page_title: Prussian Army
section_title: Bulwark of conservatism
hierarchical_section_title: Prussian Army / 19th century / Bulwark of conservatism
context_page_description: The Royal Prussian Army served as the army of the Kingdom of Prussia. It became vital to the development of Brandenburg-Prussia as a European power.
  The Prussian Army had its roots in the core mercenary forces of Brandenburg during the Thirty Years' War of 1618–1648. Elector Frederick William developed it into a viable standing army, while King Frederick William I of Prussia dramatically increased its size and improved its doctrines. King Frederick the Great, a formidable battle commander, led the disciplined Prussian troops to victory during the 18th-century Silesian Wars and greatly increased the prestige of the Kingdom of Prussia.
  The army had become outdated by the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars, and France defeated Prussia in the War of the Fourth Coalition in 1806. However, under the leadership of Gerhard von Scharnhorst, Prussian reformers began modernizing the Prussian Army, which contributed greatly to the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte during the War of the Sixth Coalition. Conservatives halted some of the reforms, however, and the Prussian Army subsequently became a bulwark of the conservative Prussian government.
context_section_description: The Prussian General Staff, which developed out of meetings of the Great Elector with his senior officers and the informal meeting of the Napoleonic Era reformers, was formally created in 1814. In the same year Boyen and Grolman drafted a law for universal conscription, by which men would successively serve in the standing army, the Landwehr and the local Landsturm until the age of 39. Troops of the 156,000-strong standing army served for three years and were in the reserves for two, while militiamen of the 163,000-strong Landwehr served a few weeks annually for seven years. Boyen and Blücher strongly supported the civilian army of the Landwehr, which was to unite military and civilian society, as an equal to the standing army.
  During a constitutional crisis in 1819, Frederick William III recognized Prussia's adherence to the anti-revolutionary Carlsbad Decrees. Conservative forces within Prussia, such as Wittgenstein, remained opposed to conscription and the more democratic Landwehr. Frederick William III reduced the militia's size and placed it under the control of the regular army in 1819, leading to the resignations of Boyen and Grolman and the ending of the reform movement. Boyen's ideal of an enlightened citizen soldier was replaced with the idea of a professional military separate or alienated from civilian society.
  By the middle of the 19th century, Prussia was seen by many German liberals as the country best-suited to unify the many German states, but the conservative government used the army to repress liberal and democratic tendencies during the 1830s and 1840s. Liberals resented the usage of the army in essentially police actions. King Frederick William IV (1840–61) initially appeared to be a liberal ruler, but he was opposed to issuing the written constitution called for by reformers. When barricades were raised in Berlin during the 1848 revolution, the king reluctantly agreed to the creation of a civilian defense force (Bürgerwehr) in his capital. A national assembly to write a constitution was convened for the first time, but its slowness allowed the reactionary forces to regroup. Wrangel led the reconquest of Berlin, which was supported by a middle class weary of a people's revolution. Prussian troops were subsequently used to suppress the revolution in many other German cities.
  At the end of 1848, Frederick William finally issued the Constitution of the Kingdom of Prussia. The liberal opposition secured the creation of a parliament, but the constitution was largely a conservative document reaffirming the monarchy's predominance. The army was a praetorian guard outside of the constitution, subject only to the king. The Prussian Minister of War was the only soldier required to swear an oath defending the constitution, leading ministers such as Strotha, Bonin and Waldersee to be criticized by either the king or the parliament, depending on their political views. The army's budget had to be approved by the Lower House of Parliament. Novels and memoirs glorifying the army, especially its involvement in the Napoleonic Wars, began to be published to sway public opinion. The defeat at Olmütz of the liberals' plan to unite Germany through Prussia encouraged reactionary forces. In 1856 during peacetime Prussian Army consisted of 86,436 infantrymen, 152 cavalry squadrons and 9 artillery regiments.
  After Frederick William IV suffered a stroke, his brother William I became regent (1857) and king (1861–88). He desired to reform the army, which conservatives such as Roon considered to have degraded since 1820 because of liberalism. The king wanted to expand the army—while the populace had risen from 10 million to 18 million since 1820, the annual army recruits had remained 40,000. Although Bonin opposed Roon's desired weakening of the Landwehr, William I was alarmed by the nationalistic Second Italian War of Independence. Bonin resigned as Minister of War and was replaced with Roon.
  The government submitted Roon's army reform bill in February 1860. Parliament opposed many of its provisions, especially the weakening of 
caption: Bismarck, Roon and Moltke in the 1860s
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