Chapter XXI: Part II: Military System and Schools in Prussia (1)

* * * * *

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.[1]

[Footnote 1: Compiled from the “Report, and Accompanying Documents
of the Royal Commission on Foreign Military Education,” 1857.]

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 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 twenty-five 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_[2] 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.

[Footnote 2: Thus _Landsturm_ is the word used for the rising _en
masse_ of the Tyrol in 1809.]

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 them in education. And this impression appears to have been the cause of the royal edicts passed in 1816, by which it was required that every Prussian officer should pass two examinations before receiving his commission, one to test his general education, and the other his professional knowledge.

II. HISTORICAL VIEW OF PRUSSIAN MILITARY EDUCATION.[3]

[Footnote 3: The chief authority for this paper is a very detailed
account of the Staff School, (_Kriegs-Schule_,) by Friedländer,
pp. 1-360.]

The Prussian system of military education stands in close connection with the general education of the country, just as the Prussian military organization is the peculiar creation of that country’s history. And the greatest improvements in the army and in its scientific teaching have been made at those remarkable periods when we should most naturally have looked for them--the time of Frederick the Great and the Liberation war of 1813-1814.

The leading principles of Prussian military education consist, _first_, in requiring from every officer in the army proof of a fair _general_ education before his entrance, and of a fair _military_ education afterwards. _Secondly_, they encourage a higher military education in a senior school, which has almost exclusively the privilege of supplying the staff.

In this requirement of a fair education, both general and military, _universally_ from its officers, Prussia stands alone among the great military nations of Europe, and this honorable distinction is in a great measure the result of the diffused system of education throughout the country, and of the plan adopted by Stein and Scharnhorst, to make the officers the leaders of the army both in education and in military science.

The military schools of Germany may be said to have begun with the Reformation wars. Some such were founded by Maurice of Saxony, the great political and military genius of Germany in that century; the example was soon imitated in Baden, Silesia, and Brunswick, and a curious sketch of military education, by the hand of Duke Albert of Brandenburg, has been lately published from the Berlin archives, in which theology and mathematics hold the two most important places.

The first school of any real importance was founded in Colberg, by the great elector, Frederick William, in 1653. This had considerable success, and both his successors, King Frederick and Frederick William I., improved it greatly, and finally transferred it to Berlin. It was the time (about 1705, 1706,) of the great advance in military engineering under Vauban and Coehorn, and a school for engineering was founded, in which some of their pupils had a great share. The first Prussian trigonometrical survey also dates as early as 1702; that of England was not begun till 1784. It may indeed be said that the scientific arms began to take a more favorable place in the Prussian army about this time. They have held, and even still hold in some respects, a less distinguished position in Germany than in France, England, or Sardinia; and the first instance of an artilleryman being made a general, was in the reign of Frederick William I.

On Frederick the Great’s accession he found several military schools in existence. These had been chiefly founded by his eccentric father, who had a passion for Cadet Houses and cadets, and their object is said to have been to supply an education to the nobility, who at that time were very ill-taught in Germany. After Frederick’s first wars, his own attention was much occupied by the need of a better military education, and he continued to work at the subject very zealously till his death. His example on this point, as that of a great military authority, is most instructive, since his object was at first only to educate cadets _before_ their entrance to the army, but was afterwards extended to completing the education of officers already on active service. His views on the last point were carried out by Scharnhorst. They were the germ of the present Prussian military education.

It is curious to observe that the Austrian Succession War and the Seven Years’ War, the first great wars since Louis XIV., and which broke the Thirty Years’ Peace of the eighteenth century, are periods at which scientific military education made a great step in Europe. A Treatise of Marshal Count Beausobre’s on the subject first showed the existing want; it is entitled “_Utilité d’une Ecole et d’une Académie Militaire, avec des Notes, ou l’on traite des Ecoles Militaires de l’Antiquité_”. It attracted great attention on its appearance. Most of the military academies properly so called, date from about this time. The earliest warrant for Woolwich, dates in 1741. The Theresianum of Maria Theresa was begun at Vienna about 1748. The first French school was the celebrated engineer school of Mezières founded in 1749. This was soon followed by the old military school of Paris in 1751, and by the school for artillery at La Fère in 1756. Frederick’s own _Ritter Academie_ dates from 1764.

