The Soldier and the State

by Samuel P Huntington

  Chapter 2 — The Rise of the Military Profession in Western Society

  1. See John U. Nef, War and Human Progress (Cambridge, Mass., 1950), pp. 93ff.; Robert G. Albion, Introduction to Military History (New York, 1929), pp. 98ff.; John W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army (London, 13 vols., 1899–1930), IV, 212–213, V, 223–225; Walter L. Dorn, Competition for Empire, 1740–1763 (New York, 1940), pp. 82–83; Albert Duruy, L’Armée Royale en 1789 (Paris, 1888), pp. 26–34; Curt Jany, Geschichte der Königlich Preussischen Armee (Berlin, 4 vols., 1928–1933), I, 679–699, III, 60–64, 435–449; Herbert Rosinski, The German Army (London, 1939), pp. 17–19.

  2. On entry into the French Army, see Duruy, L’Armée Royale, pp. 81, 87ff.; Louis Tuetey, Les Officiers sous L’Ancien Régime: Nobles et Routuriers (Paris, 1908), passim; Spenser Wilkinson, The French Army Before Napoleon (Oxford, 1915), pp. 86ff., 92–93, 101; R. Quarré de Vemeuil, L’Armée en France depuis Charles VII jusqu’à la Révolution (Paris, 1880), p. 261; Edgard Boutaric, Institutions Militaires de la France (Paris, 1863), pp. 413–451. For the rationale behind using the army as a means of subsidizing the nobility, see Henry Guerlac, “Science and War in the Old Regime” (Ph.D. Thesis, Harvard Univ., 1941), pp. 251–254. The regular French naval officer corps was, like the Army, a monopoly of the aristocracy. Dorn, Competition for Empire, pp. 117–118. On entry into the Prussian Army, see Karl Demeter, Das Deutsche Heer und seine Offiziere (Berlin, 1935), pp. 6–8, 11–13; Jany, Preussischen Armee, I, 724–728, II, 219–222, III, 34–37, 420; Felix Priebatsch, Geschichte des Preussischen Offizierkorps (Breslau, 1919), p. 13; Rosinski, German Army, pp. 30–35; Hans Speier, “Militarism in the Eighteenth Century,” Social Research, III (August 1936), 309–316. On the purchase system, see Charles M. Clode, The Military Forces of the Crown (London, 2 vols., 1869), I, Appendix XVII; Clifford Walton, History of the British Standing Army, 1660–1700 (London, 1894), pp. 447–456; Fortescue, British Army, II, 29–30, IV, 213; Robert Biddulph, Lord Cardwell at the War Office (London, 1904), pp. 80–87; C. W. C. Oman, Wellington’s Army, 1809–1814 (New York, 1912), pp. 198–201. For the British Navy, see Michael Lewis, England’s Sea Officers: The Story of the Naval Profession (London, 1939), pp. 81ff.

  3. For French advancement policies, there is C. A. Thomas, Les Transformations de L’Armée Française (Paris, 2 vols., 1887), I, 409–410, 415–416; Duruy, L’Armée Royale, pp. 73–76, 83–87, 99–102; Léon Mention, L’Armée de L’Ancien Régime de Louis XIV à la Révolution (Paris, 1900), pp. 136–141; Wilkinson, French Army, pp. 87–88, 93; Albert Babeau, La Vie Militaire sous L’Ancien Régime (Paris, 2 vols., 1890), II, ch. ix; Louis Hartmann, Les Officiers de L’Armée Royale et de la Révolution (Paris, 1910), pp. 5–22. For comment by one of France’s most distinguished eighteenth-century soldiers on the effects of French personnel policies, see Maurice de Saxe, Reveries on the Art of War (Harrisburg, 1944), p. 28. On the Prussian system, see Jany, Preussischen Armee, I, 541–543, 722–724, 740, II, 223–225; Priebatsch, Preussischen Offizierkorps, pp. 7–9; Gerhard Ritter, Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk (Munich, 1954), I, 211; Robert Ergang, The Potsdam Führer (New York, 1941), pp. 78–80.

  4. A. Stenzel, The British Navy (London, 1898), p. 114; Lewis, England’s Sea Officers, pp. 85–86; Clode, Military Forces, I, 192–194, II, 93–94, 336–339; J. S. Omond, Parliament and the Army, 1642–1904 (Cambridge, 1933), pp. 45–49; Fortescue, British Army, IV, 296–298; Alfred Vagts, A History of Militarism (New York, 1937), pp. 49, 67–68.

