Hatched from a cannon-ball

To what extent was there a unique German militarist tradition, and how did it evolve from Frederick the Great to Bismarck?

Prussia built an army to survive. Bismarck turned it into the nation. Was that so different from the rest of Europe?

Modern German history is undeniably influenced by the fallout of Prussian Militarism, as Napoleon said, ‘Prussia was hatched from a cannon-ball’ and the modern German state was born from Prussia’s expansion. While Breuilly points out that Germany is not simply a product of Prussia and that it was other countries and a European context that shaped it¹, there is no denying Prussia’s policies played a significant part in the forming of the German Empire. While Germany may not be particularly unique out of European countries in having a militarist tradition embedded in their culture, the evidence from their government’s hyper-focus on military matters demonstrates a difference in intensity. This essay will take a chronological approach and demonstrate that Prussian militarism is a fluid concept, it evolved from a geopolitical survival strategy shaped by geography and elite interests into the bastion of the socio-political idea of the modern German state. This shift was defined by the transition from dynastic necessity under the cynical Hohenzollerns to the instrumentalized nationalism of the late 19th century.

¹ J. Breuilly, 'Introduction', in The Formation of the First German Nation-State, 1800-1871, Studies in European History (London: Palgrave, 1996), p. 2.

² Peter H. Wilson, ‘Still a Monstrosity? Some Reflections on Early Modern German Statehood’, The Historical Journal, 49.2 (2006), 565–76 (p. 576) https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X06005334.

³ S. F. Abramson, ‘The Economic Origins of the Territorial State’, International Organization, 71.1 (2017), 97–130 (p. 102).

⁴ Ibid, p. 105

⁵ Ibid, p.97-130

Let us firstly turn to look at the patchwork of smaller principalities and states that made up the vast Holy Roman Empire. While there are varying interpretations of what the Empire stood for, Wilson provides a more realised answer, in that it was held together by monarchy, federalism and hierarchy, while these all ebbed and flowed in terms of importance, the congress of Vienna left Germany’s future in the hands of federalism due to the mediatization of its smaller territories.² This patchwork Empire was able to form alliances both within, capable of acting together as shown by the Catholic League and Protestant Union being able to wage war and form alliances with nation states outside the Empire.³ However, this also highlights a critical weakness within federalized alliances, as the Swabian League on paper could field an army of 12,000 infantrymen and 1,200 cavalry, however their ability to project this power was often lacking as shown by the Hansa war against the Danish Crown in 1360.⁴ Abramson contends that prior to the French revolution, small states could get by using their substantial capital to fund mercenaries, yet the levee en massé and war becoming larger scale fundamentally changed this and thus made the rise of a larger nation state that would dominate others inevitable.⁵

Nowhere is this rise of a ‘coercion intensive’ state better demonstrated than with Prussia. In exploring the birth of the Prussian standing army, we meet Frederick William the Grand Elector, a man who ascribed the security of his kingdom ‘to God, and next to God, to my army’.⁶ This man was pivotal in increasing the army’s importance as he increased both government centralization, as military tax collection was both increased to 10,964,961 thalers in 1660 up from around 300,000 thalers in 1653⁷ and also in his deft dealings with the powerful Junkers. He aptly points out to them their need for a powerful military stating that he could ‘wish that we lived with such neighbours that we could get along with less’ a realist approach to the geographical location of Prussia. Furthermore, under Frederick the Great, we begin to see Prussia use its powerful army and well governed state to act as a champion for smaller German states, bringing it into a conflict with Austria that wouldn’t be resolved until 1866.⁸

⁶ S. B. Fay, ‘The Beginnings of the Standing Army in Prussia’, The American Historical Review, 22.4 (1917), 763–77 (p. 772) https://doi.org/10.2307/1836239.

⁷ Ibid, p.772.

⁸ E. C. Helmreich, ‘The Rise of Prussia’, Current History, 28.164 (1955), 205–10 (p. 208)

⁹ Madame de Staël-Holstein, Germany, ed. by O. W. Wight, Vol. I (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, n.d.), p. 38.

¹⁰ Ibid, p.39

¹¹ E. C. Helmreich, ‘The Rise of Prussia’, Current History, 28.164 (1955), 205–10 (p. 209)

¹² Robert Escarpit, ‘Germaine de Staël’, Encyclopædia Britannica, 11 July 2025 https://www.britannica.com/biography/Germaine-de-Stael [Accessed 30 November 2025].

¹³ Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Addresses to the German Nation, ed. by George Armstrong Kelly (New York and Evanston: Harper & Row Publishers, 1968), p. 6.

