Anton Neidhardt von Gneisenau (I)

The Prussian Reform

Though many of the figures central to the reform of the Prussian army and state that took place between the battle of Jena-Auerstadt (1806) and the final defeat of Napoleon (1815) were of humble birth, none came from circumstances more desperate than those of Anton Neidhardt von Gneisenau.

Gneisenau was born on the 27th of October, 1760, just a few days before the battle of Torgau. His father was a lieutenant in the service of one of the petty states of the Holy Roman Empire, then at war with Prussia. His mother was a woman who, like many others of her generation, had followed her husband on campaign.

Though the battle of Torgau had been indecisive, the Imperial forces responded to the draw by retreating. Gneisenau’s mother, though fortunate to have a wagon in which to travel, was severely tried by the twin ordeals of childbirth and the retreat. One night, she was so exhausted that the child slipped from her arms and out of the wagon.

Rescued by a grenadier, the infant was returned to his mother just in time to see her die. Gneisenau spent the next two years of his life in the care of a soldier’s wife, who followed in the wake of the army much as Gneisenau's mother had done. After the war, Gneisenau's father moved to Thuringia and remarried. The young Gneisenau, too poor even to wear shoes, lived the threadbare existence of the stepson in the family of an impecunious, and somewhat irresponsible former officer.

Gneisenau’s existence was eventually discovered by his mother’s parents. Despite his plebeian name of Müller, Gneisenau’s maternal grandfather was an officer. Colonel Müller and his wife lived in Würzburg, in Bavaria, and were sufficiently well-to-do to provide Gneisenau with an excellent education.

In 1773, when he was 13, Gneisenau’s grandparents died. As a result, the future general rejoined his father, now living in Erfurt. Happily, fortune had smiled on the former lieutenant, and the adolescent Gneisenau was able to attend the Gymnasium at Erfurt. In 1777, at the age of 17, Gneisenau entered the University at Erfurt, where he studied mathematics and public administration. In 1778, however, his father died, and he was, for the third time in his life, made an orphan. Able to depend on no one but himself, he decided to become a soldier.

After a year in the Austrian service, Gneisenau heart that the Margrave of Ansbach was recruiting troops to fight against the rebellious American colonists. Enlisting as a cadet, Gneisenau was soon promoted to the rank of lieutenant. In 1782, he sailed with a boatload of other “Hessians” for Halifax, Nova Scotia, then one of the few North American ports still in British hands.

By the time Gneisenau landed, the American War of Independence was over. After a few months in Nova Scotia, he returned to Ansbach. Though he had failed to cross bayonets with anyone during his brief journey, the experience seems to have had a profound effect on the young officer. Indeed, many historians trace Gneisenau’s interest in light infantry, sharpshooting, the “small war,” and particularly, the relationship between patriotism and tactics, to the tales he heard from those who had fought against Washington’s army.

In 1785 Gneisenau entered the Prussian service. As the “low man on the totem pole” in a new army, he was assigned to the dreary garrison of Löwenberg, in the still largely Polish province of Silesia. Always one to make the best of his situation, Gneisenau spent his ten years in Silesia improving his knowledge of history, languages, and the military arts and sciences.

Gneisenau proved popular with the local aristocracy. He was an accomplished conversationalist, passable musician, and could sketch with facility. He was also blessed with a good voice and the ability to extemporize verse.

Despite these talents, Gneisenau suffered from the poverty that would visit him intermittently throughout his life. There were times when, embarrassed by his inability to afford so simple a commodity as beer, he would retire to his room and refuse to receive guests. Though this was a period in which the Prussian Army was actively (though never decisively) involved in campaigns in the Netherlands and the Rhineland, Gneisenau’s only active service during this period was a brief expedition into Poland to combat the spread of an epidemic.

In 1795 Gneisenau was made captain of a company of fusiliers. At this time, these were a species of infantry that were neither fully “light” nor fully “line.” That is to say, though they were dressed in green, they were not as care- fully selected or well-trained as Jäger. Likewise, though they were exercised in close order fighting, they rarely reached the standard of precision and solidity associated with Prussian grenadiers. Though a small number of sharpshooters were assigned to each company of fusiliers, the majority of them were equipped with smoothbore muskets. These, however, in contrast to those which equipped many line companies, were at least provided with a curved stock. This permitted some semblance of aimed fire.

