The German General Staff , originally the Prussian General Staff and officially the Great General Staff ( German : Großer Generalstab ), was a full-time body at the head of the Prussian Army and later, the German Army , responsible for the continuous study of all aspects of war , and for drawing up and reviewing plans for mobilization or campaign. It existed unofficially from 1806, and was formally established by law in 1814, the first general staff in existence. It was distinguished by the formal selection of its officers by intelligence and proven merit rather than patronage or wealth, and by the exhaustive and rigorously structured training which its staff officers undertook.
200-506: The Prussian General Staff also enjoyed greater freedom from political control than its contemporaries, and this autonomy was enshrined in law on the unification of Germany and the establishment of the German Empire in 1871. It came to be regarded as the home of German militarism in the aftermath of World War I , and the victorious Allies attempted to suppress the institution. It nevertheless survived to play its accustomed part in
400-692: A Europe balanced and guaranteed by four " great powers ": Great Britain, France, Russia, and Austria, with each power having a geographic sphere of influence. France's sphere included the Iberian Peninsula and a share of influence in the Italian states. Russia's included the eastern regions of Central Europe and a balancing influence in the Balkans. Austria's sphere expanded throughout much of the Central European territories formerly held by
600-634: A German client state of France known as the Confederation of the Rhine which, inter alia , provided for the mediatization of over a hundred petty princes and counts and the absorption of their territories, as well as those of hundreds of imperial knights , by the Confederation's member-states. Several states were promoted to kingdoms such as the Kingdom of Bavaria , the Kingdom of Saxony or
800-691: A German nation would stretch. There was also uncertainty as to who would best lead and defend "Germany", however it was defined. Different groups offered different solutions to this problem. In the Kleindeutschland ("Lesser Germany") solution, the German states would be united under the leadership of the Prussian Hohenzollerns ; in the Grossdeutschland ("Greater Germany") solution, the German states would be united under
1000-484: A Germany without multi-ethnic Austria (under Austria-Hungary ) or its German-speaking part , the political and administrative unification in 1871 at least temporarily solved the problem of dualism. Despite undergoing in the later years several further changes of its name and borders, overhauls of its constitutional system, periods of limited sovereignty and interrupted unity of its territory or government, and despite dissolution of its dominant founding federated state ,
1200-512: A Prussian customs union in 1818, the Zollverein linked the many Prussian and Hohenzollern territories. Over the ensuing thirty years (and more) other German states joined. The Union helped to reduce protectionist barriers between the German states, especially improving the transport of raw materials and finished goods, making it both easier to move goods across territorial borders and less costly to buy, transport, and sell raw materials. This
1400-666: A battlefield again in 1809 when Austria engaged France in the War of the Fifth Coalition . The treaty ended the war between Imperial Russia and the French Empire and began an alliance between the two empires that rendered the rest of continental Europe almost powerless. The two countries secretly agreed to aid each other in disputes. France pledged to aid Russia against the Ottoman Empire while Russia agreed to join
1600-504: A campaign in the German states to bring them back into the French orbit; the subsequent War of Liberation culminated in the great Battle of Leipzig , also known as the Battle of Nations . In October 1813, more than 500,000 combatants engaged in ferocious fighting over three days, making it the largest European land battle of the 19th century. The engagement resulted in a decisive victory for
1800-530: A choice of French or Russian. Roughly the same time allocations were used in the last two years. Lectures were supplemented by visits to fortifications, arms factories and exercises of the railway regiment. During the three month summer breaks the students attended manoeuvres and were taken on field tactical exercises in which they commanded imaginary units. At the end of the course they took their second examination. Only about thirty students passed this extremely difficult test. They were then assigned ( kommandiert ) to
2000-690: A common language. Schneckenburger wrote "The Watch on the Rhine" in a specific patriotic response to French assertions that the Rhine was France's "natural" eastern boundary. In the refrain, "Dear fatherland, dear fatherland, put your mind to rest / The watch stands true on the Rhine", and in such other patriotic poetry as Nicholaus Becker's "Das Rheinlied" ("The Rhine"), Germans were called upon to defend their territorial homeland. In 1807, Alexander von Humboldt argued that national character reflected geographic influence, linking landscape to people. Concurrent with this idea, movements to preserve old fortresses and historic sites emerged, and these particularly focused on
2200-496: A constitution and reach an agreement on the kleindeutsch solution. While the liberals failed to achieve the unification they sought, they did manage to gain a partial victory by working with the German princes on many constitutional issues and collaborating with them on reforms. Scholars of German history have engaged in decades of debate over how the successes and failures of the Frankfurt Parliament contribute to
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#17327661692862400-507: A general staff to plan and implement the reconstruction of the Prussian Army. They persuaded the king that to match the French commanders, who rose by merit, each Prussian commander of an Army, Corps and Division should have a staff-trained officer assigned as his adjutant. Scharnhorst intended them to "support incompetent Generals, providing the talents that might otherwise be wanting among leaders and commanders". The unlikely pairing of
2600-426: A geographically central organizing feature (such as a national capital), the rails were laid in webs, linking towns and markets within regions, regions within larger regions, and so on. As the rail network expanded, it became cheaper to transport goods: in 1840, 18 Pfennigs per ton per kilometer and in 1870, five Pfennigs . The effects of the railway were immediate. For example, raw materials could travel up and down
2800-611: A growing sense of unity among German speakers of Central Europe. At the Wartburg Festival in 1817 the first real movements among the students were formed – fraternities and student organizations emerged. The colors black, red and gold were symbolic of this. Agitation by student organizations led such conservative leaders as Klemens Wenzel, Prince von Metternich , to fear the rise of national sentiment. The assassination of German dramatist August von Kotzebue in March 1819 by
3000-485: A league or society of independent nations would be realized in his own lifetime. In practice Young Europe lacked the money and popular support for more than a short-term existence. Nevertheless he always remained faithful to the ideal of a united continent for which the creation of individual nations would be an indispensable preliminary. King Frederick William IV suffered a stroke in 1857 and could no longer rule. This led to his brother William becoming prince regent of
3200-546: A massive dictionary known as The Grimm , also assembled a compendium of folk tales and fables, which highlighted the story-telling parallels between different regions. Karl Baedeker wrote guidebooks to different cities and regions of Central Europe, indicating places to stay, sites to visit, and giving a short history of castles, battlefields, famous buildings, and famous people. His guides also included distances, roads to avoid, and hiking paths to follow. The words of August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben expressed not only
3400-544: A master plan to expand the North German Confederation of 1866 to include the remaining independent German states into a single entity or simply to expand the power of the Kingdom of Prussia. They conclude that factors in addition to the strength of Bismarck's Realpolitik led a collection of early modern polities to reorganize their political, economic, military, and diplomatic relationships in
3600-539: A multitude of invisible bonds by nature herself, long before any human art begins; they understand each other and have the power of continuing to make themselves understood more and more clearly; they belong together and are by nature one and an inseparable whole. A common language may have been seen to serve as the basis of a nation, but as contemporary historians of 19th-century Germany noted, it took more than linguistic similarity to unify these several hundred polities. The experience of German-speaking Central Europe during
3800-413: A new political, bureaucratic, or administrative apparatus. While many spoke about the need for a constitution, no such document appeared from the discussions. In 1848, nationalists sought to remedy that problem. Several other factors complicated the rise of nationalism in the German states. The man-made factors included political rivalries between members of the German confederation, particularly between
4000-455: A permanent national parliament, and a unified Germany, possibly under the leadership of the Prussian king. This seemed to be the most logical course since Prussia was the strongest of the German states, as well as the largest in geographic size. Meanwhile, center-right revolutionaries sought some kind of expanded suffrage within their states and potentially, a form of loose unification. Finally,
4200-839: A pivotal role in German politics. Ever since the Prince-Elector of Brandenburg had made himself King in Prussia at the beginning of that century, their domains had steadily increased through inheritance and war. Prussia's consolidated strength had become especially apparent during the Partitions of Poland , the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War under Frederick the Great . As Maria Theresa and Joseph tried to restore Habsburg hegemony in
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#17327661692864400-549: A population of 200,000 inhabitants. The following is a tabulation of the territorial and population losses that Prussia sustained, but not accounting for the Prussian acquisitions since 1772, under the terms of the Tilsit Treaties: The War of the Fourth Coalition was over. The Peninsular War began on 19 November 1807 and the War of the Fifth Coalition began in 1809. The Neman was crossed at
4600-472: A position chosen by us, and only when casualties, demoralization, and exhaustion have drained his strength will we ourselves take up the tactical offensive.... Our strategy must be offensive, our tactics defensive. The government of Napoleon III was undoubtedly startled by the Prussian victory over Austria, and urgently sought to reform their army to face the conflict with Prussia which seemed inevitable and imminent. Their senior officers entirely failed to grasp
4800-482: A radical student seeking unification was followed on 20 September 1819 by the proclamation of the Carlsbad Decrees , which hampered intellectual leadership of the nationalist movement. Metternich was able to harness conservative outrage at the assassination to consolidate legislation that would further limit the press and constrain the rising liberal and nationalist movements. Consequently, these decrees drove
