Gerhard von Scharnhorst

For more information on Gerhard Johann David von Scharnhorst, visit Britannica.com.

Scharnhorst, Gen Graf Gerhardt Johann David von (1755-1813). Commissioned into the Hanoverian artillery in 1788, Scharnhorst fought with distinction under the Duke of York in Flanders in 1793-4. However, his middle-class background seemed a bar to promotion, and he transferred to the Prussian service in search of better prospects. Promoted Lt Col and ennobled, he taught at the Kriegsakademie in Berlin, where Clausewitz was one of his students, before serving as COS to the Duke of Brunswick for the Jena/Auerstadt campaign. Wounded at Auerstadt, he was subsequently captured but exchanged, and served with the Prussian contingent at Eylau. Promoted major general in July 1807, he was appointed minister of war and chief of the general staff, set up the Military Reorganization Commission, and, with Gneisenau, Grolman, Boyen, Stein, and Hardenberg, worked to rebuild the Prussian army. A French decree banning foreigners from serving in the Prussian army obliged him to leave it in 1810, but he was recalled in 1812 to act as COS to Blücher. He was wounded at Lützen in 1813 and, sent to Prague to negotiate Austria's entry into the war, died from blood poisoning caused by the wound.

Scharnhorst was an accomplished staff officer and administrator, whose notion of universal military service was to have lasting importance. His untimely death was a cruel blow to the cause of liberal military reform in Prussia.

— Richard Holmes

The Prussian general Gerhard Johann David von Scharnhorst (1755-1813) rebuilt the Prussian army after its collapse at Jena in 1806.

On Nov. 12, 1755, G. J. D. von Scharnhorst was born in Bordenau, the son of a former sergeant. In the Prussia of Frederick the Great his origins debarred him from an officer's career, so he took service as an artillery officer in the Hanoverian army, distinguishing himself by considerable valor in the war against revolutionary France. In 1801 he was able to transfer to the Prussian army, being appointed director of the military academy in Berlin. Two years later he was made a member of the general staff. In the campaign of 1806-1807 he served as a staff officer. He did so well in that capacity that, after the collapse, he was appointed minister of war, chief of the general staff, and head of the Military Reconstruction Commission.

Scharnhorst was convinced that only thorough reform, closely tied to the proposed reform of the civil establishment under Baron Stein and Prince Hardenberg, could restore Prussia's army. Every vestige of the brutalized peasant-soldier of Frederick the Great, living in terror of the corporal's stick, would have to go. He insisted on the introduction of universal military service to replace the practice of pressing the sons of peasants and whatever foreigners could be rounded up - and won his point. As it was not possible to keep all those liable for service under the colors at any one time, this meant organizing a reserve, the Landwehr, which consisted of men who had returned to civilian life but were subject to immediate recall and were given occasional training to keep them in trim. This enabled him to keep within the limits that Napoleon allowed the Prussian army but to have a vast reserve on hand. This new citizen army differed radically from that of the 18th century. Beatings, formerly the universal means of enforcing discipline, were abolished. There were no more automatic commissions for the sons of the Prussian nobility. Instead of tedious and endless marching drills, the infantry was schooled in the use of its weapons, techniques of rapid firing, and deployment.

As soon as his reforms had begun to take effect, Scharnhorst urged on his government a war of revenge against Napoleon. This resulted in his dismissal as minister of war on French insistence, but he retained his other positions. In the campaign of 1813 he served as chief of Field Marshal Blücher's staff, was wounded in the battle of Grossgörschen, and died of his wounds in Prague on June 28, 1813.

Further Reading

Scharnhorst figures in a number of general works on German history: William Oswald Shanahan, Prussian Military Reforms, 1786-1813 (1945); Koppel Shub Pinson, Modern Germany (1954); and Hajo Holborn, A History of Modern Germany (3 vols., 1959-1964).

Additional Sources

White, Charles Edward, The enlightened soldier: Scharnhorst and the Militarische Gesellschaft in Berlin, 1801-1805, New York: Praeger, 1989.

