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I. Poles in Prussian Regiments Before the First World War

       The Prussian Army

      Famous for its military drill, the tradition of the Prussian Army dates back to the eighteenth century, and it mainly derives from the Silesian Wars waged by Frederick II. These traditions served as an example for the next generations of Prussian officers while the mythicization of victories of that time aimed to integrate the Prussian state, notably the eastern territories inhabited by Poles. The nineteenth-century staff analyses also primarily referred to the campaigns of 1740–1763 and the biographies of the most famous commanders of the time. Many Prussian regiments were named after those commanders. The regimental traditions and the officer ethos referred to the absolutist Frederician monarchy.

      However, the German Army and the Prussian troops that participated in the First World War had a different character, which mostly resulted from the changes in the Hohenzollern state after the lost war with Napoleon in 1806–1807, and later thanks to Helmuth von Moltke the Elder’s mid-nineteenth century continuation of the reforms.

      After losing the battles of Jena and Auerstedt to Napoleon, a group of young officers introduced organizational and operational-tactical transformations in the army. The group consisted of Gerhard Johann von Scharnhorst, August Neidhardt von Gneisenau, and Hermann von Boyen, supported by an outstanding war theoretician of growing prestige, Carl von Clausewitz. Thanks to their efforts, king Frederick William III introduced wartime universal conscription in 1813 along with the new military decoration – the Iron Cross (Eisernes Kreuz) – initially produced exclusively in a foundry located in Gliwice, Upper Silesia.

      The changes at the beginning of the nineteenth century concerned not only universal conscription but also the democratization of officer cadre, although the latter did not succeed until 1914. What played a significant role in the revival of the Prussian Army at the early stage of the reforms was not only the effort of the young Prussian officers but also the example of spontaneously created anti-Napoleonic voluntary troops. Adolf von Lützow commanded the most famous unit with nearly 3000 volunteers that mostly consisted of liberal students who fought against the French occupiers. Von Lützow’s black-red-gold colors were later adopted by student associations (Burschenschaften) that fought for German ←7 | 8→unification, which turned it into the symbol of the German nationalist and democratic movement; a tradition later evoked by Landwehr. The anti-French tradition in the Prussian Army grew stronger after The Franco-Prussian War of 1870.

      The military reform was finished in 1814–1820, only after the Napoleonic Wars, but it no longer based on the liberal tradition of national liberation movements in German lands. The main goal was to further modernize Prussian army, once again a growing European power. To reach this position, Prussia implemented universal conscription. Since then:

— all men served three years of compulsory military duty; however, in 1833, the conscription in infantry had to be limited to two years due to financial reasons; gradual reestablishment of three-year compulsory military duty started in 1850 only to be formally decreed in 1856¹;

— until the age of thirty-two and after completion of the compulsory duty, all men had to go through two-year training in military reserve force as part of the first Landwehr contingent (Landwehr ersten Aufgebots) to be called upon in times of war (that was the case in 1849, 1850, and 1859); since 1859, each trained Landwehr regiment (Landwehr-Regiment) supported an infantry regiment with the same number, which in case of war functioned as a reserve line regiment that gathered members of the Landwehr’s three youngest years²;

      — members of the remaining Landwehr’s older years formed the ranks of the second Landwehr contingent (Landwehr zweiten Aufgebots) until the age of thirty-nine;

      — the trained soldiers until the age of fifty remained at the disposal of the Landsturm, called upon in case of a direct threat to the territorial defense of their place of residence in wartime.

Moreover, the reform planned for the democratization of the officer corps that began with the creation of the Landwehr in 1813. However, the corps of professional officers retained its elite character until 1914. Prussians and then German professional officers considered their profession as exceptional, which was to result from their constant willingness to sacrifice their lives. That was the reason why the officers expected different treatment in terms of criminal and civil law. ←8 | 9→The specific character of this professional group stemmed from its observance of a separate code of honor, according to which all disputes were settled without the interference of the administration and civil courts. It was mostly connected with the noble provenance of this group. Although at the beginning of the twentieth century half of the officer corps was of bourgeoisie origin, the majority of professional positions of higher officers were still held by the aristocrats. In 1909, out of thirty Generals of the Infantry, only two belonged to the bourgeoisie. Among lieutenant generals (Generalleutnant), this ratio was forty-four to seven, and among the major generals (Generalmajor) – seventy-five to thirty-one in favor of the nobility. It means that the stereotypical caricatural image of an officer was quite true to life: he was to come from a Junker family in the eastern Prussian territories, east of the Elbe, with his inseparable monocle, and usually behave arrogantly, rigidly, and boastfully though possessing little knowledge of the world.³

Reserve officers (Landwehroffizier) were very numerous in the mass conscription army at the time of the war mobilization in 1914 and belonged to an much different group. Most of them represented the bourgeoisie, while later the majority even consisted of the representatives of the working class. Over time, it was the education and property that was crucial to obtaining the rank of junior reserve officer rather than noble

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