Frederick began this institution with his usual energy, immediately on the close of the Seven Years’ War. “My fire is quenched,” he writes, “and I am now only busied in improving the practice of my men. * * * * The position of the common soldier may be left as it was before the war began, but the position of the officers is a point to which I am devoting my utmost care. In order in future to quicken their attention whilst on service, and to form their judgment, I have ordered them to receive instruction in the art of war, and they will be obliged to give reasons for all they do. Such a plan, as you will see, my dear friend, will not answer with every one; still out of the whole body we shall certainly form some men and officers, who will not merely have their patent as generals to show, (_die nicht blos patentirte Generale vorstellen_,) but some capacity for the office as well.” He had, in fact, seen with great admiration the improved military school recently founded by Maria Theresa; and as it is best on such points to let this great authority be heard for himself, we shall quote his own words:--

“In order to neglect nothing bearing on the state of the army, the Empress founded near Vienna, (at Wiener Neustadt,) a college where young nobles were instructed in the whole art of war. She drew to it distinguished professors of geometry, fortification, geography, and history, who formed there able pupils, and made it a complete nursery for the army. By means of her care, the military service attained in that country a degree of perfection which it had never reached under the Emperors of the House of Austria; and a woman thus carried out designs worthy of a great man.”

His letters show that he contemplated an improved school, and he says to D’Alembert: “I send you the rules of my academy. As the plan is new, I beg you to give me your honest opinion of it.” Accordingly, the academy was founded. We will describe it in his own words:--

“An academy was founded at the same time, in which were placed those of the cadets who showed most genius. The king himself drew up the rules for its form, and gave it a plan of instruction, which stated the objects of the studies of the pupils, and of the education they were to receive. Professors were chosen from the ablest men who could be found in Europe, and fifteen young gentlemen were educated under the eyes of five instructors. Their whole education tended to form their judgment. The academy was successful, and supplied able pupils, who received appointments in the army.”[4]

[Footnote 4: “Histoire de mon Temps.”--_Œuvres_, vi., p. 99.]

This school, which was opened in 1765, was Frederick’s only foundation of the kind; he was occupied with it incessantly. The plan of its studies was drawn up by his own hand, and we have many of his letters of encouragement to its pupils or professors. Whether he is writing to Voltaire, Condorcet, or “My Lord Marischal” Keith, he constantly shows both his well-known attention to the economy of his new school, and a paternal interest in his young cadets and their teachers.[5]

[Footnote 5: He gives himself, in his forcible style, the reasons
for his attention to early military schools. He had found his
young nobility excessively averse to such education. “They shrink
from the army,” he said, “because in this country it is a real
training for the character. Nothing is passed over in a young
officer; he is obliged to maintain a prudent, regular, and
sensible conduct. . . . . . This is precisely what they dislike,
and one still hears the absurd and insolent expression, ‘If my boy
will not work, he will do none the worse for a soldier.’ Yes, he
may do for a mere man-at-arms (_fantassin_,) but not for an
officer fit to be advanced to the highest commands, the only end
of a good soldier’s life, and which requires a really extensive
knowledge.”--_Œuvres_, ix., 117, 120.]

Accordingly, both in professors and pupils, the new institution soon gained an European character. Out of its twenty first directors, no less than ten were distinguished foreigners; one of the best teachers at Berlin was D’Antoni, a distinguished soldier from the Turin institution and the artillery school at Alessandria--schools which were still the representatives of the military science of the great Italian generals, of the Duke of Parma, of Spinola, and Montecuculi.

This institution was still, as it would appear, upon the old principle of juvenile army schools, nor does Frederick seem to have set on foot any school for officers after entering the service. But he evidently felt strongly the need of improving his staff officers, and of raising the science of his artillery and engineers. Thus we find him referring to the French engineer school at Meziéres; and he endeavored to raise the intelligence and education of his officers. It may, however, be suspected that the spirit of the “Potsdamer Côterie,” as it was called, became gradually, and particularly after Frederick’s death, too literary and speculative to suit the rough work of war; and it may, perhaps, be thought that some defect of this kind is still traceable in the excessive amount of teaching and the abstract nature of some of the subjects taught in the staff school at Berlin.

Such seems to have been the opinion of Scharnhorst, the virtual author of the present system of army education, and whom the Prussians still regard as their first authority on that subject. “Instruction is given,” he says, “at the military school in all literature, in philosophy, and in many various sciences. Frederick seems to have wished to lay in it the foundation of the education at once of an officer and of a learned man. Few men, however, are able to excel at once in various branches of human knowledge, and the surest means to do so in _one_ is not to attempt it in _many_.”

We have referred to Frederick and his school rather to show the interest he felt in military education, than because his institution was very important. Military education was still very imperfect, and it completely languished in Prussia till Scharnhorst established it on its present footing.

