Gerhard Johann David von Scharnhorst

German military leader

• Born: November 12, 1755
• Birthplace: Bordenau, Lippe (now in Germany)
• Died: June 28, 1813
• Place of death: Prague, Bohemia, Austrian Empire (now in Czech Republic)

Scharnhorst’s modernization of the Prussian army made it the model for the European armies of the nineteenth century. Among the reforms that he either initiated or helped to push through were the development of the general staff, the abolition of army corporal punishment, a scheme for training large numbers of recruits, and the overhaul of Prussian tactical training.

Early Life

Gerhard Johann David von Scharnhorst (SHAHRN-horst) was born in a small town in the principality of Lippe, one of the sleepy, minor German states of the time. The son of an independent small farmer, Scharnhorst was born a commoner whose connections to the aristocracy were limited to two uncles who sold fish and other supplies to the kitchen of the Elector of Hanover. Nevertheless, Scharnhorst’s father had served in the artillery of the Hanoverian army as a sergeant major, and it was a military career that the young boy would pursue.

Scharnhorst had the good fortune to be enrolled at the Military Academy of the Count of Schaumburg-Lippe, a cadet school that provided an education far above what was commonly taught at such provincial institutions. Commissioned as an officer-cadet in 1778 and made second lieutenant in the artillery in 1784, Scharnhorst, like Napoleon I, took advantage of new openings in the military for men of the middle class. Recent inventions had made the artillery technologically the most advanced arm of the European armies, and its officers were necessarily chosen on a basis of proficiency rather than of noble birth.

Despite its incorporation of technological progress in its military hardware, the army in which Scharnhorst served was still grounded in the military philosophy of the era that effectively ended with the American War of Independence in 1776 and the advance of the armies of the French Revolution after 1792. In both campaigns, the old European armies, which relied on a small, perfectly drilled body of professional soldiers able to move with mathematical precision to the orders of its commander, were beaten by an ill-trained but highly motivated mass army that replaced chessboard strategies with a revolutionizing reliance on open fire and massive offensive punches.

Since the European aristocrats had decided to fight revolutionary France, Scharnhorst first fought on the battlefields of Belgium and distinguished himself both as a courageous tactical leader and as a valuable chief of staff. In order to share his new insights into modern warfare, Scharnhorst took on the editorship of an influential military journal and began his lifelong career as a military writer. The Hanoverian army, however, was not an adequate vehicle for Scharnhorst’s ambitions, and the forty-five-year-old major began to look for advancement elsewhere.

Life’s Work

In 1801, Scharnhorst offered his services to King Frederick William III of Prussia; however, he attached three conditions to his coming: He asked to be made lieutenant-colonel, to be raised to the nobility, and to be allowed to transform the Prussian army into a modern fighting force that could therefore withstand the onslaught of France. As further proof of his qualifications, the Hanoverian officer attached three essays on military topics.

In December, 1802, when Scharnhorst was actually ennobled, the Prussian king had answered all of the young man’s requests and had made him director of the War Academy in Berlin. Physically, Scharnhorst did not quite fit one’s idea of a Prussian staff officer: A portrait by Friedrich Bury shows an intelligent face framed by soft brown hair; Scharnhorst’s expressive eyes gaze over a long, fleshy nose, and his mouth seems to be trying to suppress an ironic smile. His contemporaries noted an absence of stiffness in Scharnhorst, and, on the parade ground, his was not an impressive figure; when he addressed the troops, his voice failed to inspire them. On the other hand, his writings were exceptionally clear, witty, and persuasive. All in all, the Prussian king had obtained an officer who stood out of the crowd of his mostly noble and aging colleagues.

From his first year in Prussian service, Scharnhorst gathered around him an impressive body of students, among whom was the young Carl von Clausewitz, whose ideas would later revolutionize military thought. At the same time, Scharnhorst communicated actively with fellow reformers in and out of the military; to create a forum where the reform of the army could be discussed, he founded the Military Society of Berlin in July, 1801. Soon, young and enlightened officers joined to express their ideas and to put them on paper in the society’s publications.

Meanwhile, the triumphs of Napoleon began to draw the eyes of the Prussian reformers to his military machine. The movement and organization of large masses of soldiers required immense organizational support, and the French had designated that task to a still-rudimentary general staff. The idea caught on with the Prussians, and in 1803 the old quartermaster-general’s staff was enlarged and reorganized. As a result, Scharnhorst was made general quartermaster-lieutenant for Western Germany (the Prussian possessions west of the river Elbe) and at once began to order such revolutionary activities as field trips for staff officers and peacetime reconnaissance and mapping of potential grounds of conflict.

War came in 1806, and Scharnhorst tested his theories of modern military leadership when he served as a staff aide to the charismatic General Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher; however, the two men could not save the generally poorly led Prussian army. Captured with Blücher and released later, Scharnhorst fought valiantly at Preussisch Eylau in the East, but his superiors failed to use this tactical gain in order to engineer a strategic reversal. In 1807, Prussia had to admit defeat and sign the Peace of Tilsit.

In the aftermath of defeat, the king appointed an Army Reform Commission, which, headed by Scharnhorst, would examine the wartime conduct of every Prussian officer. As a final result of these examinations, only two of the generals who had served in 1806-1807 would still be on active duty in 1813. Furthermore, the king ordered the institution of a Ministry of War. Scharnhorst was appointed head of its General War Department and thus was put in charge of overseeing the army as a whole.