5000-407: A senior general staff officer — the kaiser instructed his thirty-two-year-old son: "whatever he advises you must do". The system also removed uncertainty about the competence of Army Commanders Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria and Albrecht, Duke of Württemberg , though both were well-trained soldiers. Other armies were commanded by highly experienced staff officers, for example Paul von Hindenburg
5200-571: A small portion of the male population. Problematically, the built-in Austrian dominance failed to take into account Prussia's 18th-century emergence in Imperial politics. This impractical solution did not reflect the new status of Prussia in the overall scheme. Although the Prussian army had been dramatically defeated in the 1806 Battle of Jena-Auerstedt , it had made a spectacular comeback at Waterloo. Consequently, Prussian leaders expected to play
5400-539: A threat, Schlieffen and his successor Helmuth von Moltke the Younger drew up and continually refined the Schlieffen Plan to meet this eventuality. The Plan committed Germany to an early offensive against France while Russia was still mobilising and also required the invasion of neutral Belgium , effectively discounting any realistic prospect of maintaining British neutrality. In Bismarck's German constitution
5600-565: A truce on 25 June after the Grande Armée had captured Berlin and pursued him to the easternmost frontier of his realm. In Tilsit, Prussia ceded about half of its pre-war territories. From these territories, Napoleon had created French client states , which were formalized and recognized at Tilsit: the Kingdom of Westphalia , the Duchy of Warsaw and the Free City of Danzig ;
5800-450: Is often interpreted as a repudiation of the political process—a repudiation Bismarck did not himself advocate. Second, his emphasis on blood and iron did not imply simply the unrivaled military might of the Prussian army but rather two important aspects: the ability of the assorted German states to produce iron and other related war materials and the willingness to use those war materials if necessary. By 1862, when Bismarck made his speech,
6000-624: The Truppenamt ("troop office"), and selected many General Staff officers to fill the available places. The War Academy ( Kriegsakademie ) was abolished, but training of General Staff officers continued, dispersed among the Wehrkreise (Military District) headquarters but overseen by tutors from the Truppenamt . General Staff officers continued to play major roles in the nation, most strikingly when former chief of staff Paul von Hindenburg
6200-794: The Allies . Initially, the Army's leaders feared that their leading role as the defenders of Germany would be usurped by the unruly SA , the Nazi party's political militia. When Hitler suppressed the SA in the Night of the Long Knives , the army stood aside and effectually acquiesced in the extrajudicial murders involved, including those of army officers. While the General Staff welcomed Hitler's expansion of
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6400-605: The Austrian Empire 's sphere of influence. The Congress established a loose German Confederation (1815–1866), headed by Austria, with a "Federal Diet " (called the Bundestag or Bundesversammlung , an assembly of appointed leaders) that met in the city of Frankfurt am Main . Its borders resembled those of its predecessor, the Holy Roman Empire (though there were some deviations e.g. Prussian territory in
6600-575: The Burschenschaften underground, restricted the publication of nationalist materials, expanded censorship of the press and private correspondence, and limited academic speech by prohibiting university professors from encouraging nationalist discussion. The decrees were the subject of Johann Joseph von Görres 's pamphlet Teutschland [archaic: Deutschland] und die Revolution ( Germany and the Revolution ) (1820), in which he concluded that it
6800-586: The Coalition of Austria, Prussia, Russia, Saxony, and Sweden. As a result, the Confederation of the Rhine collapsed and the French period came to an end. Success encouraged the Coalition forces to pursue Napoleon across the Rhine; his army and his government collapsed, and the victorious Coalition incarcerated Napoleon on Elba . During the brief Napoleonic restoration known as the 100 Days of 1815, forces of
7000-533: The Congress of Vienna established a new European political-diplomatic system based on the balance of power . This system reorganized Europe into spheres of influence , which, in some cases, suppressed the aspirations of the various nationalities, including the Germans and Italians. Generally, an enlarged Prussia and the 38 other states consolidated from the mediatized territories of 1803 were confederated within
7200-692: The Congress of Vienna in 1814–1815 after the Napoleonic Wars endorsed Austrian dominance in Central Europe through Habsburg leadership of the German Confederation, designed to replace the Holy Roman Empire. The negotiators at Vienna took no account of Prussia's growing strength within and declined to create a second coalition of the German states under Prussia's influence, and so failed to foresee that Prussia (Kingdom of Prussia) would rise to challenge Austria for leadership of
7400-972: The Continental System against the British Empire . Napoleon also convinced Alexander to enter into the Anglo-Russian War and to instigate the Finnish War against Sweden to force Sweden to join the Continental System. More specifically, the Tsar agreed to evacuate Wallachia and Moldavia , which had been occupied by Russian forces as part of the Russo-Turkish War, 1806-1812 . The Ionian Islands and Cattaro ( Kotor ), which had been captured by Russian admirals Ushakov and Senyavin , were to be handed over to
7600-563: The Electorate of Bavaria , the Margraviate of Brandenburg or the Kingdom of Bohemia . Their governance varied: they included free imperial cities , also of different sizes, such as the powerful Augsburg and the minuscule Weil der Stadt ; ecclesiastical territories, also of varying sizes and influence, such as the wealthy Abbey of Reichenau and the powerful Archbishopric of Cologne ; and dynastic states such as Württemberg . Among
7800-736: The First Battle of the Marne . Soon Moltke was replaced by Erich von Falkenhayn who was already the Prussian war minister. After failing to dislodge the Entente in Flanders, he put the Western Front on the defensive. He was replaced at the war ministry in early 1915, and in 1916 Hindenburg and Ludendorff took over as advisers to the supreme commander. They led OHL in aggressively intervening in German political and economic life , changing
8000-612: The First Sino-Japanese War . The General Staff was divided between the central Großer Generalstab in Berlin and the general staffs of the corps and division HQs. The head of the Großer Generalstab was the "Chief of the General Staff" and was also the technical superior of all general staff officers. The Chief of the General Staff's chief deputy held the title of Generalquartiermeister . Beneath them were
8200-549: The Frankfurt Parliament passed the Paulskirchenverfassung (Constitution of St. Paul's Church) and offered the title of Kaiser (Emperor) to the Prussian king Frederick William IV the next month. He refused for a variety of reasons. Publicly, he replied that he could not accept a crown without the consent of the actual states, by which he meant the princes. Privately, he feared opposition from
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8400-456: The German Empire later regarded the railways as the first indicator of a unified state; the patriotic novelist, Wilhelm Raabe , wrote: "The German empire was founded with the construction of the first railway..." Not everyone greeted the iron monster with enthusiasm. The Prussian king Frederick William III saw no advantage in traveling from Berlin to Potsdam a few hours faster, and Metternich refused to ride in one at all. Others wondered if
8600-507: The German Reich having 25 member states and led by the Kingdom of Prussia of Hohenzollerns on 18 January 1871; the event was later celebrated as the customary date of the German Empire 's foundation, although the legally meaningful events relevant to the accomplishment of unification occurred on 1 January 1871 ( accession of South German states and constitutional adoption of the name "German Empire" ), 4 May 1871 (entry into force of
8800-668: The German rearmament and World War II . In a broader sense, the Prussian General Staff corps consisted of those officers qualified to perform staff duties, and formed a unique military fraternity. Their exhaustive training was designed not only to weed out the less motivated or less able candidates, but also to produce a body of professional military experts with common methods and outlook. General Staff–qualified officers alternated between line and staff duties but remained lifelong members of this special organization. Until
9000-494: The Great Irish Famine ) and several seasons of bad weather, encouraged many to think that the rich and powerful had no interest in their problems. Those in authority were concerned about the growing unrest, political and social agitation among the working classes, and the disaffection of the intelligentsia . No amount of censorship, fines, imprisonment, or banishment, it seemed, could stem the criticism. Furthermore, it
9200-676: The Hohenzollern Kingdom of Prussia (both the German-speaking former Duchy of Prussia and the non-German-speaking entire territory of the Prussian partition of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) as well as the German-speaking Swiss cantons were outside of the Imperial borders. This became known as the practice of Kleinstaaterei ("small-statery") As a further consequence, there was no German national identity in development as late as 1800, mainly due to
9400-473: The Holy Roman Empire . Britain's sphere was the rest of the world, especially the seas. This sphere of influence system depended upon the fragmentation of the German and Italian states, not their consolidation. Consequently, a German nation united under one banner presented significant questions. There was no readily applicable definition for who the German people would be or how far the borders of
9600-641: The Kingdom of Hanover . Following the formal secession from the Empire of the majority of its constituent states, the Emperor dissolved the Holy Roman Empire. In his abdication, Francis released all former estates from their duties and obligations to him, and took upon himself solely the title of Emperor of Austria, which had been established since 1804. Under the hegemony of the First French Empire (1804–1814), popular German nationalism thrived in
9800-531: The Kotzebue assassination, Metternich used the popular demonstration at Hambach to push conservative social policy. The "Six Articles" of 28 June 1832 primarily reaffirmed the principle of monarchical authority. On 5 July, the Frankfurt Diet voted for an additional 10 articles, which reiterated existing rules on censorship, restricted political organizations, and limited other public activity. Furthermore,
10000-715: The North German Confederation Treaty establishing the North German Confederation , initially a military alliance de facto dominated by Prussia which was subsequently deepened through adoption of the North German Constitution . The process symbolically concluded when most of south German states joined the North German Confederation with the ceremonial proclamation of the German Empire i.e.
