Constitutional limit on size of German army at 1 % of population ?

[RodB]

I read in David G Herrmann's "The Arming of Europe and the Making of the First World War" that Germany at the time of the second Moroccan crisis (1911) had a constitutional limit on the peacetime size of the army at 1 % of the population - I estimate this would have been about 600,000 men. This would explain why they did not conscript all elligible men, and I assume this implied that only the best prospects would be selected, resulting in a rather elite conscript army.

Does anybody know how & why this came about (I assume it was for budgetary purposes), and whether it was changed as 1914 approached ?

[Jack Sheldon]

Rod

I'll have an initial attempt at this. Come back to me if you want, or maybe someone else can have a go at it. First of all I have to say I have not read Hermann's book. He has probably derived his 1% from the constitutional provision which stated' The peacetime strength of the German army will be 1% of the population figure for 1867 until 31 December 1871 and will be filled pro rata by the different federal states. Thereafter the peacetime strength will be as determined by the imperial law-making body'. My MA thesis was about conscription in Germany, so I had to take a look at its history. Throughout the period since unification and very definitely by the immediate pre-Great war period, the primary concern as far as I can see, was to ensure that the army produced by conscription was absoutely loyal to the crown and was not contaminated in any way by the forces of social democracy; that is to say that it could be relied on politically as well as relied on to counter external threats or support the extraterritorial ambitions of Germany, which was wrestling with the question about whether it would end up as 'hammer or anvil'.

The solution was to engineer an army that was officered by the nobility, drew its NCOs from the petit bourgeoisie of the countryside and its soldiers principally from the ranks of agricultural labourers and peasantry. This was not easy. The percentage of nobility amongst the ranks of the officers in 1885 was 44.1%, dropping in 1913 to 30%, but to counter this perceived dilution, the army was careful to recruit only the most conservative elements of the emerging middle class. The process had begun effectively in 1890, when in a proclamation of 29 March, it was decreed that the decisive factor in officer recruiting in future was no longer to be of the Adel der Geburt [nobility by birth], but to be numbered amongst the Adel der Besinnung [Noble-minded]. That said, of the the generals who held command in 1914, a solid 60% were nobles. As far as recruits were concerned, as late as 1911, 64.1% were drawn from rural areas, whose total population was only 42% of the whole. 22.3% came from small towns, 7% from large towns and only 6% from cities. Social engineering on a large scale - and borne out anecdotally. I do not know if you have been following the question of German memorial cards on the Forum, but if so you will know that practically all of them are described as ' son of a farmer'. So much for any constitutional pro rata levy on the states.

The other main aim was to build up the largest affordable army possible. Measures to promote this included the shift under the law of 3 August 1893 to move to a two year period of conscription. The army fought this and succeeded in retaining a three year period for artillery and cavalry, but the argument that carried the day was the fact that it greatly increased the numbers of reserves available for mobilisation, without causing the size of the peacetime standing army to rise beyond that which was considered to be affordable. As the war draw closer the army tended to increase in size. I have a book of 1913 called 'Das deutsche Heer' by Max von Schreibershofen (and a right rivetting read it is) and a pamphlet of the same year entitled 'Das Landheer'. (another rivetting read). Both chart an increase in overall peacetime strength. The figures which emerge are 401, 659 from 1871 - 1881 [includes odds and sods like one-year volunteers who went on to become reserve officers] and, most important, includes all the NCOs. The 1912 - 1916 period visualised 544,210 soldiers and 94,935 NCOs, but there was a further planned hike under the 1913 legislation to 661,478 by 1916, with 110,000 NCOs.

Now of course there had been a population increase during this period, but it would not have covered that plan at under 1%. The census figures for 1 December 1900 were 56.36 million, so the army at 495,500 + 81, 958 NCOs was in fact under the 1% figure, but by 1909, even allowing for a further increase, it had risen to 1.02% of the population and was due to increase further. The Tirpitz plan was soaking up vast amounts of money from the turn of the century and had building continued through to 1917 was set almost to treble between 1912 and 1917 (pay +capital expenditure), but the army still accounted for three times as much spending in 1913. My feeling, especially because The Kaiser determined the number of units to be available on mobilisation, regardless of any constitutional provision regarding manpower, was that the army of 1914 was the biggest politically reliable force that Germany could afford.