Contemporary sources such as Madame de Staël challenged the imbued sense of German militarism, accusing this aspect of being ‘whimsical’ and accusing them of not having the strength of their forebears.⁹ Furthermore, she also criticises their lack of fighting spirit compared to France.¹⁰ Yet we must take a holistic view of this as she does assert their lacklustre military habits are in spite of its institutions being geared for war, moreover this was written in the aftermath of the battle of Jena in 1806, where the Prussian army was crushed under the weight of the levée en masse and flexibility of Napoleon’s army corps. As a result, the reforms undertaken in response to this catastrophe by the likes of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had not come into place yet and so present a reactionary interpretation of German military might.¹¹ Finally, Madame de Staël was also focussing on the whole of Germany and so does not paint a picture specific to Prussian militarism. Additionally, she was banished from France by Napoleon and her books banned, thus she would be inclined to weaken the strength of the ‘German’ army, in order to undermine his victories.¹² However, Fichte also highlights militarism becoming more widespread as he appeals to the nobles suggesting that they must ‘be ready even to die’ so that his nation can live.¹³ This is a firm precursor for the militarism we would later see rise in the Wars of Unifications and demonstrate the oppressive forces of power that France represents.

Thus, having established that Prussia was both a military orientated state and also different from the rest of Germany, it is necessary to explore the events that would combine the two and interweave this heavily militarised tradition within the German people. As Hagen notes, Frederick the Great certainly had no sense of creating a unified Germany, more the point he wanted nothing to do with a greater German Culture. However, within the confines of nation-building, historical accuracy is often second place to myth-making, as his campaigns against Russia and France later became an integral beacon in the German national narrative.¹⁴ So what changes in the militarism from Frederick to Bismarck, the answer of course lies in the swell of nationalism and liberalism with demands for a German nation-state etched in both democratic and republican ideals.¹⁵

¹⁴ Hagen Schulze, ‘The Rise of a National Culture’, in The Course of German Nationalism: From Frederick the Great to Bismarck 1763–1867, trans. by Sarah Hanbury-Tenison (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 43–47 (p. 45).

¹⁵ Hagen Schulze, ‘The Nationalist Movement’s Passage from an Elitist to a Mass Phenomenon’, in The Course of German Nationalism: From Frederick the Great to Bismarck 1763–1867, trans. by Sarah Hanbury-Tenison (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 56–63 (p. 63).

¹⁶ Nicholas Stargardt, The German Idea of Militarism: Radical and Socialist Critics 1866–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) (p.21)

¹⁷ Ibid, p.27

¹⁸ 1 Charles Townshend, 'Militarism and Modern Society', The Wilson Quarterly, 17.1 (1993),(p. 3) [accessed 02 December 2025].

However, the integration of Prussian militarism into a greater German state was by no means a certainty, as radical liberals and democrats, as well as the Liberal Party directly resisted Bismarck’s unconstitutional levying of tax, wanting to see an army more accountable to the government. Yet this resistance to all things Prussian, especially in the southern German states was greatly subdued by clever Bismarck realpolitik, as the goaded French attack and ensuing Franco-Prussian war resulted in a wave of national euphoria. ¹⁶ Stargardt further explores this integration as he depicts the army as cloaking itself in the ideology of revolution as becoming ‘the people in arms’. Moreover, the demand for constitutional checks and balances for the army were subdued by the 1871 experience and kept in the Prussian tradition of the army being answerable only to the monarch. While there was certainly distaste for the cost and the elite nature of the officer corps the framing of the debate had shifted firmly away from the question of Germany being a liberal nation state.¹⁷ Townshend further discusses this liberal failure, pointing out that Hintze remarked in 1906 that ‘militarism pervades our political system and public life today’, as a result of soldiers having important roles in the civil ministries and was demonstrated by Bismarck being made a General in order to confirm his high position within the state.¹⁸

However, the existence of a specific culture of militarism within the overall population, remains debatable, as there is almost a paradoxical element to the role of the army in German nation state. On the one side, it seems to be isolated from government and used as a tool of repression, the General Staff proposed the creation of special units to resist riots and the ‘Kaisers Kommandogewalt’ (his supreme command) meant that the army became ‘a state within a state’ and made it difficult for any civil authority to hold their actions for accountability.¹⁹ Yet at the same time, the unity of the German state rested upon their success during the Wars of Unification.

