The Prussian Army; its leaders and legacy on German Unification

Prussian Command base.
Figures from Foundry and NorthStar, flag is GMB.

After the rollercoaster ride of the Napoleonic Wars, with huge defeats but also glimmers of prestige like at Waterloo under Blücher, the Prussian army was bound for a road of reform and modernization, taking it up to the smooth and fit fighting engine that would bring down the French Empire and subsequently be the instrument of German unification in 1870-71.

"Der Alte Fritz"

Frederick the Great leading the Prussians at Zorndrof.
Painting by Carl Röchling.

With a proud military tradition rooted in the mythical victories and disciplinary codes of Frederick the Great, lovingly known as ”Der Alte Fritz”, the Prussian army had perhaps more potential that was willingly admitted to it in Europe after the removal of Napoleon in 1815.

Prussians advance into Gravelotte.
"Tod des Majors von Halden" Painting by Carl Röchling.

Despite a common cultural and lingual heritage, the post-napoleon peace settlement still left Germany fragmented in small individual states and vulnerable to the political and military winds crossing Europe. The Prussian state and army would skilfully ride a tide of nationalist awakening in the mid-19th century, and directed by the firm hand of visionaries like Bismarck and Moltke, unite the German states and transform this Central-European political vacuum into a Power House of a German Empire, led by a Kaiser. 

My NorthStar Prussians on the road towards Gravelotte.
Inspired by the Carl Röchling painting.

While the European revolution of 1848 swept across the continent weakening many of the old Empires, the Prussian Monarchy was left strengthened, and Prussian military and political influence over other German states would increase, as these would need to call on Prussia and the Prussian army to clean up the revolutionary mobs in their cities and high streets.

Detail of the Carl Röchling painting.
I took this close up of the original painting, now hanging in the museum at Gravelotte.

In 1859, King Frederick William IV tasked Minister of War Albrecht von Roon with the modernization of the Prussian fighting machine, now more royal and politically connected to the King than many of it’s European adversary forces.

A successful Prussian Trio.
Bismarck, Roon & Moltke.

Roon would form part of a triangle of brilliant Prussian leaders along with Bismarck and Moltke. Together these three conservative Prussian gentlemen would instrument profound change; introducing new effective tactical doctrines based on steam-age wonders like railroad and the telegraph, and channelling industrial innovation like the ultra modern Needle Gun rifle and perhaps the World’s best artillery hardware from the Krupp factories into the Pikklehube clad legions.

The Prussians storm the Danish position at Dybbøl 1864.
This image is from the coming Danish TV drama , check out the YOUTUBE teaser here: "1864".

All the above would later be refined into perfection in a series of wars known as the Wars of Unification. First, and as a Dane very interestingly, the Second Schleswig War in 1864, fought over the sovereignty of the German states of Schleswig and Holstein.

The Prussians at Königgrätz 1866.
Again a fantastic painting by Carl Röchling.

Later Bismarck would settle the score with the Austrian Empire on who would be the main political influence on the German states - Prussia or Austria. The effective Needle Gun and rigid Prussian infantry doctrine would settle this argument most effectively at Königgrätz in 1866.

Bismarck offering some gentlemanly words 

of comfort to the defeated Napoleon III at Sedan 1870.

Finally Moltke’s and Bismarck’s finest hour would be the provocation of a French declaration of war, and the subsequent surgically precise military campaigns of the Prussian and German Confederate troops in France during the Franco-Prussian War, resulting in a long envisioned proclamation of German unification into Empire under Prussian leadership. 

I've started painting up the Grandmanner collection from Salute.
First up this village shrine - very French country road n'est-ce pas?.

An amazing feat on Prussia’s behalf, considering their starting point at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and the vast distance of political and social unrest that had to be crossed in the 19^th Century taking them up to the point of proclaiming their King as Kaiser in the Hall of Mirrors in the Versailles.

Thank you very much for reading.