Jack

[RodB]

Thanks Jack for the detailed reply. I can barely imagine the shock when the casualty lists started coming back to the small rural towns and villages. By the end of the war I can only assume that most of their young men were dead, and the survivors were left from all those conscripted from the cities as the war had dragged - would this be an accurate assumption ?

It would not seem a coincidence that most of Hitler's votes came from precisely that same rural constituency - the families of the dead and wounded and those young rural men conscripted later in the war who managed to survive.

It's background studies like this that make history comprehensible.

[Guest Simon Bull]

Jack

I thought that this was one of the most interesting replies I have read on the Forum nd I would just like to thank you for it.

Could I ask whether this attempt to control the social and political composition of the army continued after the War had begun, and particularly in the last year or so, when I understand the Germans to have been short of solders and one certainly sees photographs of boys who have been captured by the Allies?

[Guest Simon Bull]

It would not seem a coincidence that most of Hitler's votes came from precisely that same rural constituency - the families of the dead and wounded and those young rural men conscripted later in the war who managed to survive.

It's background studies like this that make history comprehensible.

Rod - has research actually shown that Hitler drew his votes from this section of the community? I am not necessarily doubting it as it would seem logical, this section being, apparently, most affected by the War, and, arguably, more likely to be deeply conservative.

[RodB]

Rod - has research actually shown that Hitler drew his votes from this section of the community? I am not necessarily doubting it as it would seem logical, this section being, apparently, most affected by the War, and, arguably, more likely to be deeply conservative.

In my opinion yes. Martin Broszat. “The Hitler State”. London : Longman, 1981 - has some interesting voter demograpic tables showing that votes came from small towns and the country, predominantly in the North and Northeast Protestant areas : farmers and non-unionised rural workers, civil servants, self-employed. The large cities did not vote for the NSDAP, perhaps reflecting their large organized workforces.

It's a difficult question - did the disproportionate losses of WWI embitter these voters and leave them wanting revenge, or did the NSDAP with its autarkic ideas of agricultural self-sufficiency just happen to fit their aspirations for prosperity ? The very few voter interviews I've read seem to support the latter, but then people don't talk publicly about things like the former.

[Jack Sheldon]

Rod and Simon

I should like to think about this question of continuing social engineering during the war a bit more, so will post again tomorrow.

Jack

[Jack Sheldon]

Just as the Tirpitz Plan was straight challenge to the UK on the naval front, it is equally clear that one of the main drivers in the build up of the army was to compete in particular with the French, who called up a far higher percentage of each year group than Germany and also mobilsed a far higher proportion of the population in 1914 (9.56% France, 5.82% Germany - admittedly from a larger population base). Despite the increases which I mentioned in the earlier post, there were those who made the point after the war (and not just German writers) that Germany could have done more to begin the war with a much larger army if it had been as committed militarily as France was. Yes, more could probably have been afforded, but not without compromising the principle of political reliability which I discussed earlier. There was also the argument that if Germany exhausted more of its recruiting potential, its enemies would be spurred to even greater efforts.

It is pretty clear that the policy of excluding men from large connurbations must have broken down quickly during the war. Proof of the latent capacity of Germany to mobilise further was the fact that an additional 5 million men were called up between 1914 and 1918. This is hugely more than the French could achieve, but although I cannot prove it, it seems highly probable that the bulk must have come from the urban areas of Germany, especially because the increasingly technical nature of warfare and weaponry urgently demanded the use of conscripts with the requisite skills. This forced the army to balance the previous need for the unquestioning blind obedience required of men whose job was to advance in mobile operations and crush the opposition, with the need to integrate more questioning, intelligent and thinking men required for these other purposes: not to mention the fact that enormous losses had to be compensated for somehow.

Inevitably, although practically all of the new conscripts carried out their duties faithfully, believing in the cause for which they had been called up, agitators and 'bad hats' began to appear as time went by. Social democrats got involved, anarcho-syndicalists had some effect; but as far as I can see, the modern view is that the absorption of masses of recruits from areas of society which had previously been untouched, the dilution of the officers corps (though resisted by the introduction of the system of Offizerstellvertreter and the invention of the rank of Feldwebelleutnant), was achieved far more smoothly than the Imperial court and upper echelons of the military had feared. The proof of this is probably the way that individual units and formations continued to fight ferociously, even after things began to fall apart in the 'Hundred Days'. Just look at the casualties these defenders managed to inflict as they pulled back.