10200-464: The Punctation of Olmütz , but among Prussians it was known as the "Humiliation of Olmütz." Although seemingly minor events, the Erfurt Union proposal and the Punctation of Olmütz brought the problems of influence in the German states into sharp focus. The question became not a matter of if but rather when unification would occur, and when was contingent upon strength. One of the former Frankfurt Parliament members, Johann Gustav Droysen , summed up
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#173276616928610400-405: The Ruhr Valley without having to unload and reload. Railway lines encouraged economic activity by creating demand for commodities and by facilitating commerce. In 1850, inland shipping carried three times more freight than railroads; by 1870, the situation was reversed, and railroads carried four times more. Rail travel changed how cities looked and how people traveled. Its impact reached throughout
10600-457: The Second War of Schleswig in 1864. Second, the unification of Italy provided Prussia an ally against Austria in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. Finally, France—fearing Hohenzollern encirclement—declared war on Prussia in 1870, resulting in the Franco-Prussian War . Through a combination of Bismarck's diplomacy and political leadership, von Roon 's military reorganization, and von Moltke 's military strategy, Prussia demonstrated that none of
10800-420: The Seventh Coalition , including an Anglo-Allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellington and a Prussian army under the command of Gebhard von Blücher , were victorious at Waterloo (18 June 1815). The critical role played by Blücher's troops, especially after having to retreat from the field at Ligny the day before, helped to turn the tide of combat against the French. The Prussian cavalry pursued
11000-441: The Sonderweg analysis helpful in understanding the period of National Socialism . After the Frankfurt Parliament disbanded, Frederick William IV, under the influence of General Joseph Maria von Radowitz , supported the establishment of the Erfurt Union —a federation of German states, excluding Austria—by the free agreement of the German princes. This limited union under Prussia would have almost eliminated Austrian influence on
11200-408: The "General Staff of the Field Army", part of the Oberste Heeresleitung (OHL, Supreme Army Command). The General Staff was streamlined into only three departments; Operations, Intelligence and Political Affairs. The need for the system was promptly demonstrated when Supreme Commander Kaiser Wilhelm II proposed to concentrate against Russia, not France. Chief of the General Staff Helmuth von Moltke
11400-441: The "failure" of 1848 reaffirmed latent aristocratic longings among the German middle class; consequently, this group never developed a self-conscious program of modernization. More recent scholarship has rejected this idea, claiming that Germany did not have an actual "distinctive path" any more than any other nation, a historiographic idea known as exceptionalism . Instead, modern historians claim 1848 saw specific achievements by
11600-489: The 15th century, with few exceptions, the Empire's Prince-electors had chosen successive heads of the House of Habsburg from the Duchy of Austria to hold the title of Holy Roman Emperor . Although they initially sought to restore central Imperial power, preserving a weak and fragmented Empire was convenient for France and Sweden, and therefore, their ensuing intervention led to the Peace of Westphalia which effectively thwarted for centuries any serious attempts to reinforce
11800-465: The 19th century. The period of Austrian and Prussian police-states and vast censorship between the Congress of Vienna and the Revolutions of 1848 in Germany later became widely known as the Vormärz ("before March"), referring to March 1848. During this period, European liberalism gained momentum; the agenda included economic, social, and political issues. Most European liberals in the Vormärz sought unification under nationalist principles, promoted
12000-412: The 19th century. Reaction to Danish and French nationalism provided for expressions of German unity. Military successes—especially those of Prussia—in three regional wars generated enthusiasm and pride that politicians could harness to promote unification. This experience echoed the memory of mutual accomplishment in the Napoleonic Wars, particularly in the War of Liberation of 1813–1814. By establishing
12200-404: The Allies. The victors' fear was encapsulated by the clause in the Treaty of Versailles : "The Great German General Staff and all similar organisations shall be dissolved and may not be reconstituted in any form." The German Army was limited to 4,000 officers. The Weimar Republic ' s armed forces, the Reichswehr , was led by Hans von Seeckt . He camouflaged the General Staff by renaming it
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#173276616928612400-411: The Army declined, even though they were assisted by a Quartermaster General Staff of adjutants and engineers established by Frederick the Great. Reformers in the army began to write and lecture on the need to preserve and somehow institutionalize the military talent that Frederick had assembled in his army. They argued that a carefully assembled cadre of talented officer staff could plan logistics and train
12600-400: The Army in peace as well as in war. In the last years of the eighteenth century, it became the practice to assign military experts to assist the generals of Prussia's Army, largely at the instigation of comparatively junior but gifted officers such as Gerhard von Scharnhorst and August von Gneisenau . Nevertheless, such measures were insufficient to overcome the inefficiency of the Army, which
12800-412: The Army of the Second French Empire , whose senior officers had supposedly reached high rank as a result of bravery and success on the battlefield, was crushed by the Prussian and other German armies during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870–1871. That outcome highlighted poor French administration and planning, and lack of professional education. The chief of staff of a Prussian formation in the field had
13000-452: The Austrians and the Prussians, and socio-economic competition among the commercial and merchant interests, and the old land-owning and aristocratic interests. Natural factors included widespread drought in the early 1830s, and again in the 1840s, and a food crisis in the 1840s. Further complications emerged as a result of a shift in industrialization and manufacturing; as people sought jobs, they left their villages and small towns to work during
13200-434: The Austrians, the General Staff made several improvements to increase the strategic and tactical proficiency of the King's army. Cavalry would no longer be held in reserve, but would actively screen the army's movements at all levels, make first contact with the enemy, and constantly observe hostile activities. Newly developed rifled artillery would no longer be placed in the rear of the order of march for employment behind
13400-429: The Central European economy. The invasion of Russia included nearly 125,000 troops from German lands, and the loss of that army encouraged many Germans, both high- and low-born, to envision a Central Europe free of Napoleon's influence. The creation of student militias such as the Lützow Free Corps exemplified this tendency. The debacle in Russia loosened the French grip on the German princes. In 1813, Napoleon mounted
13600-402: The Confederation was extended to include also the formerly Polish territories of the Lauenburg and Bütow Land and the former Starostwo of Draheim , while Austrian part was extended to include in the years 1818–1850 also the formerly Polish territories of the Duchy of Oświęcim and the Duchy of Zator ), meaning that large portions of both Prussia and Austria were left outside. In recognition of
13800-399: The Danes falling back behind water obstacles which the Prussian Navy could not overcome. A rigid system of seniority placed Friedrich Graf von Wrangel , widely regarded as being in his dotage, in command. He ignored all of Moltke's directives and his own staff's advice, and by allowing the Danish Army to withdraw at its leisure he prolonged the war for several months. The resulting post mortem
14000-503: The European signatories of the 1815 peace treaty could guarantee Austria's sphere of influence in Central Europe, thus achieving Prussian hegemony in Germany and ending the dualism debate. Treaties of Tilsit The Treaties of Tilsit ( French : Traités de Tilsit ), also collectively known as the Peace of Tilsit ( German : Friede von Tilsit ; Russian : Тильзитский мир , romanized : Tilzitski mir ), were two peace treaties signed by French Emperor Napoleon in
14200-524: The French army having lost 100,000 stragglers before a shot was fired through poor planning and administration. (Most of these were reservists who had not been able to join their units before the units were hastily dispatched to join the armies forming up near the frontier.) During the war, there were again the inevitable mistakes due to the "fog of war", but German formations moved with a speed and precision which French staff officers, accustomed only to moving battalion-sized punitive columns, could not match. In
14400-408: The French army of the time, there was an anti-intellectual prejudice in favour of brave and unimaginative regimental officers over intelligent and well-trained staff officers. The French Army paid dearly for this bias in 1870 and 1871. The result of the strategic preparation by Moltke (and diplomatic maneuvers by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck ) was complete Prussian victory. After the victory, Germany
14600-573: The French while committing the majority of German forces to face Russia. Changing geopolitical factors around the turn of the century, including the establishment of vast European colonial empires and especially the rapprochement between the United Kingdom and France eventually led the German General Staff to reassess the wisdom of such a strategy. Whereas Moltke and his immediate successor Alfred von Waldersee were confident in
14800-451: The French. In recompense, Napoleon guaranteed the sovereignty of the Duchy of Oldenburg and several other small states ruled by the Tsar's German relatives. The treaty with Prussia stripped the country of about half its territory: Cottbus passed to Saxony , the left bank of the Elbe was awarded to the newly created Kingdom of Westphalia , Białystok was given to Russia (which led to
15000-466: The General Staff and a Historical division, which analysed past and current conflicts and published accounts of them and lessons learned. The General Staff reformed by Moltke was the most effective in Europe, an autonomous institution dedicated solely to the efficient execution of war, unlike in other countries, whose staffs were often fettered by meddling courtiers, parliaments and government officials. On
15200-753: The General Staff"). When the General Staff was required to take the field during major campaigns, it remained a small but effective body. During the Franco-Prussian War for example, the staff that accompanied the headquarters of the King (as commander-in-chief) and was responsible for the direction of armies that totaled 850,000 men, consisted of the chief of staff, a quartermaster-general and an intendant-general whose duties were not directly concerned with military operations, three heads of departments, eleven other officers, ten draughtsmen, seven clerks and fifty-nine other ranks (orderlies, messengers, etc.). Nor
