by H M Hozier
By this organisation a recruit who joined the Prussian service served for three years (from nineteen to twenty-two; from the 1st January of the year in which he became twenty years old) in the regular army; for five years (from twenty-two to twenty-seven) in the reserve; and for eleven years (from twenty-seven to thirty-eight) was liable to be called up for duty as a Landwehr man.
By this reorganisation the total war strength of the field army was slightly increased, and its efficiency most materially improved; the war strength of the depôt troops was, on account of the necessity of great rapidity in modern warfare, more than doubled; that of the garrison troops was improved, and could now, by calling up the second levy, be made twice as great as it was formerly. These reforms also allowed the standing army to be increased by thirty-six regiments of infantry, nine battalions for the fusilier regiments, ten cavalry regiments, and five divisions of garrison artillery. Sufficient time had not yet elapsed on the outbreak of the Austrian war for this reorganisation to be thoroughly carried out, and still eight of the ten cavalry regiments had not been formed, and their place was supplied during that campaign by twelve Landwehr cavalry regiments, and as yet only one of the divisions of garrison artillery had been formed.
During the campaign of 1866 the elasticity of this organisation was clearly manifested. In a wonderfully short time the large armies which fought at Königgrätz were placed on a war footing, and brought about 260,000 combatants into the very field of battle, besides the necessary detachments which must be made by a large army to cover communications, mask fortresses, and so on; but the detachments made from the Prussian Army were very small compared to those which would have to be separated from an army organised on a different system; for as the field army advanced the depôt troops moved up in rear, and formed both depôts and reserves for the first line, while some of the garrison troops of Landwehr came up from Prussia, and formed the garrisons of Saxony, Prague, Pardubitz, and all the other points on the lines of communication. At the same time General Mülbe’s corps, formed for the most part of reserve and depôt soldiers, pushed up to Brünn, and was hastening to take its place in the first line, when its march was stopped by the conclusion of the long armistice.
While the armies of Prince Frederick Charles, the crown prince, and General Herwarth were being supported in Bohemia, Moravia, and Saxony, General Falkenstein, with a number of Line regiments and a force of Landwehr, was driving the war forwards to the Main; and the Prince of Mecklenburg, with the second reserve corps, was pushing on against Bavaria. Nor was Prussian territory left without its garrisons: Landwehr battalions were in Kosel, Neisse, Berlin, Torgau, Magdeburg, Königsberg, and all the other garrison towns of the country, while under their shelter recruits were being drilled, and more Landwehr embodied to march forward into the conquered countries. The armies which were on the Marchfeld in front of Lundenburg and in Bavaria did not form a thin front line, which, once broken or turned, would have been driven back even to the Elbe; their rear was guarded and supported by large forces of strong and firm battalions, lately embodied, but from their nature quickly trained, and composed of well-grown old soldiers who were thirsting to be sent against the enemy, and on whose well-knit frames disease or the hardships of war could make little impression.
Though the part of the Prussian organisation which refers to the recruiting of the army and to the filling up of the ranks in case of war has had a great deal to do with the success of the Austrian campaign, on account of the facility and rapidity with which by its means the army could be mobilised and brought upon a war footing, the portion of the Prussian organisation which relates to the combination of the recruits so obtained in pliable bodies, which can be easily handled, easily moved, yet formed in such due proportions of the different arms as to be capable of independent action, did not fail to be appreciated most fully by those who, with its assistance, gained such tremendous results. This portion of the military organisation of the Prussian army is so simple that almost every man in the ranks can understand it.
Jealous of expense in time of peace, it allows for a wide expansion, without hurry and without confusion, on the outbreak of war. It provides for, at the same time, the broadest questions and the most minute details, and is so clearly laid down and so precisely defined, yet at the same time admits of so much elasticity, that the Prussian officers can find no words strong enough to express their praise of it.
England, in fact, in 1866, hardly wakened up to realise that the Prussian Army then was very different from that which at the beginning of this century was destroyed on the fatal day of Jena, or that then it only resembled the army which marched so well to our aid at Waterloo, in patriotic feeling and in the rudiments of its organisation. Prussia seems now about to spring into the position she held one hundred years’ ago, when Frederick had made her the first military power in the world, and England was introducing her military system into the germs of the army which marched through the Peninsula, and at Waterloo shattered the legions which Blücher annihilated. Would that England now would take some hints for the organisation of her army from the victors of Königgrätz, and would adopt the experience which has been won on the plains of Bohemia, before military progress is forced upon her by a disaster more fatal, perhaps, than that of Klostersevern! (It is hardly necessary to notice that since this was written in 1867, England has made a great advance in military improvement).
In peace everything is always kept ready for the mobilisation of the army, every officer and every official knows during peace what will be his post and what will be his duty the moment the decree for the mobilisation is issued, and the moment that decree is flashed by telegraph to the most distant stations every one sets about his necessary duty without requiring any further orders or any explanations.