None of this is to say that the generals did not regret the disappearance through death or wounds of the men of the old army based on the countryside, who had served Germany so well during the first two years of the war. One example of this, which I quoted in my Somme book, comes from Generalleutnant von Moser, who wrote what is effectively the official history of the army of Wuerttemberg. Regarding the losses of the Somme, he stated, 'The huge gaps which had been torn in the ranks could only be filled out by returning wounded, nineteen year olds who were too young or, by combing out from civilian occupations back home, men who to a large extent, due to their physical condition or mental attitude, could not be regarded as fully effective troops.' To him 'Fully effective troops' were obviously big, strong, clean-limbed farmers' sons who did what they were told and did it with willing enthusiasm.

Jack

[Guest Simon Bull]

Jack thanks for your very thoughtful and compete reply. I can honestly say that this is one of the most interesting threads I have seen on the Forum.

Given the near political collapse of Germany at the end of the War, it is interesting that the army did absorb urban men (many of whom presumably had the revolutionary inclinations and beliefs that their brethren were displaying on the streets of the big cities) without any collapse in discipline and/or significant mutinies of the kind that occurred in Russia. All the more so given that (as I understand it although you may know otherwise) discipline in the German army was not particularly savage.

[AndyHollinger]

Great replies ...

My historical work on Pre-hitler germany showed that once it came down to Hitler and the Communists ... it was the petit-bourgiose in the cities that tipped the scale - German Seizure of power by author I forget ... but that was written in the 1970s ... so it might be dated.

But these replies also allow me to understand much more about the ability of the Freicorps to be so staunchly right-wing even after the bolshevisation (sp) of the Army in 1918 ... ie a rest at home, disgust with the cities ... and almost over-night they're reactionary again ...

[andigger]

David Herrmann (or Prof Herrmann as I knew him) was the one who got me interested in the Great War. His passion for the events, people and technology was very contageous. I only regret that I have lost touch with him since my days at Tulane.

Andy

[RodB]

Many thanks Jack for your detailed responses. Sounds like Herrmann is incorrect is his assertion that the German army expansion breached the constitution.

Does this support my suspicion that the role of armed forces is first and foremost to keep the elite in power and to protect their interests ? This can be by waging war either against "foreign threats" or internal dissidents. All you need is a compliant pool of manpower.

The Junkers needed to keep the liberals out and protect their East Prussian estates.

The British liberals needed to protect their global trade hegemony, in the face of the realization that they couldn't compete on a level playing field.

The Romanovs and their hangers-on needed to justify their continued existence. No more Romanovs, no more war.

Likewise the Viennese elites.

The French ? I can't see what was in it for French elites.

[truthergw]

Many thanks Jack for your detailed responses.

...........................

The French ? I can't see what was in it for French elites.

Perhaps the armed forces were there to help the establishment, in any country, to preserve the status quo.

[Guest Simon Bull]

Many thanks Jack for your detailed responses. Sounds like Herrmann is incorrect is his assertion that the German army expansion breached the constitution.

Does this support my suspicion that the role of armed forces is first and foremost to keep the elite in power and to protect their interests ? This can be by waging war either against "foreign threats" or internal dissidents. All you need is a compliant pool of manpower.

The Junkers needed to keep the liberals out and protect their East Prussian estates.

The British liberals needed to protect their global trade hegemony, in the face of the realization that they couldn't compete on a level playing field.

The Romanovs and their hangers-on needed to justify their continued existence. No more Romanovs, no more war.

Likewise the Viennese elites.

The French ? I can't see what was in it for French elites.

Sounds a plausible theory, particularly in the early C20!

[joerookery]

My MA thesis was about conscription in Germany,

Jack, I did not know that! Perhaps someday you will let me read it! I'm sorry, I am late to this party no real excuse except for golf. Great topic. I have been doing something similar for a while, of course leading up to helmets, where I track this social engineering issue and try to break down the disconnect between the military cabinet, The War Minister, and the Chief of the Great General Staff.

