AUTHORITIES. REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS APPOINTED TO CONSIDER THE BEST MODE OF RE-ORGANIZING THE SYSTEM FOR TRAINING OFFICERS FOR THE SCIENTIFIC CORPS; together with An Account of Foreign and other Military Education and An Appendix. London: 1857. pp. 442 and 245, folio. REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON SANDHURST ROYAL MILITARY COLLEGE; together with the Proceedings of the Committee, Minutes of Evidence, Appendix and Index. Printed by Order of the House of Commons. London: 1855. pp. 230, folio. HELLDORF'S Dienst-Vorschriften der Königlich-Preussischen Armee. Berlin, 1856. FRIEDLANDER's Kriegs-Schule. VON HOLLEBEN, Paper on Military Education in Prussia. Official Programme of the Principal Subjects of Instruction Taught in the Artillery and Engineer School at Berlin. Account of the War, or Staff School at Berlin. Directions for the Supreme Board of Military Studies. 1856. Directions for the Supreme Military Examinations Commission. 1856. BARNARD'S National Education in Europe. 1852. BACHE'S Report on Education in Europe. 1838. MILITARY SYSTEM AND EDUCATION IN PRUSSIA.* I. OUTLINE OF MILITARY SYSTEM. ACCORDING to the law of the 3rd of September, 1814, which is the basis of the present military organization of Prussia, every Prussian above twenty years of age, is bound to service in arms for the defense of his country. The military force of the country is made up of three distinct bodies, and the whole of the adult male population is distributed among them. It consists of, I. The Standing Army. II. The National Militia or Landwehr, divided into two portions, viz., the first Landwehr and the second Landwehr. III. The Last Reserve or Landsturm. I. The standing army is composed of all young men between twenty and twenty-five years of age. The period of service in time of war is for five years, but in time of peace the young soldiers can obtain leave of absence after three years' service;-they belong for the remaining two years to what is termed the "reserve,” receiving neither pay nor clothing, and they are subject to be recalled if war should break out. Encouragement, indeed, is given and advantages held out to induce men to stay, and to take a new engagement for an additional term of six years; but it is said that only a small number are thus obtained. The bulk of the troops are men serving for this short time; and there are many, it should be added, whose term of service is even yet shorter. For all educated young men, all, that is, who pass a certain examination, are allowed, on condition that they pay for their own equipment and receive no pay, to shorten their service from three years to one. This privilege appears to be very largely used. It should also be stated, that young men of any class may volunteer to perform their service at any age after seventeen. The Prussian standing army amounts at the present time to * Compiled from the "Report, and Accompanying Documents of the Royal Commission on Foreign Military Education," 1857. about 126,000 men. It is divided into nine army-corps or corps d'Armée, one of which is named the guard, and the others are numbered from I. to VIII. In each there is a regiment of artillery and a division of engineers. A regiment of artillery consists, in time of peace, of three divisions; each division of one troop of horse artillery and four companies, of which, one is Fortress artillery with two-horsed pieces. Each regiment has thus three companies for the service of the fortress and twelve for field service. The whole. of the artillery is under the command of a general inspector, and it is divided into four inspections. An engineer division is composed of two companies. There are nine engineer divisions, one in each army corps. The whole are commanded by a general inspector, and they are divided into three inspections. The promotion in the Prussian infantry and cavalry is regimental, and by seniority, up to the rank of major; after that it is by selection; and an officer who has been passed over two or three times may consider that he has received an intimation to retire from the service. In the artillery the promotion is by regiments; in the engineers it is general. II. The first Landwehr, or Landwehr of the first summons (des ersten aufgebots,) consists principally of young men between twentyfive and thirty-two years of age, who enter when they have completed their period of service in the standing army. They are called out once every year for service with the divisions of the standing army to which they are attached, for a period varying from a fortnight to a month; and they may be sent in time of war on foreign service. Those who have passed through the first Landwehr, enter at the age of thirty-two in the second Landwehr, or Landwehr of the second summons (des zweiten aufgebots.) They are called out only for a very brief service once a year, and they can not at any time be ordered out of the country, but continue to form a part of the second Landwehr until they are thirty nine years of age. III. After the age of thirty-nine a Prussian subject belongs to the last reserve or Landsturm, and can only be summoned to service in arms upon a general raising, so to say, of the whole population, when the country is actually invaded by the enemy. With the standing army, the center of the system, all the other forces are kept in close connection. For every regiment of the standing army there is a corresponding regiment of Landwehr, and the two together form one brigade. In the local distribution, every village and hamlet of the Prussian dominions belongs to a certain regiment of Landwehr, serving with a certain regiment of the army, and belonging accordingly to one of the nine army corps. Such is the military organization, which, from the important part played in it by the Landwehr, is sometimes termed the Prussian Landwehr system. The history of its formation is remarkable, and the circumstances which led to its creation helped also to create the very peculiar education of the army. The Prussian Landwehr or militia is not of modern origin; in its form at least it is but a revival of the old feudal military organization, so far as that consisted of raising the country en masse, instead of keeping up a permanent, trained, and limited military force. Landwehr or Landsturm* was the old German name for this feudal array, before the system of standing armies was begun in Europe by Charles VII. of France, with his Scotch regiments. It was possibly the failure of the trained Prussian armies-long reputed the models of military discipline-in the attack upon France in 1792, and still more signally at Auerstadt and Jena, which partly led to the revival of the Landwehr as the peculiar national force of Prussia. The means by which Stein, and after his expulsion, Scharnhorst, called it into activity, was a master stroke of policy under the existing difficulties of the country. The following outline may be sufficient to explain its effects upon education. The condition which Napoleon had exacted at Tilsit—a reduction of the standing army from 200,000 to 40,000 men-would have lowered Prussia at once to the rank of a second-rate power. It was adroitly evaded by the plan of keeping only 40,000 men in arms at one and the same time, disbanding these as soon as they were disciplined, and replacing them constantly by fresh bodies. Thus the whole population of the country was ready to rise in 1813, after the crisis of Napoleon's retreat from Russia. The plan was chiefly due to the genius of Scharnhorst, whose early death deprived Prussia of her greatest scientific soldier. The Landwehr then proved itself a most efficient force, though its success was promoted by the national enthusiasm, which must prevent our taking such a period as a criterion of its permanent military working. Since that time it has continued to be the national army of the country. We were assured that this peculiarity of the Prussian army system, by which almost every man in the country serves in his turn in the ranks, has had a tendency to improve the education of the officers. It seems to have been felt that the officers would not retain the respect of intelligent privates unless they kept ahead of * Thus Landsturm is the word used for the rising en masse of the Tyrol in 1809. |