Preußische Heeresbibliothek
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The Prussian Army of 1806 and 1813 - Commentary on Leadership and Fighting Ability |
By Dallas Gavan |
The following is a collation of a discussion I had with Kevin Kiley on the Napoleonicwars.com discussion forum. Michael Gjerde asked me to send it for inclusion in the NWC newsletter so I've tidied things up and hopefully you'll find it of interest. Just a note, though, about my sources. I've been studying the period for 25 years and have used a number of sources from magazine articles to correspondence with authors such as Peter Hofschröer. There may be some mistakes I have made and if you have some points to disagree with, please feel free to contact me [dgavan@interact.net.au].
(Preface: Kevin Kiley is another interested amateur of the period, with a particular bias towards the French and the writings of Col. Elting. He tends to prefer accounts with a decidedly French bias, using them to characterise the other armies - thus perpetuating many false myths. Having said that, he's also a very knowledgeable man, a great person to discuss the period with, and one who asks the hard questions - always a plus, if not a comfortable one. And he will, importantly, at least concede that the other person may have a point, even if he won't agree with it.
When Kevin described the Prussian army of 1806/7, he used Oman, Jomini, Elting, Paret and others for his material. All these sources draw heavily from French or anti-German/British accounts and are generally inaccurate in some detail. The use of skirmishers, the Prussian resistance to conscription in 1813, and so on, are examined from a perspective that reflects most favourably on the French. But they ignore the reality of the time and simplify a very complicated state of affairs. I prefer a more eclectic mix of references, in particular the work of Peter Hofschröer, Oliver Schmidt and others. And thus battle was joined.
As for bias, it's not something I lack, either. I have my own particular bias against Napoleon and see him as generally responsible for 10 years of unnecessary (but very interesting) warfare.)
While it's true that the Prussians in Frederick the Great's time and earlier used a lot of mercenaries, by 1792 the majority of the mercenaries were gone. The reason was pragmatic- mercenaries cost money and Prussia didn't have that much. Instead the troops were mainly native stock with the largest numbers of "mercenaries" in the officer corps. The term, though, conjures up images not appropriate to the times. Serving in an army other than your own was standard practice during the time and there was no real stigma attached to it (although there could be problems with fellow officers). The harsh discipline and practice of using the army as an interior police force did separate the army from the population, though, and is a valid criticism of the army of this time.
Prussian pay for soldiers pre- 1808 was poor and unreliable, the troops and officers were often on furlough, the discipline was pretty bad even by the standards of the times and there was little guarantee of advancement for "foreign" soldiers. Not conditions conducive to attracting mercenaries, nor keeping them.
Many Prussian officers weren't "native" to Prussia. Blücher technically wasn't a Prussian- his first service was with Sweden. Thielmann in 1815 was the same that led the Saxon Kürassiere into the Great Redoubt at Borodino (a feat never repeated and belittled by Napoleon's comment "I only see blue cuirassiers). Service as a commissioned officer wasn't seen as treason in those days- hence Eugene of Württemberg being able to command Russians against his own countryman. Let's not graft 21C ideals onto early 19C practices- it tends to obscure the issues.
The Prussians were at peace with the French from 1793 to 1806. Their experiences in the early revolutionary stages weren't very good and a reading of the accounts shows that the intervention was half-hearted, at best, and opposed by the officers at worst. This helped exacerbate the factionalism of the senior officers. This factionalism was to plaque the army during the period.
In 1806 the Prussians didn't perform very well and the blame is often placed on the "cowardice" of the troops and inept training of the army. That isn't really true. The Prussian soldier was better drilled than his French counterpart. That doesn't make him a better soldier. A lack of leadership, poor tactical decisions, divided leadership and little motivation were the keys as I see them. Add that to the fact they faced an army with far more combat experience, a better organisation and brilliant leaders and the decision is nearly foregone.
The Prussians didn't always get beaten in 1806. When they had good leaders they performed reasonably well. York at Altenzaun, a rear-guard action, is a good example. Blücher's handling of his troops after Auerstädt (compared to his performance at the battle) is another. The Prussians at Eylau certainly showed the French how things might have been if the Prussians had reasonable leadership at the twin battles. And then there's the siege of Colberg, celebrated by the Prussians and acknowledged as a brave stand by the French themselves.
The difference between the two was that the French seemed to drill for battle while the Prussians seemed to drill for review. So the French were operating effectively in battle-effective division and corps formations while the Prussians were swanning about wondering why their parade ground excellence wasn't translating to the battlefield.
People also forget that a couple of key leaders ( Brunswick and v. Schmettau from memory) were mortally wounded early at Auerstädt. While the results wouldn't have been too different, I think, the loss of key leaders always severely damages an army's ability to fight. If the command of the army hadn't been disrupted in this way the French under Davoust may have had a harder time of things.
Much is made of the age of the Prussian commanders in 1806 as well. Some of the officers were old for their grades but the average age of the commanders was lower than for the Prussian army that decisively beat France in 1870-71. The age issue seems to be used both as an excuse by the Prussians and to emphasise the "old fashioned army" concept as an easy way to explain 1806. It ducks the real issues, though, of a divided high command and an indecisive ruler prone to intrigue.