Scharnhorst was himself an Hanoverian, but entered the Prussian service, and had seen by experience the defects of their system in the campaigns of 1792, 1793, and 1805. He had long devoted especial attention to military education and to all the scientific part of his profession. Along with Blucher and Gneisenau, he was considered one of the first generals of the army, and, on the exhaustion of Prussia after Jena, he was selected to remodel its whole system. He did not live to complete his work, having been killed early in 1812; but his statue near the bridge at Berlin, remarkable for its noble and thoughtful expression, records the gratitude of Prussia to its greatest scientific soldier.

“The perfection of the French military organization,” says Mr. Alison, “appeared to him in painful contrast beside the numerous defects of that over which he presided. * * * * Boldly applying to the military department the admirable principles by which Stein had secured the affections of the burgher classes, he threw open to the whole of the citizens the higher grades of the army, from which they had been hitherto excluded. * * * * And every department of the public service underwent his searching eye.”

The work began with the commission of 1807, of which both Stein and Scharnhorst were members. And the regulation of 1808 laid down the principle broadly, that the only claim to an officer’s commission must be, “in time of peace, knowledge and education; in war, courage and conduct.”

On these principles, during the next three years, Scharnhorst laid the foundations of the present education. He abolished most of the existing juvenile schools, with the exception only of the Cadet Houses, intended almost solely for the sons of officers. He changed the previous war school into a sort of school _d’Elite_, consisting of a senior and junior department, in which the younger soldiers of all arms were to be imbued with such knowledge as might give them a scientific interest in their profession, and in which senior officers (also of all arms) were to have a higher course of a similar nature, success in which was to form a recommendation for employment on the staff. He began the plan of the division schools, where all candidates for commissions, but not yet officers, might conduct their military studies along with the practice of their profession. Its idea was to make some military study _necessary_, and successful study _honorable_, in the army. Finally, he began the present system of careful examination on entering the army.

The following historical notice of the origin and successive changes of the division schools is taken from a communication by Col. Von Holleben, and a member of the General Inspection of Military Instruction to the English Commission.

The cabinet order of the 6th of August, 1808, laid the foundation of the present system of military education. It regulates the appointment of Swordknot ensigns and the selection of officers, and declares that the only title to an officer’s commission in time of peace shall be professional knowledge and education, and in time of war distinguished valor and ability.

The cabinet order of the 6th of August, 1808, could only come gradually into operation; the system of military examinations had to be created, and the educational institutions had to receive a new organization, under the superintendence of a general officer. Four provincial boards of examination were successively established, and on the 1st December, 1809, a body of instructions, still very vague and general, was issued for their guidance.

A cabinet order of the 3rd of May, 1810, remodeled the military schools, directing, in addition to the cadet schools at Berlin and Stolpe, the formation of three military schools for Swordknot ensigns, (_Portepée-Fähnriche_,) one at Berlin for the marches (_Die Marken_,) and Pomerania, a second at Königsberg, for east and west Prussia, and a third at Breslau, for Silesia; and the formation of a military school at Berlin for officers. All these institutions were placed under the general superintendence of Lieutenant-General Von Diericke, who had also the special superintendence of the boards of examination. A board of military studies was created and intrusted, under his control, with the task of carrying the regulations into effect.

Before, however, the new institutions attained to any stability the war years of 1813-14-15 intervened, and the operations of the board of examinations ceased.

Soon after the conclusion of peace directions were given that the examinations should recommence, with an equitable consideration of the claims of the Landwehr officers, ensigns, and other young persons who had grown up during the war.

At first there was only one board of examination at Berlin, with large discretionary powers as to their mode of procedure. In April, 1816, a cabinet order was issued to form boards of examination for the Swordknot at every brigade, as the present divisions were then called, besides the existing board at Berlin, for the examination for an officer’s commission.

Contemporaneously with the nine boards of examination, the board of military studies, by an order of January, 1816, directed the establishment of schools for every brigade, and attempted to gradually regulate the instruction they gave. The schools contained two classes, the lower to prepare candidates for the Swordknot, the higher to prepare candidates for the rank of officer. As, however, no standard of attainment was required for admission into the schools, their instruction had to commence with the first elements, and was charged with more work than it could perform. The weaker scholars stayed two, three, or more years in the lower class, and the education of the better scholars was impeded.

During this and the following period the authority over the examination boards (the _Præsidium_,) was distinct from that over the schools, (the general inspection,) and it was not till later that both authorities were vested in a single person. This division of powers, intended to secure the independence and impartiality of the examinations, led to the result that the two authorities were occasionally led, from a difference of principles, to labor in different directions. Still, in the infancy of military education, the rivalry it occasioned, was favorable to a rapidity of development.

