detail was rather injurious than otherwise, and he insisted that the
greatest possible freedom as regards the means for attaining the
desired end had the result of infusing spirit and energy into the men.
Fortunately it was not to happen that the "mechanical heads" should
triumph once again in the Prussian army, as Scharnhorst had feared.
The conditions had been completely altered since 1806. The
introduction of universal service entailed on the officer educational
duties which had not fallen to him in the old army. Also, although
the army did not have an opportunity of gaining new experience of war
on a large scale, the dangerous tendencies with which it had become
infected were none the less successfully overcome. In this
connection valuable service was rendered by the Prince of Prussia.
His clear understanding in regard to military matters enabled him to
form a very just estimate of the limits within which a rational
training by means of drill ought to be confined, and this at a time
when a one-sided training, with a view principally to the
requirements of parades, seemed still to be completely in the
ascendent. In notes which he made in the year 1840,[8] the Prince
laid down principles which still hold good at the present day. He
wrote: "The sole purpose of the drilling-ground is, in my opinion, to
achieve order. If the spirit of order exists in a troop, it is
possible to do anything with it; without order nothing is possible."
The parade step, and the preparatory practice for it, the Prince held
to be indispensable, "if," he says, "we are to have troops and not a
mere assembled mob." Thus the Prince assigned to the parade the
importance which properly belongs to it, and to which it can justly
lay claim even at the present day. A very careful training by means
of drill is an indispensable preparation. Therefore, in the same
notes, the Prince says further in regard to drill: "Uniformity is
indispensable. Why should one be permitted to do his task well, and
another to do it badly? ... Either we intend to have a trained troop
or else a mob of undisciplined men. That is a point which must be
settled." Further he says that the objectionable term "Trillen" is
constantly applied to what is really no more than soldierly
discipline, as opposed to rustic clownishness. The future Emperor
expressed very finely his firm and unshakable confidence in the
efficiency of the army for purposes of war when he said that
suspicions ought not to be entertained concerning the spirit of the
army merely because, in addition to its actual achievements, it
presented a handsome outward appearance. "Any one who has had to do
with the army for twenty years will have only one opinion on this
head, namely, that the spirit and the will of the army are above all
praise, and that such an _esprit de corps_ exists in it as never
before."
It was not prejudice in favour of what was old and accustomed, nor
mere routine, that caused the German army to preserve its "handsome
outward appearance," but the recognition, based upon history, that
any negligence in this respect constitutes a serious danger.
Archduke Albert of Austria, in 1869, drew attention to the existence
of such a danger in "the efforts of a subversive Press to turn to
ridicule the discipline and strict regulations which are
indispensable in every army."[9] In the fifties of last century the
stimulating influence of Prince Frederick Charles made itself felt in
the Prussian army. It was particularly effective, because here was
the case of a royal prince who made it his aim to plan the training
and education of the soldier directly with a view to actual warfare.
The Prince succeeded in overcoming a far too narrow-minded preference
for parade-drill and the affectations of the drilling-ground,
although he insisted that a certain stiffness was in harmony both
with our traditions and with our national character, and was also a
good means of instilling discipline.
"It is the warlike spirit that decides," wrote the Prince in
1858,[10]" not the tactical form. The form must be elastic; it must
not exercise compulsion in a certain direction. Every epoch has had
its special tactical forms, and these have been connected with the
warlike spirit of the age and with the nature of its equipment for
war.... The more developed the warlike spirit in the individual
soldier, the greater will be the energy of the whole mass, and the
less will be the influence of the tactical form."
The importance which Prince Frederick Charles attached to the mutual
relations between the leader and the troops is evident from the
following words which he wrote in the year 1860. He says[11]:
"The general is the loved and respected chief, not a scolding,
punishing task-master. When he addresses his troops (which he should
do only seldom) all hearts beat faster. He must know how to touch
those chords which produce a fine ring. He is pleasant and friendly
with all his subordinates, and the more so according as they are the
farther removed from him in rank. He has always a friendly word and
a sympathetic greeting for the man in the ranks. Although they
seldom see him at his work, and then only accidentally and when he
rides past them, they none the less delight in his near presence and
they are proud of him. He has rendered both the men and their
officers susceptible to the inspiration which his presence, his
glance, his words, and his bearing must infuse into them on the day
of battle, and which must result in a trebling of their efforts. If
then, in the fulness of their enthusiasm, they ask him eagerly,
'Sire, where is it your will that we should die?' then and only then
has he succeeded in making the right impression upon them in time of
peace."