¹⁹ Nicholas Stargardt, The German Idea of Militarism: Radical and Socialist Critics 1866–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) (p.42)

²⁰ Karl Kautsky, ‘Germany since the War’, Foreign Affairs, 1.2 (1922), 99–119 (p. 117) https://doi.org/10.2307/20028217.

²¹ E. C. Helmreich, ‘The Rise of Prussia’, Current History, 28.164 (1955), 205–10 (p. 210)

Kautsky further supposes that due to Prussia’s lack of resources, they had to focus more effort than any other European state on her military.²⁰ This is corroborated by Helmreich, who points out due to the key position Prussia had secured, the Parliament of Frankfurt turned to Frederick William IV, but he refused this mantle instead believing the crown should be offered by the princes as opposed to the people. This again points to the notion that it was not in the nature of Prussia a state centred around efficiency and dynastic loyalty to create a liberal and democratic Germany, as shown in how Bismarck enabled Prussia to dominate the First German Empire.²¹

Having established, that the German Empire was forged in the fires of the Unification Wars, we must now further establish how militarism embedded itself in this new nation state. There is clearly evidence of German nationalism being increasingly drawn towards militarism, as by the late 1850s, the ideas of war, military power and manly valour had been ingrained in the public for what the future nation would look like.²² We also see a paranoia regarding invasion from the French as Rochau points out that the German defence is ‘inadequate’, as well as highlights the issues of a federalized Germany, where they would have to wait for the Prussians to decide whether it was a Germany wide problem.²³ This point is particularly interesting as it harkens back to the viewpoints of the earlier Hohenzollern monarchs and their fears of Prussia being vulnerable and requiring a strong national army.

²² Frank Lorenz Müller, 'The Spectre of a People in Arms: The Prussian Government and the Militarisation of German Nationalism, 1859–1864', The English Historical Review, 122.495 (2007), 82–104 (p. 83).

²³ Ibid, p.86

²⁴ Ibid, p.89

²⁵ Ibid. p.91

²⁶ Ibid, p.93

Yet once more, the dominance of Prussian military is no certainty as there was a liberal preference for a Militia system on the grounds that it would be better to have a patriotic ‘people in arms’ and also stood to be cheaper.²⁴ This enthusiasm for military matters is demonstrated by the war games taking place in Coburg²⁵ as well as potential ideas to convert marksman and gymnastics associations into proto-military units.²⁶ Moreover, it was Bismarck’s war against the Danes that dealt with two problems here, as by providing a common enemy he united the ‘people in arms’ into a popular army, which was in turn controlled by the Prussian state.

The notion however, that this militarism and its role within the state was unique within Germany can be questioned especially when dealing with total war. This is because the impact of wars of this scale went beyond the constitutional level of civil-military interactions and even countries such as Britain with a long-standing, liberal self-image, were forced to take on powers under the 1914 Defence of the Realm Act, that were previously deemed inconceivable.²⁷ An extension of this argument is that throughout the lifetime of Prussia, due to its lack of resources and vulnerability geographically to a range of powers throughout its history first by the Swedes and then later to the Austrians and French, it had always been a total war. This is firmly demonstrated by Clark stating that Prussia, ‘boasted a military establishment that seemed to contemporaries as quite out of proportion to its population and economic capabilities’.²⁸ As a result of this and the dynastic focus in the 18^th century on efficiency of the state, the power projection of Prussia was on a par with countries significantly wealthier than itself.

²⁷ 1 Charles Townshend, 'Militarism and Modern Society', The Wilson Quarterly, 17.1 (1993),(p. 4) [accessed 02 December 2025].

²⁸ Christopher M. Clark, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), p. 95.

²⁹ W. Mark Hamilton, 'The "New Navalism" and the British Navy League, 1895–1914', The Mariner's Mirror, 64.1 (1978), 37–44 (p. 37), doi: 10.1080/00253359.1978.10659063.

³⁰ Ibid, p.41

Admittedly, this power projection in of itself does not necessitate a unique culture of militarism within Prussia, as Britain also experienced a form of this in the essence of ‘navalism’. Hamilton points to a Europe wide craze for the ideals of imperialism and exercise of power worldwide, while also springing from an idea of the British nation feeling less secure and wanting a shield to protect her.²⁹ There is also an element of forming a national identity around naval supremacy and its great leaders such as a ‘Trafalgar Day’.³⁰ This mirrors the search for mythological figures in German history and the turning towards Frederick the Great as a figurehead to build pride in the army. Thus, the question supposing a sense of militarism being unique to Germany is not entirely correct, the rise of nationalism had a broad range of impacts depending on the institutions of the country. In the case of Germany, its late unification played a role, as while it was not predetermined that national culture would be shaped around its dominant institution, it would make sense for these nationalistic outbursts of the 1840s and 1850s to amalgamate around a pre-existing institution, carefully positioned by Bismarck as the answer to both external and internal threats.

