Is the Military History of Frederick the Great and George Washington still relevant in the 21st Century?

The excellent reenactors of Prussian IR12, Erbprinz Hessen-Darmstadt

Dear Reader,

In the course of completing my Ph.D, I have the distinct pleasure of teaching the Modern Military History course at West Virginia University. Students always sign up for the class in large numbers, expecting to hear primarily about the Second World War, or even the Vietnam War. They are almost always disappointed to hear that to historians, "Modern" Military History includes much of Military History after 1500.

As I believe that students learn better when their instructor is passionate about the subject under study, I spend approximately two and a half weeks (of a sixteen week course) covering the Kabinettskriege era, with particular reference to the era between the War of Austrian Succession to the American War of Independence. Every semester, I ask students to write a paper, comparing two of the great military leaders of the eighteenth century. (It's not Frederick II and Washington every semester, in fact, I prefer reading essays about Charles XII and Maurice de Saxe). However, students are always surprised that I spend so much time on an era of limited war, where (at least in their mind) tactics and technology were relatively static. As a result, I am writing this post, attempting to defend what I see as an incredibly relevant period in military history for our own time. So, why is the era of Frederick II and George Washington still relevant in the 21st Century?

Washington by Peale, 1779

1. The conflicts of Frederick II and Washington form part of the "canon" of modern military thought, and the Military-Civil relationship in our own time. In order to understand that, we need to understand them. 

If you read On War, you will be astonished by the easy familiarity which Clausewitz possesses with the campaigns of Frederick II. To understand the mind which produced On War, we need to understand the conflicts of Frederick II as he did. The debates about the relationship between armies and societies which continue into our own time were happening albeit in a slightly different form, during the eighteenth century. In my observation, there is a gulf today in the United States between many soldiers and many civilians, and neither seem to understand the other, or even have a desire to do so. A reading of Charles Royster's A Revolutionary People at War, will reveal that the exact same debates were occurring in the fledgling United States during the American War of Independence. The army and the society became disconnected from one another during the course of the conflict, and began to actively dislike each other in cases.  In essence, an understanding of eighteenth-century warfare allows for a greater understanding of our own world.

2. Studying Eighteenth-Century Warfare demonstrates that while technology is important, adaptability is more important. 

There were a number of military technological improvements during the Kabinettskriege era,  including the French development of cooper-bottomed pontoon-bridges in the 1670s, the refinement of mortars, the artillery systems of Shuvalov and Gribeauval, the rifles of Isaac de la Chaumette and Patrick Ferguson, to name but a few. However, with the possible exception of the pontoon bridges, none of these technological inventions fundamentally changed the shape of warfare.

In the Seven Years War, Frederick II was faced by enemies with vastly superior artillery systems. The British, not the Americans, experimented with breechloading rifles under Ferguson. Indeed, technological experimentation does not always lead to decisive results. In the 1749, John Muller wrote to the Duke of Cumberland, arguing that

"The French, who are continually aiming at improvements [in their small arms] have succeeded no better than others; One should be surprised to find in their last establishments several things changed which were better before, and Mr. Belidor who takes great pains in making experiments has been very much mistaken in his account of the Chambers in Mortars[.]"[1]

Napoleonic Prussian Generals made much the same observation, after seeing the results of tests which showed that the older Frederician musket was more accurate than their modern replacement.

Though Frederick II was in many ways technologically inferior to his opponents, his willingness to adapt and learn from them proved one of his strengths, as the result of the Battle of Burkersdorf shows. Technology is not always the silver bullet, especially in an era of limited warfare. As the development of light troops shows us during this era, innovation was often more important than invention.

Frederick II, later 18th century, by J.H.C. Franke

3. In both the case of Frederick II and George Washington, greater material and manpower did not necessarily equate victory. 

Both the allies arrayed against Frederick II in the Seven Years War, and the British forces confronting George Washington the early American War of Independence put many more soldiers into the field, and had greater supporting and logistical forces at their disposal. This did not prevent both Frederick and Washington from achieving their political goals in the final outcome of the conflict (though Frederick's success is much more qualified than Washington's.) Both generals marched quickly, unexpectedly took the offensive and initiative from their opponents, knew when to dig in, and when to retreat, and learned from their many mistakes.

This is not a lesson that the American Civil War, or the First and Second World Wars teach particularly well. In these wars, powers with more resources had time to learn from their mistakes and eventually crush their opposition. Obviously, none of this was achieved superior resources alone. Russian operational maneuvering on the Eastern Front was quite good, particularly in the later stages of the Second World War, while the victories achieve by the Union army in the middle-western theater of the American Civil War were fairly consistent throughout the conflict.