An order of the 16th of March, 1827, added French to the studies for the ensigns’ examination, and fixed a higher standard of attainments in military sciences for the officers’ examination.

Nearly at the same time, a cabinet order of the 27th of March, 1827, directed that there should be only one class for Swordknot ensigns in the division schools, and that after October, 1829, the candidate should obtain a testimonial of fitness for the rank of Swordknot ensign previous to admission as a student.

Accordingly young men had to be prepared for examination for the Swordknot at their entrance into their corps, or might prepare themselves by private studies and instruction during their service.

The task of the schools, still very comprehensive embracing all the liberal sciences as well as the military, was accomplished during this period in two courses of nine months, in a higher and a lower class.

A cabinet order of the 31st of January, 1837, introduced the entrance examination, instead of the examination for the Swordknot, being declared that every candidate for the commission of an officer, after his reception into a corps, should prove in an examination his possession of the knowledge requisite for a Swordknot ensigncy before his actual appointment. At the same time a regulation of the ministry of war, of the 17th of December 1836, remodeled and more precisely defined both the entrance (Swordknot ensign) examination, and that for the commission of an officer. This regulation, while it essentially modified the instruction given at the division schools, furnished them at the same time with a more certain clue for their guidance. The preparation of youths for the Swordknot examination during their service in the corps was discontinued. But the standard of the entrance examination was still too low, requiring only a small portion of the branches of a general liberal education, and that not in the shape in which they are taught in our gymnasia. Hence the evil result, that young men, previous to their entrance into a corps, had usually to prepare for the military profession at private institutions instead of at the gymnasia, and nevertheless brought with them a very defective amount of preparatory training; on the other hand, the demands of the officers’ examination were very multifarious. It still required the general scholastic sciences by way of formal education, and the military sciences as a special education for the military profession. Thus the task of the division schools continued overwhelming, and an aim was set before them which they could not attain.

A regulation of the 4th of February, 1844, reformed simultaneously the whole system of military examination and education.

The views which guided these reforms, the improvements and advantages which were hoped to be thereby obtained, were, in general, the following:--

1. The military profession, like every other, requires a general school education intended generally to cultivate the mind, distinct from the subsequent special and professional education for which the former is the necessary groundwork.

The former is tested in the examination for the Swordknot, the latter in the officers’ examination.

2. The preparatory education required from the candidate for a Swordknot is the function of the ordinary schools of the country. Nothing but what they can impart is required, and from consideration of the youthful age of the candidates (seventeen years,) the amount of preparatory training required is not the attainment of the highest class of the gymnasium, but only that required for admission into the Prima.

3. The required previous training not only gives the candidate a more certain basis for his subsequent military education, but, as being the groundwork of all professions, leaves him afterwards at liberty to cultivate the special knowledge requisite for any profession that he may prefer.

4. The division schools are freed from a multifarious course of instruction in the scholastic sciences, a task beyond their power: the result of which was that the majority of scholars were very little advanced in formal and general education, and but superficially grounded in the elements of the professional sciences, while they spent years in being drilled for an examination, instead of being educated for life.

5. If the division schools have an able staff of military teachers, they can give a good professional education. The younger officers, even if they never received the full training of the gymnasium, may still, by their professional training, raise themselves above their subordinates, (a class in Prussia often highly educated,) and are started with an excellent preparation for their professional career.

6. By the amount of liberal education required in the examination for the Swordknot, the friends of those destined for the military profession are admonished to provide them an education equal to that received by the members of other professions.

7. By the method pursued in the examinations the power is retained of raising or lowering the standard according to circumstances. When the supply of officers is deficient, the standard can be lowered; at other times, as at present, it may be raised. Since the above-mentioned regulations, the following essential alterations have been introduced:--

1. The examination for the Swordknot is again placed after admission into the corps, but no one can be admitted to attend the division schools without a testimonial of fitness for the rank of Swordknot ensign.

2. A testimonial of fitness for the university, _i.e._, to have passed the abiturient examination, dispenses with the examination for the Swordknot. In consequence of this rule fifty abiturients on an average annually enter the army. These, as well as the selectaner of the cadet corps, must be considered, in point of scientific education, an excellent supply of officers. From the powerful impulse that military instruction has received in the last fifty years, it may be expected that the time is not distant when the candidate for an officer’s commission, instead of passing the Swordknot examination, will have to bring the finished training of the gymnasium; in other words, to have passed the abiturient examination.