The problem however, by focussing on the militarist tradition of Prussia, is that it often overshadows and in extreme cases overrules any other cultural aspects of Prussia or the German Empire. Frederick the Great was known as the Great, yes in part due to his military exploits, but more for his role in administration and state building. Such as his formation of a League of German Princes against Austrian expansionism, he encouraged migration to his lands to the extent one third of the population by 1786 were colonists and carried out diplomacy including the Partitions of Poland with Russia.³¹ Frederick provides the perfect focal point, because it exemplifies Prussian militarism to its core, as both an aggressive force, but also one capable of working with other European states and keen to grow its own economic forces. Prussian culture was more than militarism in the same way as British culture was more than navalism, yet it was this militarism that enabled Prussia’s survival in the centre of Europe in the same way as it led to Britain’s survival and growth in the peripheral.

³¹ E. C. Helmreich, ‘The Rise of Prussia’, Current History, 28.164 (1955), 205–10 (p. 208)

To conclude, this analysis has firmly established that Prussia did have a militarist tradition and was forced to do so due to its lack of resources and vulnerable geographical place. Furthermore, the key change in this militarism from the time of the Frederick the Great to Bismarck was the rise in nationalism and the failures of the liberals to secure a levée en masse style militia instead of a professional army. Moreover, the idea that German militarism is not unique in the sense of a national culture identifying with the armed forces in the 19^th and early 20^th Century, but the key difference being the position that the army held within society, as it was simultaneously an entity accountable to the emperor only and yet equally intertwined within the machinery of state.

Bibliography

Abramson, S. F., ‘The Economic Origins of the Territorial State’, International Organization, 71.1 (2017), 97–130

Breuilly, John, 'Introduction', in The Formation of the First German Nation-State, 1800-1871, Studies in European History (London: Palgrave, 1996), pp. 1-4, doi: 10.1007/978-1-349-11719-2_1.

Clark, Christopher M., Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006)

De Staël-Holstein, Madame, Germany, ed. by O. W. Wight, Vol. I (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, n.d.)

Escarpit, Robert, ‘Germaine de Staël’, Encyclopædia Britannica, 11 July 2025 https://www.britannica.com/biography/Germaine-de-Stael [Accessed 30 November 2025]

Fay, S. B., ‘The Beginnings of the Standing Army in Prussia’, The American Historical Review, 22.4 (1917), 763–77 https://doi.org/10.2307/1836239

Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, Addresses to the German Nation, ed. by George Armstrong Kelly (New York and Evanston: Harper & Row Publishers, 1968)

Hamilton, W. Mark, 'The "New Navalism" and the British Navy League, 1895–1914', The Mariner's Mirror, 64.1 (1978), 37–44, doi: 10.1080/00253359.1978.10659063

Helmreich, E. C., ‘The Rise of Prussia’, Current History, 28.164 (1955), 205–10

Kautsky, Karl, ‘Germany since the War’, Foreign Affairs, 1.2 (1922), 99–119 https://doi.org/10.2307/20028217.

Müller, Frank Lorenz, 'The Spectre of a People in Arms: The Prussian Government and the Militarisation of German Nationalism, 1859–1864', The English Historical Review, 122.495 (2007), 82–104

Schulze, Hagen, ‘The Rise of a National Culture’, in The Course of German Nationalism: From Frederick the Great to Bismarck 1763–1867, trans. by Sarah Hanbury-Tenison (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 43–47

Schulze, Hagen, ‘The Nationalist Movement’s Passage from an Elitist to a Mass Phenomenon’, in The Course of German Nationalism: From Frederick the Great to Bismarck 1763–1867, trans. by Sarah Hanbury-Tenison (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 56–63

Stargardt, Nicholas, The German Idea of Militarism: Radical and Socialist Critics 1866–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994)

Townshend, Charles, 'Militarism and Modern Society', The Wilson Quarterly, 17.1 (1993), available: https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A13613885/AONE?u=loyoland_main&sid=googleScholar&xid=ed96d3bc [accessed 02 December 2025]

Wilson, Peter H., ‘Still a Monstrosity? Some Reflections on Early Modern German Statehood’, The Historical Journal, 49.2 (2006), 565–76 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X06005334

First written as a university essay, December 2025.