Royal Prussian Army of the Napoleonic Wars The Royal Prussian Army was the principal armed force of the Kingdom of Prussia during its participation in the Napoleonic Wars . Frederick the Great ' s successor , his nephew Frederick William II ( 1786 – 97 ) , relaxed conditions in Prussia and had little interest in war . He delegated responsibility to the aged Charles William Ferdinand , Duke of Brunswick , and the army began to degrade in quality . Led by veterans of the Silesian Wars , the Prussian Army was ill - equipped to deal with Revolutionary France . The officers retained the same training , tactics , and weaponry used by Frederick the Great some forty years earlier . In comparison , the revolutionary army of France , especially under Napoleon Bonaparte , was developing new methods of organization , supply , mobility , and command . Prussia withdrew from the First Coalition in the Peace of Basel ( 1795 ) , ceding the Rhenish territories to France . Upon Frederick William II ' s death in 1797 , the state was bankrupt and the army outdated . War of the Fourth Coalition 1806 – 1807 . He was succeeded by his son , Frederick William III ( 1797 – 1840 ) , who involved Prussia in the disastrous Fourth Coalition . The Prussian Army was decisively defeated in the battles of Saalfeld , Jena , and Auerstedt in 1806 . The Prussians ' famed discipline collapsed and led to widescale surrendering among infantry , cavalry , and garrisons . While some Prussian commanders acquitted themselves well , such as L ' Estocq at Eylau , Gneisenau at Kolberg , and Blücher at Lübeck , they were not enough to reverse Jena - Auerstedt . Prussia submitted to major territorial losses , a standing army of only 42 , 000 men , and an alliance with France in the Treaty of Tilsit ( 1807 ) . Reform . The defeat of the disorganized army shocked the Prussian establishment , which had largely felt invincible after the Frederician victories . While Stein and Hardenberg began modernizing the Prussian state , Scharnhorst began to reform the military . He led a Military Reorganization Committee , which included Gneisenau , Grolman , Boyen , and the civilians Stein and Könen . Clausewitz assisted with the reorganization as well . Dismayed by the populace ' s indifferent reaction to the 1806 defeats , the reformers wanted to cultivate patriotism within the country . Stein ' s reforms abolished serfdom in 1807 and initiated local city government in 1808 . The generals of the army were completely overhauled — of the 143 Prussian generals in 1806 , only Blücher and Tauentzien remained by the Sixth Coalition ; many were allowed to redeem their reputations in the war of 1813 . The officer corps was reopened to the middle class in 1808 , while advancement into the higher ranks became based on education . King Frederick William III created the War Ministry in 1809 , and Scharnhorst founded an officers training school , the later Prussian War Academy , in Berlin in 1810 . Scharnhorst advocated adopting the " levée en masse " , the military conscription used by France . He created the " Krümpersystem " , by which companies replaced 3 - 5 men monthly , allowing up to 60 extra men to be trained annually per company . This system granted the army a larger reserve of 30 , 000 - 150 , 000 extra troops The " Krümpersystem " was also the beginning of short - term compulsory service in Prussia , as opposed to the long - term conscription previously used . Because the occupying French prohibited the Prussians from forming divisions , the Prussian Army was divided into six brigade s , each consisting of seven to eight infantry battalions and twelve squadrons of cavalry . The combined brigades were supplemented with three brigades of artillery . Corporal punishment was by and large abolished , while soldiers were trained in the field and in tirailleur tactics . Scharnhorst promoted the integration of the infantry , cavalry , and artillery through combined arms , as opposed to their previous independent states . Equipment and tactics were updated in respect to the Napoleonic campaigns . The field manual issued by Yorck in 1812 emphasized combined arms and faster marching speeds . In 1813 , Scharnhorst succeeded in attaching a chief of staff trained at the academy to each field commander . Some reforms were opposed by Frederician traditionalists , such as Yorck , who felt that middle class officers would erode the privileges of the aristocratic officer corps and promote the ideas of the French Revolution . The army reform movement was cut short by Scharnhorst ' s death in 1813 , and the shift to a more democratic and middle class military began to lose momentum in the face of the reactionary government . The reformers and much of the public called for Frederick William III to ally with the Austrian Empire in its 1809 campaign against France . When the