3. Instead of the seventeen division schools there are now by the regulation of 1844, only nine, and a further reduction of their number to four or three is contemplated, with an improvement of the staff of teachers and a stricter supervision of the scholars.

III. SYSTEM OF MILITARY EDUCATION AND PROMOTION.

The standing army composed in the manner and under the circumstances already described, is supplied with officers who must have a good general education, and have served in the ranks, or have obtained a certain amount of professional instruction. The usual course is as follows:--

Young men obtain a nomination from the colonel of a regiment. This nomination admits them merely to service in the regiment as privates, with a recognition of their being candidates, _aspiranten_ or aspirants, for the rank of officer. Before they obtain that rank, the following conditions must be fulfilled. They must pass an examination in the common subjects of a good general education, such as the sons of well-born or wealthy civilians may be supposed to receive. They must serve six or nine months with the troops; they must attend nine months at a division school, or twelve months in the artillery and engineer school, where they receive a course of special military instruction; and they must pass an examination in professional subjects before a board sitting at Berlin. They are then eligible for a vacancy. In order to obtain a commission they require further the recommendation of the officers of the regiment.

It is obvious to remark, that in obtaining a commission in the Prussian service the candidate’s chance depends greatly on the recommendation of the colonel and the after assent of the officers. The effect of this is to maintain an exclusive character in the army. Above two-thirds of the commissions are obtained by the course described above; the remainder are granted to those who pass through the cadet schools.

Of these there are five altogether, four junior establishments, situated in certain provincial towns, and one senior or upper school at Berlin, to which the others are merely preparatory. They are all supported by the state; mainly for the purpose of educating the children of meritorious officers in want of assistance; but they are also open to others. With the exception of the highest class of the upper school, the _Selecta_ above mentioned, the instruction given is of a perfectly general character, and there is no obligation even for those who have received the most ample pecuniary assistance to enter the military profession. The discipline, however, is military, the teachers are mostly officers, the pupils are regularly drilled, and most of them actually go into the army. This they do in ordinary cases without going through the highest or select class in which professional instruction is given; they merely pass the same preliminary examination as the candidates nominated by the colonels of regiments; they enter the army without their commissions, and have to obtain them in the same manner as the other candidates, by serving six or nine months with the troops, and by following their professional studies in the division or artillery and engineer schools, and by passing the officers’ or second examination before the examining board at Berlin. Those who do remain to go through the highest or select class receive their professional instruction in it instead of in the division or artillery and engineer schools, and they are examined for their commissions by the board while still at the cadet school.

Thus, in the course usually followed, three requisites are exacted in Prussia before a commission is given; first, a good general education; secondly, some actual military service; and, thirdly, professional knowledge gained by something like a year of military study. But the military service is not required from the upper thirty students of the _Selecta_ of the Cadet House.

It will be well to mention, at the commencement, the names of the two examinations. The first, the preliminary examination, merely testing the general education, admits to a particular grade among non-commissioned officers; those holding it rank between sergeants and corporals, and in consideration of their being candidates (_aspiranten_) for a commission wear a different sword-knot, and hence have the name of Swordknot ensign or _Portepée-fähnrich_. The first or preliminary examination is accordingly called the _Portepée-fähnrich_ examination. The second, the professional one, is the officers’ examination, for the commission of second lieutenant.

These two examinations, for the grade of _Portepée-fähnrich_ and for the officer’s commission, are either conducted or controlled by the Supreme Military examinations Board, (_Ober-Militair-Examinations-Commission_) in Berlin, a body partly composed of military officers, partly of eminent civilians.

The various examining boards, the central and the local ones, which conduct these two examinations, are quite independent of the military schools, and were formerly presided over by a different head; but in order that the system should be uniformly carried out, and as Colonel von Holleben expresses it, that “_the examinations should exercise a salutary influence on education, and that their standard should be adjusted to the capacities of the schools_,” they have now been placed under the same control as the military schools.

The whole department of military education is therefore now under the control of a single high functionary, bearing the title of the general inspector of the military schools, military education, and military studies (_das Militair Erziehungs-und-Bildungswesen_,) who reports direct to the king on all subjects relating to examination and instruction. He submits his proposals on matters of administration to the minister of war, who issues the necessary orders to the boards charged with the financial control of the various schools.

The general inspector is assisted by a supreme council or board of military studies, composed of field officers of the general staff and of the special arms, the directors of the war school, of the supreme board of military examinations, of the artillery and engineers school, the commander of the cadet corps, some of the consultative assessors (_Vortragenden Räthen_,) of the minister of worship, and of individuals selected from the general body of learned men (professors.)