Scharnhorst, Gerhard von (Bordenau, Hanover, 1755-1813, Prague), Prussian general, was born of peasant stock and was the son of a sergeant. After a military education in Schaumburg-Lippe he entered the Hanoverian artillery, distinguishing himself in the Netherlands in 1793-4 against the French Revolutionary armies (see Revolutionskriege). Various writings on military subjects led to an invitation to join the Prussian service, which he accepted in 1801 on condition that he was ennobled. He served as instructor in organization and tactics at the Berlin War Academy during the Napoleonic Wars and in 1806 was wounded at Auerstedt. He took part in Blücher's retreat to Lübeck and fought with distinction in the final engagement of the war at Preussisch-Eylau (1807).

After the Peace of Tilsit he was appointed Director of the War Department and carried out a thoroughgoing reform of the Prussian army. His aim was a national army, and he achieved this within the numerical limits imposed at Tilsit, introducing a system of short service, after which the soldiers were released to a reserve which he styled the Landwehr (see also Krümpersystem). Scharnhorst abolished corporal punishment, instituted promotion by merit, and opened commissioned rank to commoners. He revolutionized tactical drill, introducing individual training in musketry and flexible skirmishing, and created the army which fought in the Wars of Liberation. On the outbreak of war in 1813 he became chief of staff. At Großgörschen he received a wound from which he died at Prague two months later.

Scharnhorst's writings included Handbuch für Offiziers in den anwendbaren Theilen der Kriegswissenschaften (1781-90), Militärisches Taschenbuch (1793), Die Ursachen des Glücks der Franzosen im Revolutionskrieg (1803), and Über die Wirkung des Feuergewehrs (1813). From 1788 to 1805 he edited a military periodical (Neues Militärisches Journal, 1788-96; Militairische Denkwürdigkeiten unserer Zeiten, 1797-1805), in which appeared one of his best essays, Die Verteidigung der Stadt Menin und die Selbstbefreiung der Garnison unter dem Königlich Großbritannisch-Kur-Hannoverschen Generalmajor von Hammerstein 1794. This was particularly praised by Clausewitz, Scharnhorst's pupil and later collaborator. See also Gneisenau.

Gerhard Johann David von Scharnhorst
12 November 1755 – 28 June 1813
Gerhard von Scharnhorst
Place of birth	Bordenau near Hanover
Place of death	Prague
Resting place	Invalidenfriedhof Berlin
Allegiance	Prussia
Years of service	1778–1813
Rank	Lieutenant-General

Gerhard Johann David von Scharnhorst (12 November 1755 - 28 June 1813) was a general in Prussian service, Chief of the Prussian General Staff, noted for both his writings, his reforms of the Prussian army, and his leadership during the Napoleonic Wars.

Biography

Born at Bordenau (now a part of Neustadt am Rübenberge, Lower Saxony) near Hanover, into a farmer's family, he succeeded in educating himself and in securing admission to the military academy of William, Count of Schaumburg-Lippe at the fortress Wilhelmstein. In 1778 he received a commission in the Hanoverian service. He employed the intervals of regimental duty in further self-education and literary work. In 1783 he transferred to the artillery and received an appointment to the new artillery school in Hanover. He had already founded a military journal which, under various names, endured till 1805, and in 1788 he designed, and in part published, a Handbuch für Offiziere in den anwendbaren Teilen der Kriegswissenschaften ("Handbook for Officers in the Applied Sections of Military Science"). He also published in 1792 his Militärisches Taschenbuch für den Gebrauch im Felde ("Military Handbook for Use in the Field").

The income he derived from his writings provided his chief means of support, for he still held the rank of lieutenant, and though the farm of Bordenau produced a small sum annually, he had a wife (Clara Schmalz, sister of Theodor Schmalz, first director of Berlin University) and family to maintain. His first campaign took place in 1793 in the Netherlands, in which he served under the Duke of York with distinction. In 1794 he took part in the defence of Menin and commemorated the escape of the garrison in his Verteidigung der Stadt Menin ("Defence of the Town of Menin") (Hanover, 1803), which, besides his paper Die Ursachen des Glücks der Franzosen im Revolutionskrieg ("The Origins of the Good Fortune of the French in the Revolutionary War"), remains his best-known work. Shortly thereafter he received promotion to the rank of major and joined the staff of the Hanoverian contingent.

