Frederick Wilhelm the Great Elector played a large role in the history of Brandenburg-Prussia.
After all, he pulled Brandenburg out of the mud when it was, quite literally, on the verge
of the abyss. One of the ways he did this was by creating Prussia’s standing army
- a development that can be considered revolutionary at the time. When he became elector in 1640,
throughout Europe, it was the norm to hire mercenaries to fight wars. The Elector began
using conscription to professionalize his army and eventually the Prussian army would
become known for its incredible discipline and disproportionate size to the population
of Brandenburg-Prussia. So where exactly did he get the idea and inspiration
for these developments?
-intro-
Mercenaries and Dutch Relations
The Thirty Years’ War broke out in 1618 and up until its end in 1648 is was absolutely
devastating for the Margraviate of Brandenburg, some cities losing upwards of 80 percent of
their population. As it was concluded with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, aside from
the developments in terms of statehood and sovereignty, it led to another development
for European great powers. Up until that point, whenever war broke out, powers generally hired
mercenaries. The Great Elector’s father, Georg Wilhelm, actually hired Landsknecht
mercenaries to do the bulk of the fighting during the Thirty Years’ War. A problem
with hiring mercenaries was that there was a communication issue. There weren’t any
standardized tactics, and if a monarch ran out of money, it was very well possible the
mercenaries would grab their own fair share of the bargain from the lands of the monarch
they fought for. That was the case for Brandenburg-Prussia during the late 1630s, where mercenaries were
a third menace the Elector could not get rid of, aside from the marauding Swedes and Imperial
troops they were supposed to protect him from. In 1640 Georg Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg
and Duke of Prussia passed away. He was succeeded by his 20-year-old son, Frederick Wilhelm.
Now, this new Elector spent his entire reign attempting to remodel his army. Which, admittedly,
is pretty interesting and all. But what’s so curious is that his childhood played an
enormous role in the way he reformed the military. He spent his teenage years in the Dutch Republic,
which during that time was embroiled in the 80-years-war against the Spanish Habsburgs.
And these Dutch tactics became the inspiration for the reforms of the Prussian Military.
So let’s have a look at his childhood and education before we delve into his reforms
for the Prussian military.
Dutch Army Tactics
It is important to realize Frederick Wilhelm was born -after- the Thirty Years’ War broke
out, in 1620. During his early childhood, he learned Polish, which came in handy when
he would have to communicate with the Polish King, as the Hohenzollerns held the Duchy
of Prussia as a Polish fief. Anyway, until he was 14 he grew up in Brandenburg within
the Holy Roman Empire, but with the war worsening, territories being razed and plundered and
famine and disease widespread, his father figured it was safer to send him to the Dutch
Republic. His father had closed an alliance with the Palatinate and the Dutch Republic
and as such he had connections there. As a matter of fact, the Frederick in the Great
Elector’s name symbolized the bond with Calvinism as it referred to the Calvinist
Frederick V of the Palatinate, who incidentally caused the start of the Thirty Years’ War.
He also was the son of Louise Juliana van Nassau, the eldest daughter of Willem van
Oranje that led the Dutch revolt against the Spanish. The Great Elector himself, much later
in 1646, would marry the Dutch Calvinist Louise Henriëtte, daughter of Prince Frederik Hendrik
van Oranje. During the time the Great Elector was in the
Dutch Republic he was taught at Leiden University in law and the neo-stoical state theory that
propagated that military power should be subject to the authority of the state. Outside of
his studies, the situation the small republic was in also must have given him some idea
of the possibilities of state structure. The republic was still at war with Catholic Spain,
one of the key players in the European theatre at that time. Because of this war the republic
had adopted not just a robust fiscal regime, but they had also improved their military
apparatus and created a, for that time, very modern army. While he was not even 18 yet,
the Great Elector visited his future father-in law, Frederik Hendrik van Oranje in 1637.
He witnessed the Siege of Breda up close, with the Dutch retaking the city from the
Spaniards. Taking an interest in military matters, he learned of the regular and systematic
drilling of troops in battleground manoeuvres and the efficiency and effectivity a disciplined
army could have. That translated itself to reforms the Elector
issued once he came into power. In 1654, right before the outbreak of the Second Northern
War, the Elector’s regime adopted a new training program for the conscripted troops.
