The Officer Corps – 2
Prussia was the most obdurate of the contingents, but understood that the need to fill officer vacancies was of paramount concern. The other contingents more readily accepted officers from the middle class. In Saxony after 1866, for instance, some members of the Guelph aristocracy from the former Kingdom of Hannover joined Saxon service. This policy led to a concentration of aristocracy within certain Saxon regiments. [Infantry Regiments 100, 101, 108, Jäger Battalions 12 and 13, and some cavalry regiments.] A bad joke was often told that it was never clear if any given toast to His Majesty the King went to the King of Saxony or the King of Hannover. By 1890, Saxony had only 19 percent nobility in its officer corps. Württemberg had only 25 percent nobles after unification. Bavaria, the most liberal-minded state, had only 15 percent nobles in its officer corps. In that army only the Abitur was a prerequisite for a regular Army commission as of 1890.
Although the change was a necessity, the Prussian nobility simply would not integrate with the middle class, so élite regiments were formed. Initially, all nobles went to cavalry regiments, but not all could afford the extra expense of maintaining a horse, so Foot Guard Regiments were formed. Unlike the élite Foot Guard Regiments, middle class soldiers were found in Pioneer and Foot Artillery Regiments. As more and more middle class officers with better skills and test scores entered the ranks, instructors were given greater leeway to give extra credit to candidates with a good attitude (noble upbringing). A non-passing score could be rescued by deportment. Likewise, if a proletarian had managed to enroll in an officer’s course, a superb score could be made into a fail by his “attitude.” However, even this reluctant willingness to accept middle class officers did not fix the shortages. Eight percent of the infantry officer requirements were unfilled in 1889. Fifty-six infantry regiments received no applications for commission in 1902.
By 1913, 70 percent of the Prussian officers came from middle-class families, but regimental exclusiveness did not end. In 1913, 80 percent of cavalry officers, 48 percent of infantry officers, and 41 percent of field artillery officers were from noble families. A few middle class individuals known as “Concession Joes” (Konzessionschulzes) made it into the Guard regiments but were not very welcome. There was a lack of prestige in technical schools, despite the fact that these schools made greater demands on their students. By 1913, 48 percent of the generals were middle class. When promoted to the position of commanding general of an army corps, bourgeois generals became nobility “automatically.”
The aristocracy also favored regiments that were located in major urban areas. In 1913, 61 percent of the regiments in the Prussian Army were more than 50 percent noble and 16 regiments were exclusively aristocratic. The 3. Garde- Regiment zu Fuß had 67 aristocrats and no non-nobles. Infanterie-Regiment Graf Bose (1. Thüringisches) Nr. 31 in Altona had 47 nobles and six non-nobles; Braunschweigisches Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 92 in Brunswick had a split of 44 nobles and 10 from the middle class. By comparison, 8. Ostpreußisches Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 45 east of the Elbe had two aristocrats and 50 non-nobles. Most cavalry regiments were entirely noble; however, Dragoner-Regiment Prinz Albrecht von Preußen (Litthauisches) Nr. 1 in Tilsit had a split of three nobles and 24 non-nobles. Field artillery regiments in large cities, such as Feldartillerie-Regiment von Peucker (1. Schlesisches) Nr. 6 in Breslau had a split of 29 nobles and six middle class; whereas, Feld Artillerie-Regiment Prinz August von Preußen (1. Litthauisches) Nr. 1 in Gumbinnen and Insterburg had a split of three nobles and 40 non-nobles. Foot artillery was almost entirely non-noble including the Guards Foot Artillery whose split was 10 noble and 37 non-nobles. Pioneers were also considered technical, and pioneer battalions in large cities routinely had no nobles. Regiments that relocated their garrisons would often lose their nobles, such as Schleswig-Holsteinisches Ulanen-Regiment Nr. 15 when it relocated to a frontier garrison; it went from a split of 25 nobles and three non-nobles to seven nobles and 17 non-nobles. The General Staff was usually not noble and valued professional efficiency above all. Eighty-three percent of the officers were Protestant as opposed to 62 percent of the population.
Service with the I (Eastern Prussia) and XVI (Metz) Army Corps was particularly undesirable. Their regiments were located in less attractive garrisons close to the Russian and French borders, and that resulted in more drills, alarms, and exercises. Additionally, for many years, both army corps had very demanding commanding generals leading to a well-known rhyme among army officers: “Gott bewahr mich vor der Grenze – vor Gottlieb Haeseler und August Lentze!” (May God protect me from serving at the border – with Gottlieb v. Haeseler and August v. Lentze).