The captaincy of a company brought Gneisenau some relief from his poverty. In keeping with the custom of the time, he was as much a “subcontractor” to the army as an official. Thus, he was able to make a small profit off of the money paid to him by the state for the feeding, clothing, and equipping of his troops.

The modest degree of prosperity resulting from his promotion permitted Gneisenau to marry Caroline von Kottwitz, the former fiancée of a comrade killed in a duel. (Indeed, were it not for the duel and Gneisenau’s consequent volunteering to break the sad news to Fraülein von Kottwitz, the couple might never have met.) The marriage was both happy and fruitful, with Frau Hauptmann von Gneisenau bearing her husband seven children.

In addition to the cares of professional and domestic life, Gneisenau found time to continue his studies of French, English, and Italian; to lecture on and write books about fortification; to read military books; to organize a play; and to manage a small estate that he had bought.

This activity seems to have reflected more than industry. Spurred, perhaps, by the poverty of his youth, Gneisenau was ambitious. In 1801 he wrote to his wife, “I suffer from a malady that vexes few men, that is to say, I am dissatisfied with myself.”

Gneisenau’s company took part in the disastrous campaign of Jena-Auerstadt. Gneisenau himself was wounded at Saalfeld, one of the small battles that preceded the two main engagements. In the next few weeks he rallied to one Prussian force after another, barely escaping capture on a number of occasions.

Though his various enterprises had brought him to the brink of prosperity, Gneisenau adapted readily to the life of a military refugee. Noting that those who shared his hardships included the cream of Prussian society, he took so- lace in the stoicism that so often be- comes the philosophy of educated soldiers. “The difference between first and second class”, he later wrote, “is not very great, particularly when one considers things from the point of view of eternity. And this (the point of view of eternity) is the correct point of view, for there are no others beyond it.”

In less than two months, Gneisenau had walked or ridden from the western end of Prussia to Königsberg near its easternmost frontier. Dressed in the ragged remnants of a uniform, Gneisenau made use of his visit to the city of Kant to write an essay on the origins of the Prussian collapse. These, he argued, were incompetent and uncooperative leaders, an army with little experience of war, trained only for parade-ground maneuvers, full of mercenaries, old men, and fathers of families who took the first opportunities to desert, and arrogant officers incapable of learning from their enemies.

At the end of 1806, Gneisenau was promoted to the rank of major and put to work training new battalions. Within three months, these battalions were sufficiently trained to be useful for the defense of Danzig, a city threatened by the continued advance of Napoleon’s armies. It was not, however, for Gneisenau to lead his pupils in battle. Instead he was sent off, on the 29th of April, 1807, to organize the defense of Kolberg.

Kolberg, one of the last of the Prussian fortresses still in Prussian hands, was of little significance to the campaign. Gneisenau’s skillful defense of the fortress and its surrounding area, however, was one of the few bright spots in what had been a disastrous year for Prussia.

The key to Gneisenau’s nine week defense of Kolberg was his use of an active style of defense. The old fortress and the smaller outworks built during the siege were alike used by Gneisenau as aids to maneuver rather than ends in themselves. They could economize on forces, provide covering fire, canalize enemy movement, and otherwise co- operate with mobile forces. At no point, however, were they expected to resist the French by passive means alone.

On the 2nd of July, 1807, Gneisenau received news that Prussia and France had signed an armistice. Both the war and the siege were over. Gneisenau’s reward for his accomplishments was promotion to lieutenant colonel, the award of the coveted Pour le Mérite, and, most important of all for the future history of Prussia, appointment to the Military Reorganization Commission.

Chaired by General Scharnhorst, the Military Reorganization Commission was charged by the King with proposing remedies to the ills that had befallen the Prussian army and state in the years before 1806. Gneisenau’s contribution to the work of this commission consisted not so much of his ideas, which were nearly identical to those of Scharnhorst, but of his personal qualities. Amiable, witty, and, above all, likable where Scharnhorst was introspective, tongue-tied, and somewhat morose, Gneisenau brought a spoonful of sugar to mitigate the bitter taste of the all too necessary reforms that Scharnhorst and his colleagues would put into effect in the next six years.

Source: Paul Rocques, “Adversaires prussiens de Napoléon”, Revue Militaire Générale, 1914, pages 808-816