt,) a college where young nobles were instructed in the whole art of war. She drew to it distinguished professors of geometry, fortification, geography, and history, who formed there able pupils, and made it a complete nursery for the army. By means of her care, the military service attained in that country a degree of perfection which it had never reached under the Emperors of the House of Austria; and a woman thus carried out designs worthy of a great man.”
His letters show that he contemplated an improved school, and he says to D’Alembert: “I send you the rules of my academy. As the plan is new, I beg you to give me your honest opinion of it.” Accordingly, the academy was founded. We will describe it in his own words:—
“An academy was founded at the same time, in which were placed those of the cadets who showed most genius. The king himself drew up the rules for its form, and gave it a plan of instruction, which stated the objects of the studies of the pupils, and of the education they were to receive. Professors were chosen from the ablest men who could be found in Europe, and fifteen young gentlemen were educated under the eyes of five instructors. Their whole education tended to form their judgment. The academy was successful, and supplied able pupils, who received appointments in the army.”[4]
[This school], which was opened in 1765, was Frederick’s only foundation of the kind; he was occupied with it incessantly. The plan of its studies was drawn up by his own hand, and we have many of his letters of encouragement to its pupils or professors. Whether he is writing to Voltaire, Condorcet, or “My Lord Marischal” Keith, he constantly shows both his well-known attention to the economy of his new school, and a paternal interest in his young cadets and their teachers.[5]
Accordingly, both in professors and pupils, the new institution soon gained an European character. Out of its twenty first directors, no less than ten were distinguished foreigners; one of the best teachers at Berlin was D’Antoni, a distinguished soldier from the Turin institution and the artillery school at Alessandria—schools which were still the representatives of the military science of the great Italian generals, of the Duke of Parma, of Spinola, and Montecuculi.
This institution was still, as it would appear, upon the old principle of juvenile army schools, nor does Frederick seem to have set on foot any school for officers after entering the service. But he evidently felt strongly the need of improving his staff officers, and of raising the science of his artillery and engineers. Thus we find him referring to the French engineer school at Meziéres; and he endeavored to raise the intelligence and education of his officers. It may, however, be suspected that the spirit of the “Potsdamer Côterie,” as it was called, became gradually, and particularly after Frederick’s death, too literary and speculative to suit the rough work of war; and it may, perhaps, be thought that some defect of this kind is still traceable in the excessive amount of teaching and the abstract nature of some of the subjects taught in the staff school at Berlin.
Such seems to have been the opinion of Scharnhorst, the virtual author of the present system of army education, and whom the Prussians still regard as their first authority on that subject. “Instruction is given,” he says, “at the military school in all literature, in philosophy, and in many various sciences. Frederick seems to have wished to lay in it the foundation of the education at once of an officer and of a learned man. Few men, however, are able to excel at once in various branches of human knowledge, and the surest means to do so in one is not to attempt it in many.”