After the Peace of Basel (5 March 1795) Scharnhorst returned to Hanover. He had by now become so well-known to the armies of the various allied states that he received invitations from several of them to transfer his services. This in the end led to his engaging himself to King Frederick William III of Prussia, who gave him a patent of nobility, the rank of lieutenant-colonel and a pay more than twice as large as what he had received in Hanover (1801). The War Academy of Berlin employed him, almost as a matter of course, in important instructional work (he had Clausewitz as one of his pupils) and he founded the Berlin Military Society. In the mobilizations and precautionary measures that marked the years 1804 and 1805, and in the war of 1806 that ensued, Scharnhorst served as chief of the general staff (lieutenant-quartermaster) of the Duke of Brunswick, received a slight wound at Auerstadt (14 October 1806) and distinguished himself by his stern resolution during the retreat of the Prussian army. He attached himself to Blücher in the last stages of the disastrous campaign, went into captivity with him at the capitulation of Ratekau (7 November 1806), and, quickly exchanged, had a prominent and almost decisive part in leading L'Estocq's Prussian corps which served with the Russians. For his services at Eylau (February 1807), he received the highest Prussian military order Pour le Mérite.

It had become apparent that Scharnhorst's skills exceeded those of a merely brilliant staff officer. Educated in the traditions of the Seven Years' War, he had by degrees, as his experience widened, divested his mind of antiquated forms of war, and realised that only a "national" army and a policy of fighting decisive battles could give an adequate response to the political and strategic situation brought about by the French Revolution. By slow and labored steps he converted the professional long-service army of Prussia, wrecked at Jena (1806), into a national army based on universal service. He gained promotion to major-general a few days after the Peace of Tilsit (July 1807), and became the head of a reform commission which included the best of the younger officers, such as Gneisenau, Grolman and Boyen. Stein himself became a member of the commission and secured Scharnhorst free access to King Frederick William III by securing his appointment as aide-de-camp-general. But Napoleon quickly became suspicious, and Frederick William repeatedly had to suspend or cancel the reforms recommended.

Statue of Scharnhorst on the Unter den Linden, Berlin

In 1809, the war between France and Austria roused premature hopes in the patriots' party, which the conqueror did not fail to note. By direct application to Napoleon, Scharnhorst evaded the decree of 26 September 1810, which required all foreigners to leave the Prussian service forthwith, but when in 1811–1812 France forced Prussia into an alliance against Russia and Prussia despatched an auxiliary army to serve under Napoleon's orders, Scharnhorst left Berlin on unlimited leave of absence. In retirement he wrote and published a work on firearms, Über die Wirkung des Feuergewehrs (1813). But the retreat from Moscow (1812) at last sounded the call to arms for the new national army of Prussia.

Scharnhorst, recalled to the king's headquarters, refused a higher post but became Chief of Staff to Blücher, in whose vigour, energy, and influence with the young soldiers he had complete confidence. Russian Prince Wittgenstein was so impressed by Scharnhorst that he asked to borrow him temporarily as his Chief of Staff. Blücher agreed. In the first battle, Lützen or Gross-Görschen (2 May 1813), Prussia suffered defeat, but a very different defeat from those which Napoleon had hitherto customarily inflicted. The French failed to follow up, so this defeat was not complete. In this battle, Scharnhorst received a wound in the foot, not in itself grave, but soon made mortal by the fatigues of the retreat to Dresden, and he succumbed to it on 28 June 1813 at Prague, where he had travelled to negotiate with Schwarzenberg and Radetzky for the armed intervention of Austria. Shortly before his death he had received promotion to the rank of lieutenant-general. Frederick William III erected a statue in memory of him, by Christian Daniel Rauch, in Berlin. Scharnhorst was buried at the Invalidenfriedhof Cemetery in Berlin.

Several German navy ships, including the World War I armored cruiser SMS Scharnhorst, the World War II battlecruiser Scharnhorst, and a post-war frigate, as well as a district of the city of Dortmund and a school in the city of Hildesheim, were named after him.

References

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Gerhard von Scharnhorst

• German General Staff

Preceded by New ministry

Chief of the Prussian General Staff Prussian Minister of War 1808–1810

Succeeded by Karl von Hake

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)