When a war is imminent the government decrees the mobilisation of the whole army, or of such a portion as may be deemed necessary. In preparing for the Austrian campaign, the whole field army and the first levy of Landwehr were mobilised before the invasion of Saxony. A part of the second Landwehr levy was also mobilised immediately the troops of Prince Frederick Charles stepped across the Saxon frontier; and on the day of the great battle near Königgrätz, without any exertion, Prussia had over 600,000 men under arms. Every commanding general mobilises his own corps d’armée; the “Intendantur” the whole of the branches of the administrative services; the commandants of those fortresses which are ordered to be placed in a state of defence take their own measures for strengthening the fortifications and for obtaining from the artillery depôts the guns necessary for the armament of their parapets. All orders are sent by telegraph, or, where telegraphic communication does not exist, by mounted orderlies. The mobilisation of the whole army is soon complete in every branch; the infantry is ready in a fortnight from the time the decree is signed.
The process of the mobilisation may be classed under the following fire beads:—1, The filling in of the field troops to their war strength; 2, the formation of depôt troops; 3, the formation of garrison troops and the arming of the fortresses; 4, the mobilisation of the field administration; 5, the formation of the headquarter staffs, &c., who are to remain in the different districts to supply the places of those who march to the seat of war.
The completion of the rank and file of the field troops to war strength was effected by drawing in some of the reserve soldiers, who supply half the total war strength of the infantry, one-third of that of the artillery, and one twenty-fifth of that of the cavalry. The cavalry has, of course, on account of being maintained in such force during peace, a superabundance of reserve soldiers available on a mobilisation; these, after the men required for the cavalry itself have been drawn from them, are handed over to the artillery and military train, so that these services thus obtain many valuable soldiers, well accustomed to mounted duties. The reserve soldiers who are to be enrolled have orders sent to them through the commanding officer of the Landwehr of the district in which they live, who can avail himself o
f the services of the provincial and parochial civil authorities to facilitate the delivery of these orders.
The men are, immediately on the receipt of their orders, required to proceed to the headquarters of the Landwehr of the district, where they are received, medically inspected, and forwarded to their regiment, by an officer and some non-commissioned officers of the regiment which draws its recruits from the district officers who are required to fill up vacancies in the regular army in a mobilisation are obtained by promoting some of the senior non-commissioned officers. Landwehr officers obtain their commissions much in the same way as do military officers in England, but no Landwehr officer can be promoted to the rank of captain unless he has been attached to a regular raiment for two months’ duty; and no Landwehr officer can be a field officer unless he has before served for some considerable time in the regular army. Many of the officers of the Landwehr are officers still on the strength of the regular army, who are detached to the Landwehr on its mobilisation.
On a mobilisation, the whole army required in 1866 about 88,000 horses more than it had in time of peace; in order to obtain these quickly the government has the power, if it cannot buy them readily from regular dealers, to take a certain number from every district, paying for them a price which is fixed by a mixed commission of military officers and of persons appointed by the civil authorities of the district.
Each regiment of field artillery forms nine ammunition columns, in each of which are waggons to carry reserve ammunition for infantry, cavalry, and artillery, in the proportions in which experience has shown that ammunition is usually required In the field these ammunition waggons follow directly in rear of the field army, but are kept entirely separate from the field batteries, the officers of which are justly supposed to have enough to do in action in superintending their own guns, without being hampered with the supply of cartridges to the cavalry and infantry.
Every battalion of engineers forms a column of waggons which carries tools for entrenching purposes, and also a heavy pontoon train and a light field bridge train for which all is kept ready during peace. If a portion of the army is mobilised merely for practice, or goes into camp for great manoeuvres, as is done nearly every summer during peace, one, or perhaps two or three, engineer battalions make their trains mobile, in order to practise the men and to accustom them to the use of the matériel. Arms and ammunition which are required to complete the war strength of regiments are supplied from the artillery depôts.
Officers are allowed soldier servants on a more liberal scale than in the English army, but no officers’ servants are mustered in the company; they form, with all the non-combatant men of each battalion of infantry, the train which is attached to every battalion: this consists of the officers’ servants and the drivers of the regimental waggons; everyone else borne on the muster-roll draws a trigger in action, so that the muster-rolls actually show the number of rank and file who are present, and do not include any of the followers, who often never come up into the line of battle at all. On service the captain of every company is mounted, and is required to have two horses, to aid in the purchase of which he is allowed a certain sum of money by the State. The strength of an ordinary battalion on active service is one field-officer, four captains, four first lieutenants, nine second lieutenants, one surgeon, one assistant-surgeon, one paymaster, one quarter-master, 1002 non-commissioned officers and privates. The train attached to this battalion is, besides officers’ servants, the drivers of the ammunition waggon, which has six horses; of the Montirung Wagon, which carries the paymaster’s books, money chest, and a certain amount of material for the repair of arms and clothing, and is drawn by four horses; a hospital cart with two horses, an officers’ baggage waggon with four horses, and men to lead four pack-horses, each of which carries on a pack-saddle the books of one company.
The baggage of a cavalry regiment on service consists of one medicine cart with two horses, one field forge with two horses, four squadron waggons, each with two horses, one officers’ baggage waggon, with four horses; the total strength of a cavalry regiment being 23 officers 659 men, of whom 600 fall in in the ranks, 713 horses, and seven carriages.