15400-538: The German nationalism of the 1830s and the French nationalism of the July Revolution : the focus of German nationalism lay in the education of the people; once the populace was educated as to what was needed, they would accomplish it. The Hambach rhetoric emphasized the overall peaceable nature of German nationalism: the point was not to build barricades, a very "French" form of nationalism, but to build emotional bridges between groups. As he had done in 1819, after
15600-505: The German peoples. This German dualism presented two solutions to the problem of unification : Kleindeutsche Lösung , the small Germany solution (Germany without Austria), or Großdeutsche Lösung , the greater Germany solution (Germany with Austria or its German-speaking part), ultimately settled in favor of the former solution in the Peace of Prague . Historians debate whether Otto von Bismarck — Minister President of Prussia —had
15800-842: The German states. In this context, one can detect its roots in the experience of Germans in the Napoleonic period. Furthermore, implicit and sometimes explicit promises made during the German Campaign of 1813 engendered an expectation of popular sovereignty and widespread participation in the political process, promises that largely went unfulfilled once peace had been achieved. Despite considerable conservative reaction, ideas of unity joined with notions of popular sovereignty in German-speaking lands. The Burschenschaft student organizations and popular demonstrations, such as those held at Wartburg Castle in October 1817, contributed to
16000-426: The German-speaking states, the Holy Roman Empire's administrative and legal mechanisms provided a venue to resolve disputes between peasants and landlords, between jurisdictions, and within jurisdictions. Through the organization of imperial circles ( Reichskreise ), groups of states consolidated resources and promoted regional and organizational interests, including economic cooperation and military protection. Since
16200-475: The Great General Staff, while retaining their regimental attachments. After two years they took their third and final examination, after which five to eight officers were permanently posted to fill vacancies in the General Staff — a remarkable winnowing from the many who had entered the competition. Occasionally, an exceptional officer was appointed without this training: for example Max Bauer , who
16400-541: The High Command (today 'For the commander') according to our old custom. The commander always issues his orders through his Chief of Staff, and even the most senior subordinate leader must submit himself to his orders without objection, because his orders will always be given on behalf of the supreme commander. The Schlieffen Plan was scuttled when the shaken Moltke ordered the German right wing in France to retire during
16600-647: The Holy Roman Empire by the First French Empire in the War of the Second Coalition (1798–1802) resulted in crushing the Empire and allied forces by Napoleon Bonaparte . The treaties of Lunéville (1801) and the Mediatization of 1803 secularized the ecclesiastical principalities and abolished most free imperial cities and these territories along with their inhabitants were absorbed by dynastic states. This transfer particularly enhanced
16800-568: The Holy Roman Empire, Frederick countered with the creation of the Fürstenbund (Union of Princes) in 1785. Austrian-Prussian dualism lay firmly rooted in old Imperial politics. Those balance of power manoeuvers were epitomized by the War of the Bavarian Succession , or " Potato War " among common folk. Even after the end of the Holy Roman Empire, this competition influenced the growth and development of nationalist movements in
17000-523: The Imperial German General Staff, with seconded general staff officers from Saxony , Württemberg and Bavaria , and was responsible for military planning for the German Empire. They began preparing for what seemed to be another inevitable war with France, which was intent on revenge and recovery of the provinces annexed by Germany. Bismarck's diplomatic skill had prevented any hostile European coalition forming against Germany, but
17200-574: The Kaiser commanded the army and also appointed the chancellor and his cabinet, who had no control of the military. The elected representatives in the Reichstag were needed to pass budgets, but aside from this had no power over the conduct of the government. This was one of the seeds of the mass destruction of the First World War, as military planning was not subject to political control. Thus,
17400-511: The Kingdom of Prussia in 1858. Meanwhile, Helmuth von Moltke had become chief of the Prussian General Staff in 1857, and Albrecht von Roon would become Prussian Minister of War in 1859. This shuffling of authority within the Prussian military establishment would have important consequences. Von Roon and William (who took an active interest in military structures) began reorganizing the Prussian army, while Moltke redesigned
17600-587: The Neman river and invaded Russia , ending any vestige of alliance. The Prussian state was diminished by more than half under the terms of the Treaties of Tilsit, from 5,700 square miles to 2,800 square miles. Compared to the 9.75 million inhabitants Prussia had prior to the Treaties of Tilsit, no more than 4.5 million inhabitants remained within the new boundaries of the Prussian state. The state revenue , which formerly amounted to forty million dollars per year,
17800-548: The Polish majority living in the share of Polish territory annexed by Prussia pursued their own liberation agenda . Their pressure resulted in a variety of elections, based on different voting qualifications, such as the Prussian three-class franchise , which weighted votes based on the amount of taxes paid and therefore gave some electoral groups—chiefly the wealthier, landed ones—greater representative power. On 27 March 1849,
18000-489: The Prussian Army was to gain against Austrian Empire and France , Moltke needed only to issue brief directives expressing his intentions to the main formations, leaving the staffs at the subordinate headquarters to implement the details according to the doctrines and methods he had laid down, while the Supreme Commands of his opponents became bogged down in mountains of paperwork and trivia as they tried to control
18200-697: The Prussian War Ministry, already made out to cover all foreseeable contingencies and requiring only a signature and a date stamp to be put into effect. The Military Reorganization Commission opened military schools in Königsberg and Breslau. On 15 October 1810 Scharnhorst opened the General War School ( Allgemeine Kriegsschule ) , on the same day that the new University of Berlin opened nearby. The General War School trained selected officers for three years. One of its first directors
18400-614: The Prussian army now favored the Jominian theory, which gave preeminence to the Army and to its autonomy, compared to the civilian control advocated by Clausewitz . To an extent, the General Staff became obsessed with perfecting the methods which had gained victory in the late nineteenth century. Although he maintained an icy formal demeanor, Moltke the Elder had been a flexible and innovative thinker in many fields. Schlieffen, by comparison,
18600-541: The Prussian monarchy is now wholly German, while that of Austria cannot be. Unification under these conditions raised a basic diplomatic problem. The possibility of German (or Italian ) unification would overturn the overlapping spheres of influence system created in 1815 at the Congress of Vienna. The principal architects of this convention, Metternich , Castlereagh , and Tsar Alexander (with his foreign secretary Count Karl Nesselrode ), had conceived of and organized
18800-510: The Rhine had been removed by Napoleon's orders, but by the 1820s, steam engines freed riverboats from the cumbersome system of men and animals that towed them upstream. By 1846, 180 steamers plied German rivers and Lake Constance , and a network of canals extended from the Danube , the Weser , and the Elbe rivers. As important as these improvements were, they could not compete with the impact of
19000-603: The Rhineland, the site of so many confrontations with France and Spain. The widespread—mainly German— revolutions of 1848–49 sought unification of Germany under a single constitution. The revolutionaries pressured various state governments, particularly those in the Rhineland , for a parliamentary assembly that would have the responsibility to draft a constitution. Ultimately, many of the left-wing revolutionaries hoped this constitution would establish universal male suffrage ,
19200-563: The Schlieffen Plan was adopted without political input, even though it required the violation of the neutrality of Belgium, which the Germans had guaranteed by treaty. Nor was the German Navy's high command informed. It failed to take adequate account of logistics and the inability of horse-drawn transport to supply troops far from rail-heads. The plan has been accused of being too rigid. The philosopher Manuel de Landa argues that
19400-494: The Seven Weeks' War of 1866. Many nations adopted Prussian staff methods and structures, with mixed success. Throughout his tenure, Moltke pushed for the Prussian army to engage in reassessment and self-improvement at every command level to maintain tactical superiority relative to other nations. Moltke formalised the concept of mission-type tactics , which emphasized the importance of initiative at all levels of command, even
19600-653: The War Academy attended about 20 hours of lectures per week. Instruction was by professors from Berlin University and officers serving on the Great General Staff, who thereby enhanced their own educations. In 1872 the War Academy was taken from the Inspector of Military Education and placed under the Chief of the General Staff. The spirit of the academy was articulated by Chief of Staff Helmuth von Moltke, who emphasized
19800-701: The Wartburg rally in 1817 and the Hambach Festival in 1832 had lacked any clear-cut program of unification. At Hambach, the positions of the many speakers illustrated their disparate agendas. Held together only by the idea of unification, their notions of how to achieve this did not include specific plans but instead rested on the nebulous idea that the Volk (the people), if properly educated, would bring about unification on their own. Grand speeches, flags, exuberant students, and picnic lunches did not translate into
20000-555: The Younger and Generalquartiermeister, Hermann von Stein convinced him that this was unthinkable because the thousands of orders could not be quickly rewritten and because the French with their quicker mobilization and excellent railways would be attacking a German border in force long before the Russians. One of the eight German Armies was commanded by Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia , paired with Konstantin Schmidt von Knobelsdorf ,