cautious king refused to support a new Prussian war , however , Schill led his hussar regiment against the occupying French , expecting to provoke a national uprising . The king considered Schill a mutineer , and the major ' s rebellion was crushed at Stralsund by French allies . French invasion of Russia . The Franco - Prussian treaty of 1812 forced Prussia to provide 20 , 000 troops to Napoleon ' s Grande Armée , first under the leadership of Grawert and then under Yorck . The French occupation of Prussia was reaffirmed , and 300 demoralized Prussian officers resigned in protest . During Napoleon ' s retreat from Russia in 1812 , Yorck independently signed the Convention of Tauroggen with Russia , breaking the Franco - Prussian alliance . Stein arrived in East Prussia and led the raising of a " Landwehr " , or militia to defend the province . With Prussia ' s joining of the Sixth Coalition out of his hands , Frederick William III quickly began to mobilize the army , and the East Prussian " Landwehr " was duplicated in the rest of the country . In comparison to 1806 , the Prussian populace , especially the middle class , was supportive of the war , and thousands of volunteers joined the army . Prussian troops under the leadership of Blücher and Gneisenau proved vital at the Battles of Leipzig ( 1813 ) and Waterloo ( 1815 ) . Later staff officers were impressed with the simultaneous operations of separate groups of the Prussian Army . The Iron Cross was introduced as a military decoration by King Frederick William III in 1813 . After the publication of his " On War " , Clausewitz became a widely - studied philosopher of war . Wars of Liberation . The German 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 136 , 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 . Hundred Days . This army was composed entirely of Prussians from the provinces of the Kingdom of Prussia , old and recently acquired alike . Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher commanded this army with General August Neidhardt von Gneisenau as his chief of staff and second in command . Blücher ' s Prussian army of 116 , 000 men , with headquarters at Namur , was distributed as follows : This army was part of the Prussian Army above , but was to act independently much further south . It was composed of contingents from the following nations of the German Confederation : Electorate of Hessen , Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg - Schwerin , Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg - Strelitz , Grand Duchy of Saxe - Weimar - Eisenach , Duchy of Oldenburg ( state ) , Duchy of Saxe - Gotha , Duchy of Anhalt - Bernburg , Duchy of Anhalt - Dessau , Duchy of Anhalt - Kothen , Principality of Schwarzburg - Rudolstadt , Principality of Schwarzburg - Sondershausen , Principality of Waldeck ( state ) , Principality of Lippe and the Principality of Schaumburg - Lippe . Fearing that Napoleon was going to strike him first , Blücher ordered this army to march north to join the rest of his own army . The Prussian General Friedrich Graf Kleist von Nollendorf initially commanded this army before he fell ill on 18 June and was replaced by the Hessen - Kassel General Von Engelhardt . Its composition in June was : Total 25 , 000 Besides the four Army Corps that fought in the Waterloo Campaign listed above that Blücher took with him into the Kingdom of the Netherlands , Prussia also had a reserve army stationed at home in order to defend its borders . This consisted of : Organisation of the Royal Prussian Army . Organization of Army . Royal Guard . Infantry of the Line . 3 musketeer battalions , 2 Grenadier companies was the content of one line infantry regiment until the reorganization in 1808 , when 2 musketeer battalions and 1 fusilier battalion formed one Line infantry regiment . Musketeers . Musketeers were the usual Line Infantry in the Prussian Army ; they were organised in Battalions which consisted in four companies of Musketeers and generally a platoon of Schützen ( Carabiniers , élite light infantry ) . Cavalry of the Line . An instruction of 6 March 1787 set the strengths of the categories of cavalry regiment as follows : Cuirassiers - 37 officers , 80 NCOs , 11 trumpeters , 660 troopers , 60 supernumeraries Dragoons - 37 officers , 75 NCOs , 16 trumpeters , 660 troopers , 60 supernumeraries Hussars - 51 officers , 150 NCOs , 30 trumpeters , 1 , 320 troopers Garde du corps ( Life Guards ) - Three squadrons strong , with 24 officers , 48 NCOs , 8 musicians and 522 troopers . Light cavalry . Prussian light cavalry consisted of Hussars . The standard size of a Hussar regiment was : 51 officers , 150 NCOs , 30 trumpeters and 1 , 320 Troopers Formations and tactics . Infantry . Foot ( Line Infantry ) Fusiliers Grenadiers Jagers Uniforms . The Prussian army uniform was black and yellow .