In his new position, Scharnhorst began to draft energetic proposals for reform. Central to his thoughts was the idea of a standing army in which all male citizens would serve their nation for a certain time. An important step toward this goal was taken on October 9, 1807, when Scharnhorst’s civilian counterpart, the great reformer Baron Heinrich vom und zum Stein, moved the king to proclaim the abolition of serfdom in Prussia as of November 11, 1810. By this, the people of Prussia were freed to serve the state rather than their landowners.

The French limit on Prussia’s army, however, which was to be kept to forty-two thousand men, prohibited the building of a larger force of conscripts and volunteers. Here, Scharnhorst found an ingenious way out when he proposed his famous Kruempersystem, or “shrinkage system.” According to this scheme, regular soldiers of a regiment were sent on leave, while fresh recruits took their place and received a quick but thorough training. Although the effect of this system has been overestimated, Prussia had at hand about sixty-five thousand trained soldiers in 1813, and some of the surplus came from the Kruempersystem.

Before the suspicious French effected his removal from the General War Department in 1810, Scharnhorst had also worked on the opening of the officer corps to members of the middle class. Meanwhile, for the common soldier, Scharnhorst was coinstrumental in abolishing humiliating forms of corporal punishment, such as scourging or “running the gauntlet.” While he stayed with the emerging general staff, Scharnhorst gave the Prussian army its modern organization into brigades and divisions that would each consist of a combination of infantry, cavalry, and artillery. The need for modernized tactical training did not escape his view; the army training regulations of 1812 bear witness to his influence in their placing of a new emphasis on operational flexibility and common sense, fire power, and the formation of a strong attacking force. Soldiers were increasingly trained in the field and on the rifle range, while the parade ground became less important.

When France forced Prussia into war against Russia in 1811, Scharnhorst removed himself to a remote outpost in Silesia until fortunes changed and Prussia, now an ally of Russia, declared war on France on March 16, 1813. The new war brought to fruition all the reforms for which Scharnhorst and his colleagues had struggled. Universal service was proclaimed on February 9, and the idea of a militia was realized with the formation of the Landwehr and Landsturm. Volunteers rushed to the Prussian recruitment centers, and Scharnhorst found himself appointed chief of staff to General Blücher. Together, they engaged the French in two battles. At Grossgörschen, Scharnhorst received a foot wound that developed gangrene and ultimately killed him on June 28, 1813, while he was waiting in Prague on a mission to win Austria’s entry into the war against France.

Significance

At a crucial moment in Prussian history, Gerhard Johann David von Scharnhorst succeeded as a leading military reformer who laid the foundations for the survival and ultimate triumph of the Prussian army in the war with France after 1813. His idea of a well-organized citizen army backed by the logistical help of a general staff would find its ultimate expression in the victories of the Prussian armies in 1866 and 1871. Scharnhorst’s ideas thus proved essential for the creation of the German Empire by Otto Bismarck and Kaiser William I.

Throughout his years in the service of the Prussian state, Scharnhorst stressed the importance of education and individual dignity and responsibility for all reforms. This emphasis links Scharnhorst’s military work to the struggles of his civilian counterparts, reformers such as Stein and Prince Karl von Hardenberg; it also makes him exemplary of the zeitgeist of a new era in Prussia and Germany, which drew inspiration from thinkers such as Immanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.

In his reforms, Scharnhorst was always led by a deep humanism as well as a sincere appreciation of the individual soldier. As a practicing Christian, Scharnhorst also rejected the idea that army and warfare fell completely within the private sphere of the ruler. Like his pupil Clausewitz, the great reformer firmly believed in a political, rather than a personal, purpose of a nation’s defense forces.

Bibliography

Dupuy, T. N. A Genius for War: The German Army and General Staff, 1807-1945. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1977. Dupuy, a retired air force colonel, views Scharnhorst as a brilliant thinker who, together with an influential group of reformers, laid the groundwork for Prussia’s emerging superiority in army organization and operational leadership. Very readable and richly illustrated. Contains useful maps.

Feuchtwanger, E. J. Prussia: Myth and Reality. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1970. Covers the Prussian state from its origins to its abolition in 1947 and contains a valuable chapter on the reform era. Describes Scharnhorst’s accomplishments in detail and places them in the context of a broad reform movement. Depicts the obstacles that were laid in the path of the reformers by opposing elements of the old establishment. Readable, with four maps.

Goerlitz, Walter. History of the German General Staff, 1657-1945. Edited and translated by Brian Battershaw. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1953. An extremely useful look at Scharnhorst in his role as a military reformer who would prove crucial to the development of the German war machine. Contains a personal view of the man, his general environment, and his supporters, friends, students, and opponents. Very readable; illustrated.

Kitchen, Martin. A Military History of Germany from the Eighteenth Century to the Present Day. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975. Centers on the democratic aspects of Scharnhorst’s reform work. Places him in the framework of Germany’s military history. Gives some background information on the Prussian state and its army. Well written and persuasive.

Koch, H. W. A History of Prussia. New York: Longman, 1978. A detailed account of Scharnhorst’s struggles with the Prussian establishment. Contains valuable extracts of Scharnhorst’s writings in translation that are not generally available in English. Contains maps and tables. Somewhat scholarly and dry in its approach but useful for further studies.

White, Charles Edward. The Enlightened Solider: Scharnhorst and the Militärische Gessellschaft in Berlin, 1801-1805. New York: Praeger, 1989. The only English-language book focusing on Scharnhorst. White describes how Scharnhorst founded the Militärische Gessellschaft (Military Society) in Berlin, and how this society became a vehicle for transforming the Prussian army into a modern fighting force.