20200-509: The ability of a relatively modest German garrison to defend the country's western frontier against the forces of Metropolitan France indefinitely, the General Staff under Alfred von Schlieffen determined that British neutrality in a future conflict could no longer be counted on, thus exposing Germany to the potential combined might of the British, French and their vast colonial empires in the west in case of any extended conflict. To meet such
20400-399: The academy he was invited into the social circle of Prince Alexander of Prussia, where he came "in touch with men of science as well as those in the state and court service. After its defeat in the war against Prussia of 1866, Bavaria established its own War Academy and continued to train its own staff officers after the foundation of the German Empire in 1870. The General Staff of that time
20600-524: The army, they were opposed to many of his wilder schemes and continually urged caution. When several of Hitler's early moves such as the remilitarization of the Rhineland , the Anschluss with Austria and the occupation of the Sudetenland succeeded despite advice from the General Staff that these might bring about a premature war with France and Britain, Hitler was further convinced that his intuition
20800-685: The attacking units. The German Army had tactical success during the Spring Offensive , but the Allies held strategic points. They were sure that a series of successful breakthroughs would snap their enemy's resolve, ignoring the fact that each victory sapped German strength, while their foes were continually strengthened by Americans flooding into France. The Germans were overwhelmed during the Hundred Days Offensive , and eventually agreed to an Armistice of 11 November 1918 with
21000-633: The battlefield, Moltke's pre-war calculations were proved correct, and the Austrian army was brought to battle at Königgrätz and destroyed. In contrast to the Prussian staff, Austrian staff officers gained their posts either by membership of the Austrian nobility and a desire to avoid tedious regimental duties, or after uninspiring training which made them into plodding, rule-bound clerks. In all aspects of preparation, planning and execution, their muddled efforts compared badly with that of their Prussian counterparts. In reviewing Prussian deficiencies against
21200-439: The battlefield, reducing the " fog of war " effect. Finally, the introduction of the breech-loading infantry rifle marked a revolution in weapons effect, so that Moltke made the following analysis in 1865: The attack of a position is becoming notably more difficult than its defense. The defensive during the first phase of battle offers a decisive superiority. The task of a skillful offensive will consist of forcing our foe to attack
21400-402: The circumstances to create a war, rather than a grand scheme to unify a nation-state. Regardless of motivation, by manipulating events of 1866 and 1870, Bismarck demonstrated the political and diplomatic skill that had caused Wilhelm to turn to him in 1862. Three episodes proved fundamental to the unification of Germany. First, the death without male heirs of Frederick VII of Denmark led to
21600-459: The commander until he makes a decision. Gneisenau also founded mission tactics ( Auftragstaktik ), in which the commander determines the objective of an operation and allocates the forces used, while the subordinate on the spot determines how the objective will be attained. In 1816, the reformer Karl von Grolman organised the Staff into Eastern (Russia), Southern (Austria), and Western (France and
21800-535: The contrary, the General Staff itself had a powerful effect on Prussian, and later German, politics. The Second Schleswig War (1864), the political origins of which lay in Denmark 's conflict with Prussia and Austria over the Schleswig–Holstein question , vindicated Moltke's concepts of operations and led to an overhaul of the command arrangements of the Prussian Army. Moltke envisaged a rapid attack to prevent
22000-523: The creation of the Belostok Oblast ), and most of the Polish lands in Prussian possession since the Second and Third Partitions became the quasi-independent Duchy of Warsaw . Prussia was to reduce the army to 43,000 and on 9 March 1808, France fixed its tribute to be levied from Prussia at 154,500,000 francs (= Prussian dollar 41.73 mio.), deducting 53,500,000, which had been raised so far during
22200-549: The crisis in favor of the war minister. The Crimean War of 1854–55 and the Italian War of 1859 disrupted relations among Great Britain, France, Austria, and Russia. In the aftermath of this disarray, the convergence of von Moltke's operational redesign, von Roon and Wilhelm's army restructure, and Bismarck's diplomacy influenced the realignment of the European balance of power. Their combined agendas established Prussia as
22400-585: The debts in 1818 by a £5 million loan (= thaler 30 million) at 5% at the London financial market, the Prussian government had to accept a disagio of 28⅓%, thus paying an annual effective rate of 6.98%. When the Treaty was being formulated, it was noted by an observer that the Prussian king was pacing on the bank of the Neman river; Napoleon had to "but raise his hand, and Prussia would cease to exist" (McKay). Hence, many observers in Prussia and Russia viewed
22600-473: The defeated French in the evening of 18 June, sealing the allied victory. From the German perspective, the actions of Blücher's troops at Waterloo, and the combined efforts at Leipzig, offered a rallying point of pride and enthusiasm. This interpretation became a key building block of the Borussian myth expounded by the pro-Prussian nationalist historians later in the 19th century. After Napoleon's defeat,
22800-549: The early 19th century, German roads had deteriorated to an appalling extent. Travelers, both foreign and local, complained bitterly about the state of the Heerstraßen , the military roads previously maintained for the ease of moving troops. As German states ceased to be a military crossroads, however, the roads improved; the length of hard–surfaced roads in Prussia increased from 3,800 kilometers (2,400 mi) in 1816 to 16,600 kilometers (10,300 mi) in 1852, helped in part by
23000-593: The early 9th century AD, large parts of Europe had been united under the rule of the Frankish leader Charlemagne , who expanded the Frankish Empire (Francia) in several directions including east of the Rhine, where he conquered Saxons and Frisians . A confederated realm of German princedoms , along with some adjacent lands, had been in existence for over a thousand years; dating to the Treaty of Verdun i.e.
23200-401: The end of the German Empire , social and political convention often placed members of noble or royal households in command of its armies or corps but the actual responsibility for the planning and conduct of operations lay with the formation's staff officers. For other European armies which lacked this professionally trained staff corps, the same conventions were often a recipe for disaster. Even
23400-564: The entire army from a single overworked headquarters. Moltke's wide experience also prompted the General Staff to consider fields of study outside the purely military, and rapidly adapt them to military use. Immediately upon his appointment, he established the Abteilung (section or department) which studied and promoted the development of railway networks within Prussia and incorporated them into its deployment plans. He also formed telegraphic, and other scientific and technical departments within
23600-513: The erratic but popular Field Marshal Blücher as commander in chief with Lieutenant General Gneisenau as his chief of staff showed this system to its best advantage: Blücher lauded Gneisenau for his role in maneuvering the Prussian Army during a difficult retreat through the Harz mountains. Gneisenau is recognized as the first "great Chief of Staff". He institutionalized the right of the commander's adviser to take part in command and control by advising
23800-483: The essays did not know the names or regiments of the candidates. From hundreds of applicants, about one hundred were accepted every year to enter the first-year course at the academy. Those who performed satisfactorily were promoted to the second and then the third year. In the first year, fourteen hours of lectures each week were on military subjects, including military history, while seventeen hours were non-military, which included general history, mathematics, science and
24000-567: The establishment of East Francia from eastern Frankish Empire in east of the Rhine in 843, especially when the Ottonian dynasty took power to rule East Francia in 919. The realm later in 962 made up the core of the Holy Roman Empire , which at times included more than 1,000 entities and was called the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" from 1512 with the Diet of Cologne (new title
24200-465: The field) under Moltke himself, and war games and map exercises known as Kriegsspiele . Although these officers subsequently alternated between regimental and staff duties, they could be relied upon to think and act exactly as Moltke had taught them when they became the Chiefs of Staff of major formations. Moltke himself referred to them as the "nervous system" of the Prussian Army. In the victories which
24400-615: The five Oberquartiermeisters , who supervised the heads of the General Staff departments. The Railroad Department had the largest number of officers assigned, while the Second Department was the most important. In August 1914, following the pre-war mobilization plan, most of the General Staff, including the Oberquartiermeisters , were reassigned to the headquarters of the Armies and Corps. The remaining core became
24600-406: The highly autonomous or semi-independent nature of the princely states; most inhabitants of the Holy Roman Empire , outside of those ruled by the emperor directly, identified themselves mainly with their prince rather than with the Empire or the nation as a whole. However, by the 19th century, transportation and communications improvements started to bring these regions closer together. Invasion of
24800-532: The historiographical explanations of German nation building. One school of thought, which emerged after The Great War and gained momentum in the aftermath of World War II , maintains that the failure of German liberals in the Frankfurt Parliament led to bourgeoisie compromise with conservatives (especially the conservative Junker landholders), which subsequently led to the so-called Sonderweg (distinctive path) of 20th-century German history. Failure to achieve unification in 1848, this argument holds, resulted in
25000-473: The idea of a German nation-state in the peaceful spirit of Pan-Germanism had shifted from the liberal and democratic character of 1848 to accommodate Bismarck's more conservative Realpolitik . Bismarck sought to link a unified state to the Hohenzollern dynasty, which for some historians remains one of Bismarck's primary contributions to the creation of the German Empire in 1871. While the conditions of
25200-575: The imperial central authority and petrified fragmentation, resulting in the German-speaking territories comprising on the eve of the Napoleonic Wars still more than 300 political entities, most of them being parts of the Holy Roman Empire , though portions of the extensive Habsburg Monarchy (exclusively its large non-German-speaking territories: Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen and the Austrian partition of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) or of