That this impression was actually produced in our army in the sense
which the Prince intended has been proved by the World War, for never
was the question which he desired uttered with a more sublime
devotion than it has been by our troops during this War.
There has been much talk in Germany of the so-called trench-spirit,
and of the fine comradeship between officers and men. But it has
been overlooked that this comradeship, based upon the loyal
solicitude of the officers for their men, existed also before the
War. It was merely expressed in a different way. The officer must
make a difference in his behaviour towards the younger troops, who
have to be trained and disciplined, and his behaviour towards the
fully-trained and, in particular, the older men, whom he has to lead
against the enemy. Moreover, it is only natural that, in the face of
death, a greater equality should prevail between superiors and
subordinates. But the officer stands just as much above his
subordinates in the trenches as elsewhere. The lack of officers
after the heavy losses in August, 1914, made itself very seriously
felt, and even men who had been brave hitherto failed occasionally
when the enemy fire suddenly deprived them of their leaders. Good
relations between officers and men will and must remain after the
War, but they must not be such as to be prejudicial to the authority
of the superior officer. Our young men, who have outgrown paternal
discipline in the course of the War and have rendered splendid
services before their time, will stand in very special need of the
rigorous training afforded by the army.
The officer must be "of that ruling race who exert a controlling
influence, even if momentarily they are not within sight or
hearing."[12] Field-Marshal Count Schwerin once declared that Fear
and Love were the two instruments by which the soldier must be
governed, and then added--and with manifest justice as applied to his
time--that unfortunately Fear had to perform the lion's share. The
case has, however, unquestionably been reversed as regards our age.
Prince Frederick Charles, even in his day, would have nothing to do
with the "scolding and punishing taskmaster."[13] Without dependence
on the personality of the superior officer (though, of course, this
presupposes a wholesome rigour in the latter), without enthusiasm for
the work in hand, the results of military training will be merely
superficial. The World War has demonstrated how very important it is
that we should preserve all that military discipline which has proved
its efficacy, but that at the same time we should enlist the services
of the best men for this task.
"It is unjust to depreciate the reserves from the industrial
districts and the big towns as compared with those from the rural
districts. The latter may perhaps be endowed with greater physical
fitness and endurance, but as regards those aptitudes in regard to
present-day methods of warfare and the use of modern technical
weapons for the purposes of war, which must be possessed even by the
man in the ranks, the urban population, in view of their quicker
intelligence, will undoubtedly possess certain advantages."[14]
If, before the War, certain prejudices on this head existed in the
officers' corps, they have perished as the result of the War, equally
with many others. It is our duty to concede full recognition to the
human personality in all our troops. Present-day social conditions,
no less than the achievements of our national army as a whole in the
course of the War, demand this. A national army cannot be other than
a democratic organisation. The task of the officers is in high
degree a social task--social, that is to say, in an aristocratic
sense; for what has rendered our army so efficient has been precisely
the thoroughly aristocratic organisation of the officers' corps upon
a democratic basis.
Prince Bülow says very justly in reference to Scharnhorst's army
reforms:
"Through the material of the national army, an institution of a
democratic nature, runs a thread of the modern aristocracy. The
happy thought of making entry into the corps of officers contingent
upon election by the corps of officers made it possible in the
structure of the national army to take account of the structure of
the nation. Probably nothing in the past, as in the present, has to
such a degree assured the superiority of our army as the fact that
the leading position, which is the natural due of those who rank
highest in intellect and education, has been retained by them in the
army.... The World War has shown that devotion and contempt of death
are the common heritage of every German soldier. But it has also
been a song of praise of mutual confidence between officers and men,
such as the world has never seen.... The spirit of German
militarism, as Prussia first developed it and Germany adopted it, is
every whit as monarchical as it is aristocratic and democratic, and
it would cease to be German and the mighty expression of German
imperial military power and military efficiency if it were to change.
If our enemies, to whom with God's help our militarism will bring
defeat, abuse it, we know that we must preserve it, for to us it
means victory and the future of Germany."[15]
The War has brought about an almost complete fusion of the officers'
corps of the active army with the officers on the reserve list. We
had fully recognised the importance of the tasks which, in case of
war, must fall to the officers of the Reserves and the Landwehr, and
for more than a decade prior to the War we had devoted special care
to their training. This precaution has reached a rich reward.