  5. Les Officiers, pp. 37–38. On the French schools, see Mention, L’Armée de L’Ancien Régime, pp. 78–84; Babeau, La Vie Militaire, II, 1–78; Jules Clère, Histoire de L’Êcole de la Flèche (La Flèche, 1853), passim; Guerlac, “Science and War in the Old Regime,” chs. 9, 12, pp. 228, 246ff. For Prussian education, see Jany, Preussischen Armee, I, 727–728, III, 38–41, 423–426; Priebatsch, Preussischen Offizierkorps, pp. 10–22; Henry Barnard, Military Schools and Courses of Instruction in the Science and Art of War (Philadelphia, 1862), pp. 284–288; William O. Shanahan, Prussian Military Reforms: 1786–1813 (New York, 1945), pp. 29, 133–134. On English schools, see Clode, Military Forces, I, 457–461; Lewis, England!s Sea Officers, pp. 87–88; F. G-Guggisberg, ‘The Shop’: The Story of the Royal Military Academy (London, 1900), passim.

  6. J. D. Hittle, The Military Staff (Harrisburg, Pa., 1949), pp. 75–85; Jany, Preussischen Armee, III, 157–158; Ritter, Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk, I, 207–209; D. D. Irvine, “The Origins of Capital Staffs,” Jour, of Modern History, X (June 1938), 166–170.

  7. Gordon A. Craig; The Politics of the Prussian Army, 1640–1945 (Oxford, 1955), pp. 24–26; Priebatsch, Preussischen Offizierkorps, pp. 10–11. 15–17; Demeter, Deutsche Heer, pp. 9–13, 80; Rosinski, German Army, pp. 37, 40; Shanahan, Prussian Military Reforms, pp. 95–96; Duruy, UArmée Royale, pp. 211–212; Mention, L’Armée de L’Ancien Régime, pp. 141–144; Louis Ducros, French Society in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1926), pp. 299–300; Fortescue, British Army, I, 573–574, II, 26, VII, 424–426, IX, 86–88, 96, X, 204–206.

  8. Military historians have perhaps tended to give eighteenth-century military thought more credit than it deserves. See B. H. Liddell Hart, The Ghost of Napoleon (New Haven, 1934), ch. 1; Max Jähns, Geschichte der Kriegswissenschaften (Munich and Leipzig, 3 vols., 1889–1891), III, 1769–1770; Henri Mordacq, La Stratégie: Historique Évolution (Paris, 3rd ed., 1921), pp. 19–29. Henry Lloyd’s The History of the Late War in Germany (London, 2 vols. 1781) was a military best seller and was read carefully by Napoleon. See Liddell Hart, ibid., p. 190; Jähns, ibid., pp. 2102–2114; and, for the influence of Lloyd on Clausewitz, Hans Rothfels, Carl von Clausewitz; Politik und Krieg (Berlin, 1920), pp. 40–41. Guibert’s Essai General de Tactique appeared in Paris in 1770 and was translated into English in 1781. For Guibert’s influence, see R. R. Palmer, “Frederick the Great, Guibert, Bülow: From Dynastic to National War,” in Edward Mead Earle (ed.), Makers of Modern Strategy (Princeton, 1952), pp. 62–68; Liddell Hart, ibid., pp. 69–100; Wilkinson, French Army, pp. 54–84. On the “classicism” of eighteenth-century thinking, see Liddell Hart, ibid., pp. 15–18, 187; Jähns, ibid. Ill, 1774, 1823–1837. The writings of Pusegur, Guischardt, Mesnil-Durand, Maizeroy, and Zanthier are excellent examples of the classical preoccupation. In general the term “strategy” throughout the eighteenth century was still associated with stratagem. See J. J. Graham, Elementary History of the Art of War (London, 1858), pp. 201–202. Flavius Vegetius Renatus, The Military Institutions of the Romans (Harrisburg, Pa., 1944), was, according to T. R. Phillips, the “most influential military treatise in the western world from Roman times to the 19th Century.”

  9. Reveries, p. 17.

  10. Lloyd, History, II, i, vi-x, xxx-xxxi, 69–97.

  11. Lloyd, History, II, vii, xxi; Saxe, Reveries, pp. 119–120; J. A. H. Guibert, A General Essay on Tactics (London, 2 vols, 1781), I, xxvi, xlvi-xlvii, lvii, II, 184–185. Compare Vagts, History of Militarism, pp. 81ff., who argues that the genius theory was fundamentally progressive.

  12. “Reglement über die Besetzung der Stellen der Portepee-Fähnriche, und über die Wahl zum Officier bei der Infanterie, Kavallerie und Artillerie, 6 August 1808,” published in Prussian General Staff, Die Reorganisation der Preussischen Armee nach dem Tilsiter Frieden (Berlin, 1857), vol. II, Sec. 3, pp. 366–369. See, generally, Jany, Preussischen Armee, III, 426–428, IV, 14–17; Max Lehmann, Scharnhorst (Leipzig, 2 vols., 1886), II, ch. 1; Shanahan, Prussian Military Reforms, passim; Guy Stanton Ford, Stein and the Era of Reform in Prussia, 1807–1815 (Princeton, 1922), passim, but esp. ch. 8; J. R. Seeley, Life and Times of Stein (Boston, 2 vols., 1879), I, 397–423; Hans Delbrück, Gneisenau (Berlin, 2 vols., 1882), I, 117–145; Ritter, Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk, I, 97–101; Craig, Prussian Army, pp. 37–75.