25400-543: The imperial position traditionally held by the Habsburgs, the emperors of Austria became the titular presidents of this parliament. Despite the nomenclature of Diet (Assembly or Parliament), this institution should in no way be construed as a broadly, or popularly, elected group of representatives. Many of the states did not have constitutions, and those that did, such as the Duchy of Baden , based suffrage on strict property requirements which effectively limited suffrage to
25600-481: The importance "of an active process of mental give and take between teacher and pupils, so as to stimulate the pupils to become fellow-workers". Admission to the academy was highly selective. Officers with at least five years service who wanted to become General Staff officers prepared themselves for the entrance examination, which included tactics, surveying, geography, mathematics and French, with questions set to test understanding rather than rote memory. The graders of
25800-693: The importance of tradition, education, and linguistic unity. Economically, the creation of the Prussian Zollverein (customs union) in 1818, and its subsequent expansion to include other states of the Austria (under Austrian Empire )-led German Confederation , reduced competition between and within states. Emerging modes of transportation facilitated business and recreational travel, leading to contact and sometimes conflict between and among German-speakers from throughout Central Europe . The model of diplomatic spheres of influence resulting from
26000-484: The infantry; instead, a significant detachment would travel with the advanced guard of the leading corps or other major element, and the remainder would march with the front of the main body, providing immediate artillery coverage of the advanced guard on contact and of the main body during subsequent deployment on the field. A renewed emphasis was placed on maintaining contact with subordinate and superior commands, so that commanders always were informed of units' locations on
26200-485: The invention of macadam . By 1835, Heinrich von Gagern wrote that roads were the "veins and arteries of the body politic..." and predicted that they would promote freedom, independence and prosperity. As people moved around, they came into contact with others, on trains, at hotels, in restaurants, and for some, at fashionable resorts such as the spa in Baden-Baden . Water transportation also improved. The blockades on
26400-418: The late formation of the nation-state in 1871, which in turn delayed the development of positive national values. Hitler often called on the German public to sacrifice all for the cause of their great nation, but his regime did not create German nationalism: it merely capitalized on an intrinsic cultural value of German society that still remains prevalent even to this day. Furthermore, this argument maintains,
26600-520: The leadership of the Austrian Habsburgs . This controversy, the latest phase of the German dualism debate that had dominated the politics of the German states and Austro-Prussian diplomacy since the 1701 creation of the Kingdom of Prussia , would come to a head during the following twenty years. Other nationalists had high hopes for the German unification movement, and the frustration with lasting German unification after 1850 seemed to set
26800-618: The leading German power through a combination of foreign diplomatic triumphs—backed up by the possible use of Prussian military might—and an internal conservatism tempered by pragmatism, which came to be known as Realpolitik . Bismarck expressed the essence of Realpolitik in his subsequently famous "Blood and Iron" speech to the Budget Committee of the Prussian Chamber of Deputies on 30 September 1862, shortly after he became Minister President: "The great questions of
27000-513: The level of those they were replacing. Superior German staff work at division, corps and army level throughout the war was a major contributor to their run of successes. At the beginning of 1918 — having defeated the Russians — Hindenburg and Ludendorff resolved to win in the west. Tactically, their staff work was brilliant. Using only weapons that had failed at Verdun, they devised a long, comprehensive list of measures to smash through enemy field fortifications, which were then taught to all ranks in
27200-405: The liberal politicians. Many of their ideas and programs were later incorporated into Bismarck's social programs (e.g., social insurance, education programs, and wider definitions of suffrage). In addition, the notion of a distinctive path relies upon the underlying assumption that some other nation's path (in this case, the United Kingdom's) is the accepted norm. This new argument further challenges
27400-502: The linguistic unity of the German people but also their geographic unity. In Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles , officially called Das Lied der Deutschen (" The Song of the Germans "), Fallersleben called upon sovereigns throughout the German states to recognize the unifying characteristics of the German people. Such other patriotic songs as " Die Wacht am Rhein " ("The Watch on the Rhine") by Max Schneckenburger began to focus attention on geographic space, not limiting "Germanness" to
27600-471: The lowest. Every Prussian tactical manual published after the Franco-Prussian War included this passage: A favorable situation will never be exploited if commanders wait for orders. The highest commander and the youngest soldier must always be conscious of the fact that omission and inactivity are worse than resorting to the wrong expedient. With unification the Prussian General Staff became
27800-577: The member states agreed to send military assistance to any government threatened by unrest. Prince Wrede led half of the Bavarian army to the Palatinate to "subdue" the province. Several hapless Hambach speakers were arrested, tried and imprisoned; one, Karl Heinrich Brüggemann (1810–1887), a law student and representative of the secretive Burschenschaft , was sent to Prussia, where he was first condemned to death, but later pardoned. Crucially, both
28000-476: The methods of the Prussian General Staff. The Chief of Staff of the French Army , Maréchal de France Edmond Le Bœuf , fatuously stated in 1870 that the French Army was ready for war, "down to the last gaiter button." In the event, at the outset of the Franco-Prussian War , 462,000 German soldiers concentrated flawlessly on the French frontier while only 270,000 French soldiers could be moved to face them,
28200-423: The most stubborn commanders would not give way before this threat. For these reasons, Prussian and German military victories were often credited professionally to the chief of staff, rather than to the nominal commander of an army. Often the commander of an army was himself a member of the General Staff, but it was now institutionally recognized that not only was command leadership important, but effective staff work
28400-457: The national movement back. Revolutionaries associated national unification with progress. As Giuseppe Garibaldi wrote to German revolutionary Karl Blind on 10 April 1865, "The progress of humanity seems to have come to a halt, and you with your superior intelligence will know why. The reason is that the world lacks a nation [that] possesses true leadership. Such leadership, of course, is required not to dominate other peoples but to lead them along
28600-467: The no doubt distant future free nations might combine to form a loosely federal Europe with some kind of federal assembly to regulate their common interests. [...] His intention was nothing less than to overturn the European settlement agreed [to] in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, which had reestablished an oppressive hegemony of a few great powers and blocked the emergence of smaller nations. [...] Mazzini hoped, but without much confidence, that his vision of
28800-633: The norms of the British-centric model of development: studies of national development in Britain and other "normal" states (e.g., France or the United States) have suggested that even in these cases, the modern nation-state did not develop evenly. Nor did it develop particularly early, being rather a largely mid-to-late-19th-century phenomenon. Since the end of the 1990s, this view has become widely accepted, although some historians still find
29000-813: The ongoing French occupation. The sum was lowered in two steps to 120 million francs by 1 November 1808. Talleyrand had advised Napoleon to pursue milder terms; the treaties marked an important stage in his estrangement from the emperor. Until 1812, the French occupants requisitioned in money and kind from various corporations and persons, especially by billetting soldiers on cities, further contributions additionally amounting to between 146 and 309 million francs, according to different calculations. The Prussian government indebtedness soared between 1806 and 1815 by thaler 200 million to altogether 180.09 million interest-bearing debts, 11.24 million non-interest-bearing unconsolidated treasury notes and another 25.9 million former provincial debts assumed by
29200-413: The opinions have differed, in the evening of this happy day in a military marriage the two halves will no longer know who gave in. The outside world and military history will not have knowledge of a domestic quarrel. The competence of command and control is based on this fusion of the two personalities. It does not matter if the order bears the commander's signature, or if the Chief of Staff has signed it for
29400-579: The original goal of defending Germany's borders to conquest and expansion. A consequence of wartime attrition was the premature deployment of Kriegsakademie students to army and corps general staffs, some of them before reaching their second year curriculum. Later, standards for General Staff assignment were altered due to the closure of the Kriegsakademie , to allow examined officers to serve as staff apprentices, raising concerns that these new General Staff Corps officers were not evaluated or trained at
29600-413: The other German princes and military intervention from Austria or Russia. He also held a fundamental distaste for the idea of accepting a crown from a popularly elected parliament: he would not accept a crown of "clay". Despite franchise requirements that often perpetuated many of the problems of sovereignty and political participation liberals sought to overcome, the Frankfurt Parliament did manage to draft
29800-467: The other German states) Divisions. Sixteen staff officers served in the Prussian Ministry of War and six staff officers worked in the main embassies. Each army corps had one chief of staff and two other staff officers. In 1821 the Quartermaster General Staff was renamed to the General Staff, and its officers were identified by distinctive uniform markings, including a crimson trouser stripe. Staff positions did not depend on lineage. "General von Krauseneck, who
30000-452: The other German states. Combined diplomatic pressure from Austria and Russia (a guarantor of the 1815 agreements that established European spheres of influence) forced Prussia to relinquish the idea of the Erfurt Union at a meeting in the small town of Olmütz in Moravia. In November 1850, the Prussians—specifically Radowitz and Frederick William—agreed to the restoration of the German Confederation under Austrian leadership. This became known as