During the War, wherever the conditions made it possible, this
training has been continued--especially in the case of the younger
officers who had recently obtained their captaincies--by means of
numerous courses of instruction organised behind the front. Though
very satisfactory results were achieved by this means, it ought none
the less to be borne in mind that only in connection with the
officers' corps of the active army and under its guidance were the
officers of the reserve able to render such valuable services to the
Fatherland. The long duration of the War brought it about that the
memory of their civilian calling became more and more effaced. They
were completely absorbed into the organic entity of the troop; they
became professional soldiers equally with the men; they acquired a
training which they had lacked in peace-time, when their adoption of
the profession of arms had been only an incidental experience. To
the professional knowledge, which they gained in an increasing
degree, was added all that intelligence and energy which characterise
the German whenever he occupies a responsible position in a civilian
calling. Thus the officers of the reserve soon exhibited no longer
any difference from the officers of the active army. They may have
exhibited less familiarity with routine duties, but this was equally
the case with the younger officers of the standing army, who lacked
for this purpose the necessary experience of active service,
brilliant as was the example which they furnished to their troops
during battle.
Moreover our regiments were commanded by staff officers who were
considerably younger both in years and in experience of military
service than was customary before the War in the case of these
positions. We shall not see such young commanders in time of peace.
This will not be prejudicial to the army, for in time of peace the
qualities demanded from the commander of a regiment, in respect to
the training of the officers' corps and the inner consolidation of
the troop, are somewhat different from those required in time of war.
In time of peace we need for this position fully-matured and
self-assured personalities. On the other hand, it is just the
officers occupying the middle status of regimental and battalion
commanders who have been subjected to a severe strain in this War, a
fact which should warn us not to allow officers to occupy these
positions in peace-time after they have reached a certain age.
It proved advantageous and necessary not only to promote many
excellent noncommissioned officers to officers' rank, but also
frequently to extend the sphere for the replenishment of the
officers' corps, in the case both of the regular army and the
reserves, very considerably beyond the limits customary in time of
peace. In doing this many prejudices were set aside, often with very
beneficial results. At the same time it ought to be borne in mind
that, in peace-time, no matter how insistently direct preparation for
war is put in the first rank of importance, none the less all kinds
of claims are made upon the officers which disappear in time of war,
and therefore the choice of persons suitable for the position of
officer is necessarily confined within narrower limits. We need not
take into account here the question of pecuniary circumstances, but
education, intellectual bias, and ambition do not suffice to render
every individual fit for the position of officer.
The spirit of German militarism, which has enabled us to stand the
test of the World War, and which we must preserve in the future,
because with it our world-position stands or falls,--which, moreover
is: "every whit as monarchical as it is aristocratic and
democratic,"--rests ultimately on the building up of an officers'
corps which shall be thoroughly efficient for purposes of war. For
this purpose a sound aristocratic tradition is of the highest value.
This is in no way connected with so-called Junkerdom and
caste-feeling. Even in the case of the army of the young North
American Republic, Washington demanded that only "gentlemen" should
be given a commission. Aristocratic tradition, in the wider sense,
is of the utmost service in the training of personalities. No
profession stands in greater need of the latter than that of the
officer. The choice of the most suitable man can, however, only be
satisfactorily accomplished by means of the gradual replenishment of
the officers' corps, and not by the arbitrary placing of all on the
same level.
The warlike efficiency of the ruling class in Japan was essentially
the result of the tradition which lived in the old Samurai families.
Even the army of the first French Empire, in spite of the democratic
notions which linked it with the time of the Republic, none the less
did not lose all its connection with the army of the _ancien régime_.
Napoleon made it his immediate endeavour to develop a new chivalry in
his army, and to fill up the ranks of his officers from the families
of the old nobility. In spite of the intense revolutionary and
national feeling, republican tendencies alone could not have endowed
the armies of the Revolution with the necessary stanchness. It was
only the development of a military hierarchy and its consolidation in
course of time, combined with the leadership of Napoleon and the
great aims which he held up before his army, that raised the latter
to supreme war-efficiency.
In any case the masses, as such, can never rule. If mob-rule is
consequently an absurdity in a State, how much more so is it in an
army. The army which Russia now proclaims to be a national army is
by no means efficient for purposes of war. The words of Treitschke
are significant here:
"A Republic is confronted with still more serious difficulties in the
matter of a standing army. All history has shown that such an army,
whose commissioned ranks are imbued with definite class feelings,
will always be monarchically inclined."[16]
Only under the absolute command of a war lord can an army achieve a
really vigorous development. It cannot be emphasised too often what
an immense debt the Prussian army--and therewith all Germany--owes to
the Prussian Kings.