  13. On Germany, see Ritter, Staatkunst und Kriegshandwerk, I, 100–101; Lehmann, Scharnhorst, II, 62–63; Vagts, History of Militarism, pp. 139–145; Demeter, Deutsche Hee
r, pp. 12–14. The best source on France is Raoul Girardet, La Société Militaire dans la France Contemporaine (1815–1939) (Paris, 1953), ch. 1.

  14. Democracy in America (Cambridge, 2 vols., 1863), II, 334–335. In Germany, the struggle between bourgeoisie and aristocrats not only facilitated the emergence of the military profession but also produced an enormous monographic literature on the roles of the two classes in the officer corps.

  15. Thomas, Transformations, I, 420–422; Girardet, Société Militaire, pp. 125–133; Jean Lucas-Dubreton, The Restoration and the July Monarchy (New York, 1929), pp. 54–55; Eyre Crowe, History of the Reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X (London, 2 vols., 1854), I, 392ff., II, 37–40; J. Monteilhet, Les Institutions Militaires de la France (1814–1924) (Paris, 1926), pp. 9–12; E. Guillon, Les Complots Militaires sous la Restauration (Paris, 1895), passim.

  16. Shanahan, Prussian Military Reforms, pp. 75–82, 150ff.; G. S. Ford, “Boyen’s Military Law,” Amer. Hist. Rev., XX (April 1915), 528–538; Max Jähns, Das Franzosische Heer von der Grossen Revolution bis zur Gegenwart (Leipzig, 1873), pp. 291–293, 317–319, 380–383; Thomas James Thackery, The Military Organization and Administration of France (London, 2 vols., 1857), I, 61–63; Biddulph, Lord Cardwell, p. 211; Omond, Parliament and the Army, pp. 118–119; Fortescue, British Army, XIII, 560.

  17. See Hoffman Nickerson, The Armed Horde, 1793–1939 (New York, 1940), passim, and Vagts, History of Militarism, pp. 221–241.

  18. General von Holleben, quoted in Great Britain, Military Education Commission, Account of the Systems of Military Education in France, Prussia, Austria, Bavaria, and the United States (London, 1870), p. 198. See also: Jany, Preussischen Armee, IV, 168–172; Demeter, Deutsche Heer, pp. 73–86, 95, 260–265.

  19. See Barnard, Military Schools, pp. 11–132, 225–240; C. J. East, The Armed Strength of France (London, 1877), pp. 74ff.; C. de Montzey, Institutions d’Education Militaire (Paris, 1886), passim; James R. Soley, Report on Foreign Systems of Naval Education (Washington, 1880), ch. 14. On the social composition of the French services, see Girardet, Société Militaire, pp. 50, 61–63, 79–84, 185ff.; Theodore Ropp, “The Development of a Modern Navy: French Naval Policy, 1871–1909” (Ph.D. Thesis, Harvard Univ., 1937), pp. 95–97.

  20. On army entry, see Fortescue, British Army, IV, 927, XIII, 558ff.; Clode, Military Forces, II, 91–92. On navy entry and education, see Lewis, England’s Sea Officers, pp. 87–111 and “Report of the Committee on the Education of Naval Executive Officers,” Accounts and Papers (Cmd. 4885, 1886), pp. xxv, xxviii.

  21. Theodore Schwan, Report on the Organization of the German Army (War Dept., Adjutant General’s Office, Mil. Information Div., No. 2, Washington, 1894), pp. 17–18; D. D. Irvine, “The French and Prussian Staff Systems before 1870,” Jour, of the Amer. Mil. Hist. Foundation, II (1938), 195–196; Christian W. Gässler, Offizier und Offizierkorps der Alten Armee in Deutschland (Wertheim a.M., 1930), pp. 24–25, 38.

  22. Thomas, Transformations, I, 422–423; East, Armed Strength of France, pp. 157, 172–183, 200; Thackery, Military Organization, I, 73–87, 100–111; Louis Trochu, L’Armée Française en 1867 (Paris, 1867), pp. 108–111; Ropp, “French Naval Policy,” pp. 87–94; J. L. de Lanesson, La Marine Française au Printemps de 1890 (Paris, 1890), pp. 273–296.

  23. Biddulph, Lord Cardwell, pp. 114–117 and 73–77; Fortescue, British Army, IV, 871–880, XIII, 20–21, 557–558; Omond, Parliament and the Army, pp. 66–67, 120–121; Clode, Military Forces, II, 92, 161, 347–348, 352–353, 739.