To be sure, the Prussians of 1806 weren't a match for the French. But they weren't the fight-for-pay, incapable septuagenarians that modern myth, particularly pro-French modern myth, makes out. L'Estoq, when you look at the forces he had available and then at what he did, gives a good indication of the potential that was squandered in 1806. 14 BN or so (some Russian), half a dozen cavalry regiments and a few batteries, a force smaller than the French Corps he was engaging, and he still gave Ney a lot of trouble. It took troops from a second corps to see him off. You can't do that with unwilling, inflexible, unmotivated automatons.
I disagree with the belief that the Prussians couldn't skirmish, a belief reflected in the Talonsoft © games and many popular histories. York's success I mentioned was with primarily light troops. When well led, employed and motivated the Prussian lights, even in 1806, were the equals of the French in this field. The problem is that they were rarely well led, well employed or motivated in 1806. In 1813-15, though, they showed what they could do. In 1814, the Schleßisches Schützen charged and threw back the Polish Lancers de la Garde at Vauchamps. In 1813, the skirmishing by the third-rank men in front of Kaja at Lützen allowed that village to be taken and re-taken. And the masking of Bülow's corps on the march from Wavre to La Belle Alliance was probably the decisive action of that campaign. These troops proved they could go toe to toe with the best of them. And the old, tired myth that the Prussians couldn't fight in open order is one disproven by several Prussian and French accounts of different battles (the most easily obtained being the latest accounts from Peter Hofschröer). I don't know where the myth started, but I'd tend to look at the English-language writers and some embittered Frenchmen (especially from the period 1870 to 1945) for answers. If Napoleon himself got peeved when the Prussians refused to detach the East Prussian Jäger BN to the guard in Russia then they must have been worth having. It couldn't only have been the fact that they were armed with rifles that sparked his interest.
The training and selection process for the lights gave some very good troops. However, the jägers were disbanded before the turn of the century and were replaced by fusiliers. This experiment didn't work too well as they became more and more like line, not light, troops. They still trained as lights and could perform as such but the lack of experience told in 1806. The main problem was that their commanders didn't employ them properly. They had come to be seen as 2nd-class line and were often deployed as such instead of as the lights they were. Similarly, though there was provision for line battalions to detach skirmishers, it seems to rarely have been done in 1806. Under a leader such as Yorck, though, they could perform well when given a chance. What you needed was a commander who wasn't trying to find a place of honour in the line rather than skirmishing his troops. Yorck was one and maybe the only one to do this. These same units provided the men that formed the various light units after 1808. The training was similar as were the tactics. And although it took a while, eventually they were led as lights, not line.
Much has been made of the problems with conscription in 1813 and how this proves that the Prussians, apart from the nobles, didn't support the war. It depends upon the area when you start to look at the issue, though. Some areas, particularly those that were in former Polish areas of Silesia, the former Swedish Pommerania and similar did have problems. Many of these people felt they weren't Prussian (they had a point) and shouldn't have to serve in that army. But in other areas the recruiting was fast, the regiments were completed quickly and there was enough of an excess of middle-class volunteers that they were able to form several complete cavalry regiments, infantry battalions and dozens of company-sized units. Volunteers that paid for their uniforms and arms and provided their own horses as well. That's pretty indicative of some sort of enthusiasm in my books.
As happened everywhere else, though, the peasants objected strongly to conscription. The loss of able-bodied men from such communities only made a hard life so much harder. But in this the Prussians were no different from any other nation. France too suffered from resistance, sometimes armed insurrection (the Vendee, the South West, etc), to conscription and it was often implemented by force of arms. Yet the general description of France is that the nation was behind Napoleon. If the need for forced conscription in some areas is a condemnation of Prussia, then it is also a condemnation of France wouldn't you say?
I don't deny there were Prussians who either opposed the war, supported Napoleon or both. But the wholesale characterisation of Prussians as unwilling is as erroneous as the wholesale characterisation of the French as enthusiastic in my book. There were deserters and draft in Prussia. Much of the Landwehr lost motivation and elan with each step away from their home provinces. But, in total, I would say the majority of the nation (peasants and, sadly for the nation at this time, serfs probably excepted) was in favour of the war. There were too many volunteers, too many over-strength units and too few examples of desertion in 1813-14 to be otherwise.
An unwilling army would not have survived Lützen, Bautzen and Dresden to turn up at Leipzig. An unwilling population would not have borne the taxes and levies needed to maintain that army, regardless of British subsidies. The need to be free of Napoleon's reparations, trade restrictions and demands of obedience has been turned into the rise of Pan-German nationalism by some. On the other hand, the myth of a Prussia reluctant to be free of a benevolent Napoleon is used by his partisans to moderate the view of him being a bully and dictator. I believe neither- the Befreiungskrieg WAS a war of liberation, supported by some and not by others. It's a pity later writers have chosen to add their own political baggage to a struggle designed to free a nation from what it perceived to be a burdensome yoke.
As with all armies of this period, there's a lot of myths. I hope I've dispelled a few about the Prussians. I also hope there's people out there who can dispel the myths about a few other armies.
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