It was based on the drill-book of none other than the half-brother of his father-in law,
Prince Maurits van Oranje, who had reformed the Dutch army decades before. But by that
time, the Elector had already reigned over Brandenburg-Prussia for 14 years, issuing
the necessary amount of other reforms.
Putting it to the test
The Great Elector returned to Brandenburg from Ducal Prussy in 1643, 3 years after inheriting
the Electorship from his father. During his absence, Albrecht II ruled the Mark in his
name. He upheld a rich correspondence with the Elector about the state of the Mark, providing
a pretty telling account of the situation the war brought on: “The country is in such
a miserable and impoverished condition (...) and the cart is driven so deep into the mud, that
it cannot be extricated without the special help of the Almighty.” Well, it wouldn’t
be the Almighty, but the new Elector that pulled this cart out of the muck. The core
problem was the fact that Brandenburg had no natural borders and no army to protect
it from invasion. As the Elector arrived in Brandenburg the army that had been set up
by Adam, Count of Schwarzberg, the main advisor of the Elector during the Thirty Years’
War, was falling apart. By 1641 the Elector had an army of about 3000
men. In 1644 he instituted conscription, recruiting men for the army throughout his territories,
even in the Duchy of Cleves in the West. By 1646 he had 8000 troops, with 3000 of the
soldiers in the Rhineland, both Dutch and from his own territories. Interestingly enough
he played the international system with some serious finesse, being one of the few parties
that came out on top at the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 ending the war. By the time the Northern
War started 7 years later, he already had a standing army of 25.000, an incredible number.
By the Dutch wars of the 1670s the army had grown to 38.000 men, with the final decade
of his reign having its size fluctuate between 20 and 30.000.
Now, he used the best practices of the French, Dutch, Swedish and Imperial troops to augment
his own army. A telling example was that he got rid of inefficient matchlock guns and
replaced them with faster-firing flintlocks. Pikemen were gotten rid of and the artillery
was standardized, taking after Swedish developments. All the while, the Elector made sure a foreign
party was subsidizing his army’s development, whether it was France, the Dutch or the Habsburgs
- he switched alliances often during his reign. The social aspect of the army was changed
as well - official military schools were instituted where officers were educated. Regular conscripts
received a set amount of pay, and soldiers that were injured received provision, all
increasing the morale. As a result, the desertion rates of Prussian soldiers were very low by
the last decade of his reign. Something that could have played a role in this was that
the Elector instituted severe punishment for transgressions, such as running the gauntlet
in case a soldier did desert. Yet, Prussian troops were scarce, the territories the Elector
controlled weren’t very populated. As such, the saying “A Prussian doesn’t shoot fast”
doesn’t refer to their supposed military inefficiency, but to the fact that if a soldier
did desert, he would be thoroughly beaten, but not shot. His life was way too valuable
to dispose of him, in contrast to, for example, Russian troops. During the 1660s he started
to centralize the command structure, as until then troops were usually organized by their
territories without an overbearing organ to direct them. All in all, a foundation for
the future greatness of the Prussian army was put in place, albeit a very primitive
foundation. A standing army requires a lot of funding
though. I’ve briefly mentioned the changes of alliance the Elector often made use of
to receive funding from those he ‘supported’ against their adversaries, but that wasn’t
everything he did. In 1655 a Generalkriegskommisar was appointed - an office that oversaw the
financial resources of the army. This development was based on the military administration that
had only been recently introduced in France by Michel Le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois,
responsible for the army under King Louis the 14th. Initially created as a temporary
office, it was there to remain permanently after the Northern War was over.
Eventually, this Generalkriegskommisariat, the office for war if you will, was centralized
under a Pomeranian noblemen named Joachim von Grumbkow. In 1679 he began to gradually
centralize military taxation, which until then was arranged at a local level. I don’t
want you to think of the incredibly well-oiled machine the Prussian civil service and army
would become by this point just yet. As the Elector passed away in 1688 the Generalrkiegskommissariat
was a relatively small institution and there certainly were many areas of improvement.
The Elector’s grandson and great-grandson, the Soldier King and Frederick the Great respectively,
would change that. The foundation had been laid by the great elector for Prussia to have
the efficient and disciplined military it would become notorious for. After all, in
the 18th century it was noted that “Prussia was not a country with an army, but an army
with a country.”
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