The principal military schools of Prussia may be divided into five classes:--

I. Those which give a good general education to the sons of meritorious officers, but which are open to others, such as--

1. The Cadet Houses or Cadet Schools (_Cadetten-Häuser_,) which supply a certain amount of instruction in military professional subjects.

II. Such as supply professional instruction to young men who are candidates for the rank of officer in the Prussian army. These are--

2. The Division Schools (_Divisions-Schule_,) nine in number, one for each army corps.

3. The artillery and engineers schools in Berlin.

III. Those which afford professional instruction to officers already in the service, to qualify them for special duty, limited to--

4. The War School or Staff School (_Kriegs-Schule_,) in Berlin.

IV. Those intended to give special instruction for the training of non-commissioned officers and men. Such as--

5. The School Division or Non-commissioned Officers School (_Schulabtheilung_,) at Potsdam.

6. The Regimental Schools (_Regiments und Bataillons Schulen_.)

7. The Music and the Swimming Schools, and the Central Gymnastic School in Berlin (_Central Turn-Anstalt_.)

8. The Veterinary School (_Thierarzeneischule_.)

V. Those intended to give gratuitous education to the children, boys and girls, of non-commissioned officers and soldiers, whose parents are too poor to provide for them. Such are,--

9. The Military Orphan Houses (_Militair-Waisenhäuser_,) at Annaburg, Potsdam, and Pretzsch.

10. The schools for soldiers’ children.

In addition to these might be mentioned the Medical Institution, particularly the Frederick-William’s Institution at Berlin, and the Knight Academy (_Ritter-Academie_,) or Noble School, in Liegnitz.

The annual cost to the state of the military schools in 1856, appears to be as follows:--

[KEY]
S Salaries. Dollars.
O Other Expenses. Dollars.
T Total Dollars.
N Number of Students.

---------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+-----
NAME. | S* | O* | T* | N
---------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+-----
Department of General Inspector, | 5,872 | 250 | 5,922 | ...
Supreme Military Examinations | 5,400 | 300 | 5,700 | ...
Board, | | |
Board of Military Studies, | 848 | ... | 848 | ...
Board of examiners for | | |
Artillery Lieutenants, | ... | 60 | 60 | ...
Cadet House at Berlin, | 12,944 | ... | 12,944 | 420
“ “ Potsdam, | 15,805 | 24,285 | 40,090 | 200
“ “ Culm, | 15,738 | 18,436 | 34,174 | 160
“ “ Wahlstatt, | 16,253 | 22,706 | 38,959 | 200
“ “ Bensberg, | 15,935 | 24,853 | 40,788 | 200
General War or Staff School, | 18,552 | 3,013 | 21,565 | 120
United Artillery and | | |
Engineers School, | 15,025 | 1,910 | 16,935 | 240
Veterinary School, | 8,514 | 4,165 | 12,679 | ...
Gymnastic School, | 4,046 | 720 | 4,766 | ...
Division Schools, | 10,800 | 6,195 | 16,995 | †
“ Libraries, | 400 | 1,200 | 1,600 | ...
Miscellaneous, | ... | 680 | 680 | ...
+---------+---------+---------+-----
Totals, | 146,132 | 108,777 | 254,909 |
---------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+-----

[* A Prussian dollar is equal to three shillings of English money,
and 70 cents of United States currency.]

[† Variable.]

Or about £38,236 annually, exclusive of the charge for buildings and repairs, and the original outlay for their first establishment. The pay of the student officers, and the pay and allowances of the military professors and teachers, are, however, drawn from their corps, so that the above-mentioned seems only to include the extra pay granted to the professors, &c.

The expenses of the Non-commissioned Officers School, of the military orphan houses, and of the schools for soldiers’ children, are not given in the printed paper from which these details have been extracted.

IV. EXAMINATIONS--GENERAL AND PROFESSIONAL--FOR A COMMISSION.

Two examinations, one in general and the other in professional knowledge are required of all candidates for a commission upon or soon after their entrance into the army, unless they can bring a certificate of having successfully completed the regular course of a gymnasium, in which case they are excused from the first.

These two examinations, through which alone admission is obtained to the rank of officer, are so important, and hold so prominent a position in the Prussian military system, that we propose to preface our account of the nature and extent of each of these examinations by a short tabular statement of the circumstances under which the candidates for each arm of the service respectively pass them.