30200-410: The other ceded territories were awarded to existing French client states and to Russia. Napoleon not only cemented his control of Central Europe but also had Russia and the truncated Prussia ally with him against his two remaining enemies, the United Kingdom and Sweden , triggering the Anglo-Russian and Finnish wars. Tilsit also freed French forces for the Peninsular War . Central Europe became
30400-412: The outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Historians have long debated Bismarck's role in the events leading up to the war. The traditional view, promulgated in large part by late 19th- and early 20th-century pro-Prussian historians, maintains that Bismarck's intent was always German unification. Post-1945 historians, however, see more short-term opportunism and cynicism in Bismarck's manipulation of
30600-417: The outset of the 1812 French invasion of Russia . Following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the Congress of Vienna would restore many Prussian territories. By signing these treaties, France left Persia and the Ottomans, who had previously hoped for France's help under treaties with France (including Finckenstein ), in the face of Russian aggression, and established the loss of parts of Persia in
30800-411: The path of duty, to lead them toward the brotherhood of nations where all the barriers erected by egoism will be destroyed." Garibaldi looked to Germany for the "kind of leadership [that], in the true tradition of medieval chivalry, would devote itself to redressing wrongs, supporting the weak, sacrificing momentary gains and material advantage for the much finer and more satisfying achievement of relieving
31000-569: The permanent Constitution of the German Empire ) and 10 May 1871 ( Treaty of Frankfurt and recognition of the Empire by the French Third Republic ). Despite the legal, administrative, and political disruption caused by the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the German-speaking people of the old Empire had a common linguistic, cultural, and legal tradition. European liberalism offered an intellectual basis for unification by challenging dynastic and absolutist models of social and political organization; its German manifestation emphasized
31200-440: The polity resulting from the unification process continues its existence, surviving until today in its contemporary form known as the Federal Republic of Germany . Germans emerged in medieval times among the descendants of the Romanized Germanic peoples in the area of modern western Germany, between the Rhine and Elbe rivers, particularly the Franks , Frisians , Saxons , Thuringii , Alemanni , and Baiuvarii . The region
31400-399: The problem: We cannot conceal the fact that the whole German question is a simple alternative between Prussia and Austria. In these states, German life has its positive and negative poles—in the former, all the interests [that] are national and reformative, in the latter, all that are dynastic and destructive. The German question is not a constitutional question but a question of power; and
31600-428: The railway. German economist Friedrich List called the railways and the Customs Union "Siamese Twins", emphasizing their important relationship to one another. He was not alone: the poet August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben wrote a poem in which he extolled the virtues of the Zollverein , which he began with a list of commodities that had contributed more to German unity than politics or diplomacy. Historians of
31800-628: The railways were an "evil" that threatened the landscape: Nikolaus Lenau 's 1838 poem An den Frühling ( To Spring ) bemoaned the way trains destroyed the pristine quietude of German forests. The Bavarian Ludwig Railway , which was the first passenger or freight rail line in the German lands, connected Nuremberg and Fürth in 1835. Although it was 6 kilometers (3.7 mi) long and only operated in daylight, it proved both profitable and popular. Within three years, 141 kilometers (88 mi) of track had been laid, by 1840, 462 kilometers (287 mi), and by 1860, 11,157 kilometers (6,933 mi). Lacking
32000-495: The rates of the Zollverein. Brunswick joined the Zollverein Customs Union in 1842, while Hanover and Oldenburg finally joined in 1854 After the Austro-Prussian war of 1866, Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg were annexed by Prussia and thus annexed also to the Customs Union, while the two Mecklenburg states and the city states of Hamburg and Bremen joined late because they were reliant on international trade. The Mecklenburgs joined in 1867, while Bremen and Hamburg joined in 1888 . By
32200-410: The reorganized German states. Due in part to the shared experience, albeit under French dominance, various justifications emerged to identify "Germany" as a potential future single state. For the German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte , The first, original, and truly natural boundaries of states are beyond doubt their internal boundaries. Those who speak the same language are joined to each other by
32400-403: The right to disagree, in writing, with the plans or orders of the commander of the formation, and appeal to the commander of the next highest formation (which might ultimately be the king, or emperor, who would be guided by the head of the Great General Staff). This served as a check on incompetence and also served for the objecting officer to officially disassociate himself from a flawed plan. Only
32600-419: The royal government. The cities' debts, especially those of Berlin often billetted on, were not assumed by the Prussian government. Since the creditors deemed Prussia to be over-indebted in 1817, the 4-per cent state bonds were traded at the bourses with a disagio of 27 to 29 percent, in 1818 even with a discountor of 35 percent, causing the effective interest to rise to 6.15 percent. At restructuring part of
32800-401: The small town of Hambach, in the Palatinate province of Bavaria. Carrying flags, beating drums, and singing, the participants took the better part of the morning and mid-day to arrive at the castle grounds, where they listened to speeches by nationalist orators from across the conservative to radical political spectrum. The overall content of the speeches suggested a fundamental difference between
33000-428: The social order, affecting the highest born to the lowest. Although some of the outlying German provinces were not serviced by rail until the 1890s, the majority of the population, manufacturing centers, and production centers were linked to the rail network by 1865. As travel became easier, faster, and less expensive, Germans started to see unity in factors other than their language. The Brothers Grimm , who compiled
33200-517: The south of Prussia had joined the Customs Union, except Austria. In contrast, the coastal states already had barrier free access to international trade and did not want consumers and producers burdened with the import duties they would pay if they were within the Zollverein customs border. Hanover on the north coast formed its own customs union – the "Tax Union" or Steuerverein – in 1834 with Brunswick and with Oldenburg in 1836. The external tariffs on finished goods and overseas raw materials were below
33400-408: The spring of 1834, while at Berne, Mazzini and a dozen refugees from Italy, Poland and Germany founded a new association with the grandiose name of Young Europe . Its basic, and equally grandiose idea, was that, as the French Revolution of 1789 had enlarged the concept of individual liberty, another revolution would now be needed for national liberty; and his vision went further because he hoped that in
33600-425: The strategic defense of Prussia by streamlining operational command. Prussian army reforms (especially how to pay for them) caused a constitutional crisis beginning in 1860 because both parliament and William—via his minister of war—wanted control over the military budget. William, crowned King Wilhelm I in 1861, appointed Otto von Bismarck to the position of Minister-President of Prussia in 1862. Bismarck resolved
33800-463: The suffering of our fellow men. We need a nation courageous enough to give us a lead in this direction. It would rally to its cause all those who are suffering wrong or who aspire to a better life and all those who are now enduring foreign oppression." German unification had also been viewed as a prerequisite for the creation of a European federation, which Giuseppe Mazzini and other European patriots had been promoting for more than three decades: In
34000-430: The tank columns were still followed by horse-drawn artillery pieces. Throughout the war, German industry was unable to furnish small arms in sufficient quantities, forcing the Army to rely heavily on older weapons, prizes of war , and adaptations of former designs produced in conquered countries, thus producing an arsenal filled with an array of incompatible pieces , unlike the smaller variety of standard small arms used by
34200-419: The territories of Württemberg and Baden . In 1806, after a successful invasion of Prussia and the defeat of Prussia at the joint battles of Jena-Auerstedt 1806 during the War of the Third Coalition , Napoleon dictated the Treaty of Pressburg which included the formal dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire and the abdication of Emperor Francis II from the nominal reign over it. Napoleon established instead
34400-415: The time will not be resolved by speeches and majority decisions—that was the great mistake of 1848 and 1849—but by iron and blood." Bismarck's words, "iron and blood" (or "blood and iron", as often attributed), have often been misappropriated as evidence of a German lust for blood and power. First, the phrase from his speech "the great questions of time will not be resolved by speeches and majority decisions"
34600-430: The town of Tilsit in July 1807 in the aftermath of his victory at Friedland , at the end of the War of the Fourth Coalition . The first was signed on 7 July, between Napoleon and Russian Emperor Alexander I , when they met on a raft in the middle of the Neman river. The second was signed with Prussia on 9 July. The treaties were made at the expense of King Frederick William III of Prussia , who had already agreed to
34800-435: The transition to capitalism, sought the expansion of male suffrage, among other issues. Their "radicalness" depended upon where they stood on the spectrum of male suffrage : the wider the definition of suffrage, the more radical. The surge of German nationalism , stimulated by the experience of Germans in the Napoleonic period and initially allied with liberalism , shifted political, social, and cultural relationships within
35000-408: The treaties binding the various German states to one another prohibited Bismarck from taking unilateral action, the politician and diplomat in him realized the impracticality of this. To get the German states to unify, Bismarck needed a single, outside enemy that would declare war on one of the German states first, thus providing a casus belli to rally all Germans behind. This opportunity arose with
