Impact of Political and Industrial Revolutions 217had been of long standing in every European army, since the
technicalities of gunnery were complex enough to require it.^60 But to
make schooling general for all officers, and to require examinations to
test what had been learned before certifying that the individual in
question was qualified for appointment or promotion, was a new
idea.^61 The French army had briefly experimented with a similar reg
ulation in 1790, but in the heat of revolutionary enthusiasm a system
that reserved officer rank for educated men smacked too much of class
privilege. Accordingly, educational requirements validated by written
examinations were abolished in 1791 and promotion to officer rank
was made to depend on seniority and selection.^62 Napoleon continued
this policy, so that the French officer corps became a group of hard
bitten veterans, among whom a disdain for book learning and ideas of
any sort prevailed. Anti-intellectualism in the Russian, British, and
Austrian armies was almost as intense, for in those armies ideas and
ideologies tended to be identified with the revolutionary French.
Amongst the Prussian officer corps, anti-intellectualism did not
vanish simply because new regulations required officers to go to
school and pass examinations. Indeed after 1819 the principle of the
1808 ordinance was modified and often betrayed by giving special
privileges to noble candidates for commissions. But a residue of the
reformers’ ideals persisted, and from 1808 onwards some Prussian
officers owed their position to their intellectual attainments. Such
persons encouraged one another to apply their minds to professional
questions as new problems and possibilities arose, much in the style
and spirit of General Gribeauval.
The creation of the Great General Staff between 1803 and 1809
provided an organizational stronghold within the Prussian army for
intellectually vigorous officers. Appointment came only after a man
had distinguished himself in the advanced school for officers seeking
to qualify for higher commands. The General Staff was responsible for
planning possible future campaigns in peacetime—a radical and dubi
ously moral step when first proposed. For that purpose it was neces-
- Scharnhorst’s ideas reflected the fact that he was both a gunner and a commoner
born. - Civil officials in Prussia had, since the seventeenth century, been recruited from
the universities of Germany, and from 1770 had to validate their studies by passing an
examination. Hence the 1808 ordinance concerning Prussian officer recruitment simply
assimilated army management to that of the civilian state. - Samuel F. Scott, The Response of the Royal Army to the French Revolution, 1787–
1793 (Oxford, 1978), pp. 153, loi. Examinations continued for the artillery and en
gineers as in the days of the Old Regime.