The following Candidates offer themselves,
for the Preliminary, Ensign’s, or _Portepée-fähnrich_
Examination,
for the Second or Officer’s Examination (in all cases before
the Supreme Board at Berlin.)

Those presented by the Colonels of Regiments,
Before, after, or during (usually before) six months’ service
with the Troops, before the local Division Board;
After nine months’ military instruction in the Division
School.
Those coming at the usual time from the Cadet House (from the class
called _Prima_,)
On quitting the Cadet House, before the Supreme Board at Berlin;
After six months’ service with the troops, and nine months’
military instruction in the Division School.
Those who stay an extra year in the Special or Select class
(_Selecta_) of the Cadet House,
Before admission to the Special or Select class (_Selecta_,)
before the Supreme Board at Berlin;
On quitting the Cadet House, after one year’s instruction in
the Select class _Selecta_.
Those for the Artillery or Engineers, except when they came from
the Special or Select class, (_Selecta_,) of the Cadet House,
After nine months’ service with the Troops, and three months’
stay at the Artillery and Engineers School, before the Supreme
Board at Berlin;
After one year’s stay at the Artillery and Engineers School.

1. _The Preliminary or Ensign’s (Portepée-fähnrich) Examination._

According to a special law, any young man above seventeen and a half and under twenty-three years of age, whether he be a private or a corporal, if he has served six months in the army, and can obtain from the officers of his company a certificate of good conduct, attention, and knowledge of his profession, may claim to be examined for the grade of ensign or (_Portepée-fähnrich_.) If he succeed in this examination, he is recognized as a candidate, an _aspirant_ for a commission; but his prospect of obtaining a commission is subject to a variety of subsequent conditions.

In practice, a young man who aspires to a commission applies to the colonel of the regiment and usually obtains a nomination before he actually joins; and, as the examination is entirely of a civil character, he is usually glad to try and pass it at once. Having recently come from school, he feels probably better prepared than he is likely to be at any subsequent time: for on joining the corps, he will have for some time to conform to the life of a private soldier, to sleep and mess with the men, and to mount guard in his turn; and with the drill and exercises, and the marching and manoeuvring with the troops, he will have enough to occupy him to prevent his preparing for the examination. The two qualifications for the ensign’s grade are, the test of the examination and the six months’ service; but it appears to be indifferent in what order they are taken, whether service comes first and examination after, or _vice versâ_.

The examinations take place quarterly, at the beginning of every January, April, July, and October. They are held in the great garrison towns by local military boards, consisting of a president and five examiners. Applications for permission to be examined must be made at least a fortnight before, and must be accompanied by certificates stating the candidate’s birth, parentage, &c.; certificates of diligence and good conduct from the schoolmasters or other teachers who have instructed him; and of bodily fitness from an army surgeon.

The local board of examiners is appointed by the general officer in command of the army corps, the centers of examination corresponding in present practice with the localities assigned to the division or army-corps schools, nine in number, presently to be described.

The first part of the examination is on paper; a _vivâ voce_ examination follows.

On paper the young men have to write three themes or compositions in German, to translate two passages, one from Livy or Sallust, another from Cæsar’s Commentaries, Cicero’s Epistles, or Quintus Curtius; to translate sixteen or twenty lines from French into German, and two passages, a longer and a shorter, from German into French. They have one question in common arithmetic, one in equations, progressions, or logarithms; one in geometry, one in trigonometry; they have one in mathematical or physical geography, one in the general geography of Europe and its colonies, and one in that of Germany and Prussia. There is one question in Greek or Roman history; one in the earlier German history; one in modern; and one in Prussian history. They have also to show that they are acquainted with the common conventional signs used in representing the surface of the earth in maps; and they have to copy a small map of a group of hills.

The time allowed for each question is about three quarters of an hour or an hour; for each German theme, it is as much as an hour and a half or two hours.

The questions are of a comprehensive character; _e.g._ Give a history of the campaign of 1813, or of the life of Alexander the Great; enumerate the rivers flowing into the Mediterranean Sea, with the principal towns situated upon each of them. The German themes are, first, a _curriculum vitæ_, an account of the candidate’s life, which is, however, not supposed to count in the result, and is merely for the examiner’s information; second and third, two themes on some sentence or proverb, for the first of which the examiner assists the candidate by _vivâ voce_ questions and corrections in drawing up the preliminary outline of arrangement; for the second he is left entirely to himself.

There is a subsequent _vivâ voce_ examination in all the subjects, drawing excepted. The candidates are taken in small classes, not exceeding seven in number, and are examined together, but not in public.