The nine ammunition columns which are formed by each artillery regiment for the supply of ammunition to the artillery and infantry of the corps d’armée to which the regiment belongs are divided into two divisions, one of which consists of five columns, and has a strength of two officers, 175 men, 174 horses, and 25 waggons; the second, consisting of four columns, has two officers, 173 men, 170 horses, and 24 waggons. This division is made to facilitate the despatch of the two divisions separately to the ammunition depôt to have the waggons refilled after their first supply of cartridges has been exhausted, or to allow one division to be detached with each infantry division, in case of the corps d’armée being divided, as was the case in this war with the third and fourth corps, in which case four columns can conveniently be attached to each infantry division, and one column to the cavalry division of the corps.
The reserve ammunition park from which these ammunition columns are replenished, is also divided into two divisions, each of which has a strength of nine officers, 195 men, 264 carriages, and is further subdivided into eight columns of 33 waggons each. It is brought into the theatre of war either by railway or water carriage, or by means of horses hired in the country where the war is being conducted. It generally is one or two days’ march in rear of the army. In the campaign of 1866 on the day of the great battle, the ammunition reserve park of the army of Prince Frederick Charles was at Turnau, to which place it had been brought by railway.
A siege train for attacking fortresses is not generally organised at the beginning of a war, unless the general plan of the campaign should be likely to lead the army into a country where fortresses exist, which could not be either neglected or masked, and which must be reduced.
If a siege train is organised, it is formed with especial reference to the fortresses against which it is to act, and follows the army in the same manner as the reserve ammunition park. At the beginning of the 1866 campaign the Prussians had no siege train with the army, but directly the Battle of Sadowa had been won a siege train was organised, perhaps to be employed against the fortresses on the Elbe, though such small places scarcely merited such an attention from so large an army, perhaps for an attack on Olmütz. When the fortifications of Floridsdorf were found looming in front of the advance on Vienna, the siege train was ordered up to be ready for the attack of the Austrian works covering the Danube, but it was halted as soon as the four weeks’ armistice was agreed upon. The want of siege trains was, however, felt.
The garrison of Theresienstadt, a fortress which had been totally neglected, sallied out and broke the railway bridge on the line of communication between Prague and Turnau. Had their communication been thus broken during the active campaign, and not during the armistice, it must have seriously inconvenienced the Prussians. Had Theresienstadt been masked, the sally of the garrison would have been probably prevented; but had it been properly besieged, the garrison would have been kept within their works, and the direct line of railway between Prague and Dresden would have been at the service of the Prussian Army for almost its entire length.
It is thus that the Prussian Army is formed in peace, that its field forces can be made ready to march in a few days in case of war, and that the troops in the field are supplied with the powder and shot which give them the means of fighting. But, l’art de vaincre est perdu sans l’art de subsister. An organisation of even more importance lies still behind—the organisation of the means of supplying the warriors with food when in health, with medicine and hospitals when diseased or wounded, and for filling up the gaps which are opened in the ranks by battle or pestilence; an organisation which has always been found to be more difficult and to require more delicate handling than even strategical combinations, or the arraying of troops for battle.
The Prussian Army could in 1866 enter the field with 342,000 men in its r
anks; but, as is well known, no army, nor any collection of men, can maintain its normal strength for a single day; in such a host, even of young healthy men, ordinary illness would immediately cause a few absentees from duty, much more so do the marches, the hardships, and the fatigues to which a soldier is exposed on active service before the first shot is fired. Then as soon as an action takes place, a single day adds a long list to the hospital roll, and the everything sees in the ranks many gaps which in the morning were filled by strong soldiers, who are now lying torn and mangled or dead on the field of battle. The dead are gone forever; they are so much power lost out of the hand of the general; nor can an army wait till the wounded are cured and are again able to draw a trigger or to wield a sabre.
Means must be taken to supply the deficiencies as quickly as possible, and to restore to the commander of the army the missing force which has been expended in moving his own army through the first steps of the campaign, or in resisting the motion of his adversary. What is the amount of such deficiencies may be estimated from Prussian statistics, which have been compiled with great care, and from the experience of many campaigns; these state officially that at the end of a year’s war forty per cent of the infantry of the field army, twenty per cent of the cavalry, artillery, and engineers, and twelve per cent of the military train would have been lost to the service, and have had to be supplied anew.
It is for the formation of these supplies of men, and for forwarding them to the active army, that depôts are intended. The depôts of the Prussian Army are formed as soon as the mobilisation takes place, and it is ordered that one half of the men of each depôt should be soldiers of the reserve, who, already acquainted with their drill, can be sent up to the front on the first call; the other half of each depôt consists of recruits who are raised in the ordinary way, and of all the men of the regiments belonging to the field army which have not been perfectly drilled by the time their regiment marches to the seat of war. The officers of the depôts are either officers who are detached from the regular army for this duty, or are officers who have been previously wounded, and who cannot bear active service, but can perform the easier duties of the depôt, besides young officers, who are being trained to their duty before joining their regiments.