Napoleon declared, when he was at St. Helena: "Armies are monarchical
through and through."[17] This had been clearly exhibited in his own
army, above all in the Imperial Guard, and in the spirit which
animated the latter. The achievements of the French army under their
great Emperor, and, equally so, those of the last world war, rested
on a surer foundation than the _Spectateur Militaire_, with its empty
phrase-mongering, was willing to admit, when it declared at the
beginning of the sixties of last century[18]:
"The French soldier sees in all his officers, from the sub-lieutenant
to the marshal, merely his equals; he has the clear and certain
conviction that he is inferior to them only in military rank.
Neither training nor education nor birth produces an essential
difference between them. The sense of equality is so strong that the
sense of the ego completely disappears under the absolute domination
of the law of discipline. To what enemy could such soldiers be
inferior? What human might could successfully resist such soldiers
as these, soldiers who stand on an equality with their officers and
who are all heroes?"
This is an instance of that thoroughly French notion of the supreme
blessing of equality. How little it really signifies, and how far it
is from being equivalent to freedom, has been demonstrated by the
World War. Instead of a truly liberal State, we see in the French
Republic a country enslaved by a plutocracy and governed by the
arbitrary will of its English ally. Moreover, every army should
esteem itself fortunate in possessing its own particular notion of
discipline. We have in any case had sufficient experience of the
blessings which our own discipline brings in its train to the welfare
of the German Fatherland, and we intend to hold fast to it in the
future.
Since the reforms of Scharnhorst, it has been a principle with us
that the officer is raised above the men in the ranks both by
education and training. Since the standard of education of the mass
of the people has been considerably raised during the last hundred
years, it is only logical that higher demands should be made from the
officers in this respect than was the case at the time of the War of
Liberation. Only there must be general recognition of the fact that
this education does not by any means consist in the piling up of a
mass of learning. The school education of our youth must be such as
to furnish them with a sound foundation on which to build up later
their knowledge of life. Experience has taught us that the dispute
about the superior merit of a humanistic education as a preparation
for life is really of very little importance. The former pupils of
the various educational establishments do not exhibit any marked
differences from one another as the result of their training, and
this for the reason that a man begins really to learn only after he
has left school. Not till then does he perceive things in their true
relations; provided only that his school has furnished him with a
basis upon which to build up his further knowledge. The War, which
has reduced so many things to their true value, has also revealed
clearly the difference between genuine education and mere acquisition
of knowledge. Every one among us who has talked with our soldiers,
whether at home or in the field, has found reason to rejoice in their
sound judgment. Often one could not help feeling that their simple
understanding had preserved a higher degree of impartiality and
freshness than is commonly to be found in the so-called educated
classes. This was, of course, by no means a new experience for any
officer who had known how to find the way to the hearts of his men.
The modest learning of those who have been educated in elementary
schools and have not had a complete secondary education is frequently
more thorough as far as it goes, provided that they are endowed with
intelligence and the desire for knowledge. They are contented,
according to their lights, and frequently give evidence of an
astonishingly profound cultivation of the qualities of the heart, and
this is in fact the true source of their courage and steadfastness in
time of trouble. Those who have had the benefit of an academic
training have certainly not the smallest reason to look down upon
such men as these.
In the second volume of his _History of Germany during the Nineteenth
Century_, Treitschke says, concerning the period following the Wars
of Liberation:
"Because they avoided that soul-destroying education which provides a
smattering of everything, the classical schools succeeded in kindling
in their pupils an enduring delight in classical antiquity and the
desire for a liberal and humane culture. Moreover, as yet, that
disease of modern universities, the examination-craze, was almost
entirely unknown. Those old and famous homes of classical learning,
the Fürstenschulen of Saxony and the convent schools of Württemberg,
sent on their senior scholars to the university, as soon as it seemed
to their teachers that they were ripe for this, and the State made no
objections."[19]
Since the year 1882, when Treitschke wrote these words, many
improvements have been made in our higher education, and Treitschke
himself admits that the system of regular State examinations, which
has existed in Prussia since the time of Frederick William I, even if
it is more mechanical, is at the same time more equitable, and is, in
fact, a necessity in the case of a big State. The meaning of this
foremost champion of Germanism is, however, obviously this, that a
liberal and humane education is not absolutely bound up with the
passing of the leaving examination.