35200-406: The treaty as unequal and as a national humiliation. The Russian soldiers refused to follow Napoleon's commands, as the Lisbon Incident demonstrated to all Europe. Napoleon's plans to marry the tsar's sister were stymied by Russian royalty. Cooperation between Russia and France eventually broke down in 1810 when the tsar began to allow neutral ships to land in Russian ports. In 1812, Napoleon crossed
35400-417: The week in the cities, returning for a day and a half on weekends. The economic, social and cultural dislocation of ordinary people, the economic hardship of an economy in transition, and the pressures of meteorological disasters all contributed to growing problems in Central Europe. The failure of most of the governments to deal with the food crisis of the mid-1840s, caused by the potato blight (related to
35600-558: The years of French hegemony contributed to a sense of common cause to remove the French invaders and reassert control over their own lands. The Napoleon's campaigns in Poland (1806–07) resulting in his decision to re-establish a form of Polish statehood (the Duchy of Warsaw ) at the cost of also Prussian-conquered Polish territories, as well as his campaigns on Iberian Peninsula , in western Germany, and his disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812 disillusioned many Germans, princes and peasants alike. Napoleon's Continental System nearly ruined
35800-417: The young Kaiser William II replaced him in 1890 and turned away from their friendly accommodation with Russia in favor of an alliance with Austria-Hungary. Before long France and Russia allied. Therefore, an encircled Germany faced the probability that of war on both Eastern and Western fronts. Prior to his retirement in 1888, Moltke's plan for such a conflict had always been to remain on the defensive against
36000-441: Was Carl von Clausewitz , who served until 1830. His monumental work On War ( Vom Kriege ) was published posthumously. From his studies and experiences during the Napoleonic Wars, he wrote a syllabus which became the staff's central doctrine. This standardization of doctrine — which was an attempt to grasp the philosophy underlying warfare , rather than setting a narrow set of rules such as those laid down by Antoine-Henri Jomini —
36200-407: Was a confidante of King William I , was appointed Chief of the General Staff. Under his control, the existing staff system was expanded and consolidated. Each year, Moltke selected the best twelve graduates from the Kriegsakademie for his personal training as General Staff officers. They attended theoretical studies, annual manoeuvres, " war rides " (a system of tactical exercises without troops in
36400-460: Was a significant key to success in both pre-war planning and in wartime operations. Before the nineteenth century, success on the battlefield largely depended on the military competence of the sovereign. Duke Frederick William introduced the term Generalstabsdienst (General Staff Service) for the Prusso-Brandenburgian army in 1640. While Frederick the Great brought success to the Prussian arms, his successors lacked his talent, so generalship in
36600-525: Was a single-minded, brilliant military specialist. Nor had the General Staff, before the war, considered the use of potential allies such as Turkey, or dissident factions within the French, British and Russian empires, to distract or weaken the Allied war effort. "A swift victory over the main armies in the main theatre of war was the German General Staff's solution for all outside difficulties, and absolved them from thinking of war in its wider aspects." The General Staff mistakenly predicted that China would win
36800-439: Was a small, elite body, numbering as few as fifty officers and rarely exceeding one hundred officers. Only one or two officers were permanently assigned to the General Staff, described in official returns as des Generalstabs ("of the General Staff") at any time; most were attached to the General Staff while remaining affiliated to their parent regiments, usually for several years at a time, and were listed as im Generalstab ("on
37000-443: Was adopted partly because the Empire lost most of its territories in Italy and Burgundy to the south and west by the late 15th century, but also to emphasize the new importance of the German Imperial Estates in ruling the Empire due to the Imperial Reform ). The states of the Holy Roman Empire ranged in size from the small and complex territories of the princely Hohenlohe family branches to sizable, well-defined territories such as
37200-419: Was becoming increasingly clear that both Austria and Prussia wanted to be the leaders in any resulting unification; each would inhibit the drive of the other to achieve unification. Formation of the Zollverein , an institution key to unifying the German states economically, helped to create a larger sense of economic unification. Initially conceived by the Prussian Finance Minister Hans, Count von Bülow , as
37400-414: Was both impossible and undesirable to repress the free utterance of public opinion by reactionary measures. The Hambach Festival ( Hambacher Fest ) in May 1832 was attended by a crowd of more than 30,000. Promoted as a county fair , its participants celebrated fraternity, liberty, and national unity. Celebrants gathered in the town below and marched to the ruins of Hambach Castle on the heights above
37600-628: Was commanded by aged veterans of the campaigns of Frederick the Great, almost half a century earlier. In 1806, the Prussian Army was routed by French Armies led by Napoleon 's marshals at the Battle of Jena . In the aftermath of this debacle, the Prussian Army and state largely collapsed. "Seldom in history has an army been reduced to impotence more swiftly or decisively." After the Peace of Tilsit in 1807, King Frederick William III appointed Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Prime Minister Baron vom und zum Stein and several promising young officers to his Military Reorganization Commission. This commission acted as
37800-414: Was decreased in a even greater proportion. The ceded provinces were rich and fertile, and many millions had been spent on their improvement. Almost all that Prussia had gained by the partitions of Poland (1772–1795) was taken away from Prussia. The Kingdom of Saxony , a former confederate of Prussia, was the recipient of the provinces. Russia, the more powerful of its erstwhile allies, gained territory with
38000-400: Was divided into long-lasting divisions, or " Stem duchies ", based upon these ethnic designations, under the dominance of the western Franks starting with Clovis I , who established control of the Romanized and Frankish population of Gaul in the 5th century, and began a new process of conquering the peoples east of the Rhine. In subsequent centuries the power of the Franks grew considerably. By
38200-467: Was elected Reichspräsident in 1925. When Adolf Hitler became Reichskanzler in 1933, he instructed the Truppenamt/General Staff to ignore the Versailles restrictions; he would create a greatly expanded Wehrmacht , including the Army , the Navy , and a new Air Force . A new War Academy ( Kriegsakademie ) was established in 1935. The General Staff advised Hitler that the Army could not be fully modernized until 1944 or 1945. When Hitler went to war in 1939,
38400-443: Was given command of the Eighth Army, the only one facing the Russians invading East Prussia , with Erich Ludendorff as chief of staff. The interactions between a commander and his chief of staff were elucidated by a successful practitioner of both roles, Hans von Seeckt The decision is taken in private, and when the two men come out, there is only one decision. They have amalgamated it; they share one mind with each other. Should
38600-440: Was one of the distinguishing features of the Prussian General Staff. Every General Staff officer had to be able, at any time, to take over the work of another and apply to it the same body of basic ideas and the same principles of operational and tactical thought. On October 1, 1859, the General War School was renamed the War Academy ( Kriegsakademie ), which was supervised by the Inspector-General of Military Education. Students at
38800-471: Was particularly important for the emerging industrial centers, most of which were located in the Prussian regions of the Rhineland , the Saar , and the Ruhr valleys. States more distant from the coast joined the Customs Union earlier. Not being a member mattered more for the states of south Germany, since the external tariff of the Customs Union prevented customs-free access to the coast (which gave access to international markets). Thus, by 1836, all states to
39000-470: Was superior to the General Staff's intellectual analysis. Unification of Germany The unification of Germany ( German : Deutsche Einigung , pronounced [ˈdɔʏtʃə ˈʔaɪnɪɡʊŋ] ) was a process of building the first nation-state for Germans with federal features based on the concept of Lesser Germany (one without Habsburgs ' multi-ethnic Austria or its German-speaking part). It commenced on 18 August 1866 with adoption of
39200-465: Was the Chief of the General Staff from 1829 to 1848, was the son of a Brandenburg organ player and had been promoted from the ranks. General von Rheyer, Chief of the Prussian General Staff from 1848 to 1857 was a shepherd in his youth." The General Staff continually planned for likely and unlikely scenarios. In 1843, when Europe had been largely at peace for nearly thirty years and most major nations had no plans for war, observers noted sheaves of orders at
39400-423: Was there ever a large pool of officers to draw upon to perform General Staff duties. In 1871, there were only 375 officers fully qualified to serve on the General Staff, even after an emergency expansion during the Franco-Prussian War. In 1914, there were 625 General Staff-qualified officers for armies which had almost doubled in size since 1871. In 1857, Helmuth von Moltke the Elder , a widely travelled officer who
39600-651: Was to ensure a better (though not infallible) system for appointing commanders. The Austro-Prussian War (1866) became almost inevitable after the end of hostilities with Denmark. Many Prussians regarded the war as a sad necessity. Moltke, describing his reasons for confidence to War Minister Albrecht von Roon , stated "We have the inestimable advantage of being able to carry our Field Army of 285,000 men over five railway lines and of virtually concentrating them in twenty-five days ... Austria has only one railway line and it will take her forty-five days to assemble 200,000 men." Although there were inevitable mistakes and confusion on
39800-466: Was trained as an artilleryman, became a prominent member of the Great General Staff, with the reputation of being the smartest man in the army. Some graduates were not enthusiastic about the first year of their training. For example, Paul von Hindenburg thought that the history of ancient battles should be minimized to give more time to modern, and that trigonometry was only useful to those who would be surveyors. The final two years satisfied him. While at
40000-408: Was unified as the Prussia-dominated German Empire ; King Wilhelm I of Prussia was proclaimed "German Emperor" on 18 January 1871. The German victory surprised many military professionals around the world. France had been considered a great military power while Prussia was widely considered a lesser power, despite its military successes in 1813–15 against Napoleon and more recently over Austria during
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