Superior resources mattered in the eighteenth century as well, of course, but the successes of George Washington and other American leaders brought powerful allies (the French, Spanish, and Dutch), into the war, not the other way around. Likewise, successes which Frederick II achieved early in the Seven Years War allowed him breathing space to continue the fight as long as he did, until eventually, as a result of chance, the enemy alliance collapsed.

4. Studying an era where the "rules of engagement" were limited compared to the 20th Century encourages thought about the nature of warfare. 

We live in an age where compared with the mid-twentieth century, violence against civilians by regular forces is frowned upon, and at least officially discouraged. Civilians still suffer in war today, obviously, as they did in the eighteenth century, but compared with the mass blood letting of World Wars 1 and 2, and even Vietnam, modern standing armies attempt to cause less civilian casualties, or at the very least, claim that they attempt to cause less casualties. In that way, the eighteenth century may offer a window into our own time.

This point always causes controversy when brought up in the classroom, as many students prefer the thinking of William Tecumseh Sherman ("You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it") and Bomber Harris to the more seemingly more gentle nature of eighteenth-century war. Indeed, compare Sherman's statement above to Austrian Marshall Daun's: "The purpose of war is to push back the unrighteous enemy, not to exterminate the human race."

Frederick II of Prussia, a truly prickly and acidic man at times, delighted in the ransacking of Saxon noblemen's homes during the Seven Years War. Wars with British could turn particularly ugly when rebellion was involved, whether that rebellion was in Scotland in 1745 or in North America in 1775. However, none of the atrocities of the eighteenth century approach the sustained scale and magnitude of the Thirty Years War or the Napoleonic Wars, to say nothing of the industrialized death of the twentieth century.

 In recent years, as a result of the excellent work of historians such as John Childs, John Lynn, Erica Charters, Hannah Smith, Eva Rosenhaft, and others, there has been a vigorous debate about the exact nature of this "limitation" (if it can even be called that), but I would argue that the numbers tell a clear story. Fewer civilians died from conflict related causes during the 150 odd years of the Kabinettskriege era than died in the 50 odd years of the Thirty Years War and Napoleonic Wars. I don't think that we necessarily have a specific answer as to why that was the case. 

Reenactors portray British Forces in the American War of Independence

5. Studying the Eighteenth-Century Warfare is relevant, because, in a popular sense, it is still very badly understood. 

The misinformation abounds. You see false ideas everywhere regarding this era of history. People believe that uniforms were dangerous and impractical, that soldiers were only the dregs of society, that they were incredibly short, that soldiers did not aim, that firefights only occurred at 50 yards or less, that hand-to-hand combat was frequent,  that soldiers were unable to take cover, or fight independently outside linear formations. 

 6. In many ways, the conflicts of the Kabinettskriege era decisively shaped the course of modern history, the history of the era in which we live. 

It is impossible to understand the course of nineteenth and twentieth-century European History without understanding the wars of the eighteenth century. The Kabinettskriege era saw the beginning of so many stories which continued into our own time, or at the very least, continued into the twentieth century. It is impossible to understand the power of Napoleon's Empire without the stories of Vauban and Louis XVI, and the foreign policy disasters which caused the French Revolution.  It is impossible to understand the creation of the nineteenth-century nations of Germany and Italy without the success which Prussia and Savoy enjoyed in the eighteenth century. It is impossible to understand the rise of the British Empire as a global phenomenon without understanding the Seven Years War. It is impossible to understand the modern United States as a global power without the American War of Independence, and equally impossible to understand the story of the Soviet Union and Russian Federation without the reforms of Peter the Great, to say nothing of the generalship of Suvorov. It is impossible to understand the tragic history of Poland and the Polish people in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries without understanding the partitions of the late-eighteenth century. All of these are only reasons related to military history, to say nothing of the enlightenment and industrial revolution.

To some extent, this is true of every era. It is impossible to fully understand the eighteenth century without understanding the seventeenth century, etc. But, I must say, I am prejudiced and conceited enough towards my own field of study to argue that the eighteenth century deserves more of a share of attention than it currently enjoys in the public consciousness as we move into the third decade of the 21st century.

If you enjoyed this post, or any of our other posts, please consider liking us on facebook,  or following us on twitter. Finally, we are dedicated to keeping Kabinettskriege ad-free. In order to assist with this, please consider supporting us via the donate button in the upper right-hand corner of the page. As always:

Thanks for Reading,

Alex Burns

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Letter from John Muller at Woolrich to His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland, June 28th 1749.