  24. Vagts, History of Militarism, p. 242.

  25. Great Britain, Military Education, pp. 333–334. See also Barnard, Military Schools, pp. 331–336, 395–399; Spenser Wilkinson, The Brain of an Army (London, new ed., 1913), pp. 147–191.

  26. Quoted in Hittle, Military Staff, p. 107.

  27. D. D. Irvine, “The French Discovery of Clausewitz and Napoleon,” Jour. of the Amer. Mil. Institute, IV (1940), 149–153; East, Armed Strength of France, pp. 79–80; L. Jablonski, L’Armée Française à travers Les Ages (Paris, 5 vols., 1894), V, 319ff.

  28. Soley, Foreign Systems of Naval Education, pp. 49ff.; A. F. Mockler-Ferryman, Annals of Sandhurst (London, 1900), pp. 86–87.

  29. Quoted in John W. Wheeler-Bennett, The Nemesis of Power: The German Army in Politics, 1918–1945 (London, 1953), p. 97. On the General Staff, see also Walter Görlitz, History of the German General Staff (London, 1953), pp. 15–23, 57–58, 66–69; Rudolf Schmidt-Bückeburg, Das Militärkabinett der Preussischen Könige und Deutschen Kaiser (Berlin, 1933), pp. 10–14, 57–96; Paul Bronsart von Schellendorff, The Duties of the General Staff (London, 3rd ed., 1893), pp. 15–22.

  30. See Col. E. B. Hamley, The Operations of War (Edinburgh, 3rd ed., 1872), pp. ix–x; Wilkinson, Brain of an Army, pp. 102–107. Moltke’s statement of the theory is quoted in F. E. Whitton, Moltke (London, 1921), pp. 74–75.

  31. See Irvine, Jour. Amer. Mil. Hist. Found., II, 198–203; Hittle, Military Staff, pp. 89–107; Schellendorff, Duties of the General Staff, pp. 80–83; Jablonski, L’Armée Française, V, 317ff.

  32. Hittle, Military Staff, pp. 127–145; John K. Dunlop, The Development of the British Army, 1899–1914 (London, 1938), pp. 23, 198–213; Schellendorff, Duties of the General Staff, pp. 97–108.

  33. Viscount Wolseley, “The Standing Army of Great Britain,” Harper’s, LXXX (February 1890), 346–347.

  34. Irvine, Jour, of the Amer. Mil. Institute, IV, 146–148; Girardet, Société Militaire, pp. 94–95. For the contrast between French and German war planning, see Helmuth von Moltke, The Franco-German War of 1870–71 (London, 2 vols., 1891), I, 3–10.

  35. Lascelles Wraxall, The Armies of the Great Powers (London, 1859), pp. 99–100.

  36. Military Education, p. 168.

  37. Emory Upton, The Armies of Europe and Asia (New York, 1878), pp. 319–320.

  38. For typical adulatory comments on Clausewitz, see Stewart L. Murray, The Reality of War: A Companion to Clausewitz (London, 1914), ch. ii; D. K. Palit, The Essentials of Military Knowledge (Aldershot, 1950), p. 78; Rosinski, German Army, pp. 121–122. For a brief critical analysis, see Hans Rothfels, “Clausewitz,” in Earle (ed.), Makers of Modern Strategy, pp. 93–113. Lloyd, Guibert, Behrenhorst, and Bülow were the most important immediate precursors. For Lloyd and Guibert, see above, pp. 29–30. On Behrenhorst, see Jähns, Kriegswissenschaften, III, 2121–2128; Ernst Hagemann, Die Deutsche Lehre vom Kriege: Von Behrenhorst zu Clausewitz (Berlin, 1940), pp. 6–20; Vagts, History of Militarism, pp. 92–95. Bülow’s Der Geist des Neuren Kriegssystems (1799, English trans., The Spirit of Modern Warfare, London, 1806) has been rightly criticized for its eighteenth-century strategic ideas, yet it nonetheless reflects a highly systematic approach to the study of war. See Palmer, in Earle (ed.), Makers of Modern Strategy, pp. 68–74; von Caemmerer, The Development of Strategical Science During the Nineteenth Century (London, 1905), pp. 1–10. Clausewitz’s most important contemporary was the Swiss Henri Jomini whose Precis de L’Art de la Guerre (Paris, 2 vols., 1838) was second only to On War in its influence on subsequent military thinking. All quotations from On War in this chapter and elsewhere in this book are from the translation by O. J. Matthijs Jolles, Modern Library edition, copyrighted and published by Random House, New York, 1943, and are used by permission of the publishers. See particularly pp. 34–39, 16–21, 45, 128ff., 568–571, 594ff.