The results of the examination are considered according to the system of _predicates_ or epithets, sometimes also called _censures_. The candidates’ answers are characterized as excellent (_vorzüglich_,) good (_gut_,) satisfactory (_befriedigend_,) insufficient (_nicht hinreichend_,) or unsatisfactory (_ungenügend_.) Numerical values are attached to each of these epithets; “excellent” is marked with 9; “unsatisfactory” counts as 1; and according to the amount of importance attached to the different subjects the marks thus given are multiplied by a higher or lower number, by 5 in one case, by 3 or by 1 in others. German, Latin, and mathematics have all the highest estimate of 5, and are each five times more important than drawing, which is marked by 1; geography, history, and French, are each valued at 3. A young man who gets the _predicate_ “excellent,” in German, will receive 45 marks, his 9 being multiplied by 5; whereas the same predicate for history would obtain him only 15, and in drawing only 5 marks.

German, 5 }
Latin, 5 }
Mathematics, 5 }
History, 3 } Total, 25.
Geography, 3 }
French, 3 }
Drawing, 1 }

A report is then drawn up, and according to the marks or predicates, the candidates are pronounced as admissible with distinction, admissible with honor, or simply admissible; or their re-examination after six months, their re-examination after a year, or their absolute rejection, is recommended.

This report, with the candidates’ certificates, is forwarded to the supreme military examinations board at Berlin, and, if approved by them, is submitted in their quarterly report to the king; and the result, when sanctioned by him, is communicated to the respective corps.

The candidates are all informed not only of the practical result, but also of the particulars of their examinations; they are told in what subjects they have failed, and in what they have succeeded. The candidates can not, under any circumstances, try more than three times.

The young men who pass, are thus, so far as their qualification in point of knowledge is concerned, pronounced admissible to the ensign’s grade. They have of course to complete their six months’ service with the troops. Yet even when this is completed, a vacancy in the list of ensigns must be waited for, and months may pass before the aspirant receives the distinctive badge, the special Sword-knot, which marks his superiority to the corporals, and shows that he has gained the first step that leads to a commission.

The examination that has now been described is obviously one for which preparation may be made in the common public schools, and under the usual civilian teachers. A young man of seventeen need not have been positively destined to the military profession, nor have gone through special preparation for any length of time beforehand. The boards of local military examiners are content to take them as they are offered, inquiry only being made as to their birth and connections, and their previous behavior at school or under tuition.

In fact, those who have passed successfully through the full course of a school which prepares for the universities (a gymnasium,) are excused the ensign’s examination. The certificate they have received on going away from school, upon the _abiturient’s_ or leaving examination, as it is called, is considered quite sufficient; except in the case of candidates for the artillery or engineers, who are expected to show greater proficiency in mathematics; and certainly a boy in the head class of a gymnasium ought to be able to pass the preliminary examination with perfect ease and with credit. The amount of knowledge required and the particular subjects selected are not those of the first, and are scarcely those of the second class of a gymnasium; and the assertion was even made that a boy from the upper third class might very well hope to pass for an ensigncy. Possibly a little extra tuition from the preparatory establishments, which are said to have sprung up with the special function of “fabricating Fähnrichs” might in this instance be required.

The official programme is here given, and may be compared with the studies prescribed in the upper classes of the Cadet House at Berlin, (_see_ the account of that school.)

1. In their own language, good legible handwriting, a correct style, free from orthographical or grammatical mistakes, facility of expression in writing and speaking; some evidence of a knowledge of German literature.

2. In Latin, facility in understanding the Latin prose writers ordinarily read in the second class of a Prussian gymnasium. A written exercise in translation from Latin into German; grammatical analysis of some passages.

3. In French, facility in reading and in translating from German into French, and French into German, grammatical analysis of French sentences, and a knowledge of syntax.

4. Mathematics:--

(_a._) Arithmetic and Algebra;--familiarity with the ordinary rules for the extraction of the square root of whole numbers and of fractions; Proportion and its applications including questions in Partnership and Compound Proportion; the theory of powers and roots, with integral and fractional, positive and negative exponents. Equations of the two first degrees, with one or more unknown quantities; Logarithms, Logarithmic Equations, Arithmetical and Geometrical Progression, and practice in the application of the various theories.

(_b._) The complete elements of Plane Geometry, measuration of rectilineal figures and of the circle, transformation and division of figures; the first elements of the application of Algebra to Geometry.

(_c._) Plane Trigonometry, Trigonometrical functions and their Logarithms. Use of trigonometrical tables. Calculation of particular cases of triangles, regular polygons, and segments of circles.