This is the crux of the issue. The War Minister drafted the legislation and submitted the budget to the Reichstag that funded the size of the army. The Chief of Staff determined what the requirement for the size of the army was. The Military Cabinet determined what key officers would be in position to make it all happen. This agreement and competition amongst these three groups, especially the War Minister and Chief of Staff, would lead to a disconnecting of requirements and resources.

I'm currently sorting the officer issue and what I'm discovering is really quite interesting. I hope this thread continues, and I'm sorry I'm late to it.

[Bruce Dennis]

...Throughout the period since unification and very definitely by the immediate pre-Great war period, the primary concern as far as I can see, was to ensure that the army produced by conscription was absoutely loyal to the crown and was not contaminated in any way by the forces of social democracy; that is to say that it could be relied on politically as well as relied on to counter external threats or support the extraterritorial ambitions of Germany, which was wrestling with the question about whether it would end up as 'hammer or anvil'.

The solution was to engineer an army that was officered by the nobility, drew its NCOs from the petit bourgeoisie of the countryside and its soldiers principally from the ranks of agricultural labourers and peasantry.

...the army of 1914 was the biggest politically reliable force that Germany could afford.

Jack

I would like to say that I agree about this being an exceptional and interesting thread.

The above passages address the Army: my understanding is, however, that the Navy (and marines) differed in their approach and consequently got officer recruits from middle-class backgrounds. Is this borne out by quotable sources? Although I have seen the 1% figures for the army, I have not yet seen any figures for quotas for the navy.

Regards,

Bruce

[Hoplophile]

While there is considerable evidence that German officers preferred to draw recruits from rural areas, fear of Social Democracy was far from the only motivation. As a rule, rural recruits tended to be much healthier than their urban counterparts. (This was due to a number of factors - better food, fresh air, exercise, better sanitation, less frequent exposure to pathogens.) Rural recruits also tended to come from larger families. This reduced the chances that a recruit would be exempted from service because of his role as the sole support of an aged parent or sickly sibling.) Finally, rural recruits often had skills that the army valued. (The cavalry, field artillery, mobile heavy artillery, and train all wanted young men who were familiar with horses. The Jaeger battalions wanted the sons of game keepers. The pioneers wanted men who were familiar with either woodworking or the handling of small craft on inland waters, with chaps who built wooden river barges being, I suppose, in particular demand. )

Yet another factor in rural over-representation was the desire to increase the number of units located areas on the French and Russian frontiers - in relatively rural places like Alsace and Lorraine and very rural places like East Prussia. To do this, the German Army created new army corps districts in those areas. This, in turn, greatly increased the odds that a given inhabitant of those places would be called upon to serve with the colours. That is to say, when the German Empire was formed, the provinces of East and West Prussia were divided into two corps districts. In 1890, a third corps district was carved out of these territories. Thus, at a time when these provinces represented a shrinking percentage of the German population (and, at times, were sufferring a net loss of population), they were called upon to form a larger percentage of the German Army.

As an aside, duty with these new 'frontier' regiments tended to be very unpopular with officers. Because of this, these units often had trouble recruiting a sufficient number of junior officers. (Prior to 1914, the recruitment of junior officers was a regimental function. That is to say, qualified young men applied to a particular regiment rather than to the army as a whole. This led to a situation where popular regiments could pick and choose their young officers while unpopular ones had many vacancies.)

Well, back to my reading of Bevoelkerungs-Geschichte und Historische Demographie, 1800-2000!

[joerookery]

As an aside, duty with these new 'frontier' regiments tended to be very unpopular with officers. Because of this, these units often had trouble recruiting a sufficient number of junior officers. (Prior to 1914, the recruitment of junior officers was a regimental function. That is to say, qualified young men applied to a particular regiment rather than to the army as a whole. This led to a situation where popular regiments could pick and choose their young officers while unpopular ones had many vacancies.)

Here is another paragraph that I worked on, which expands a bit on your statement.

While this chart indicates that over 60% of the officers were aristocrats in 1861. By 1913, that number had changed to 30%. Industrialization had made the draw of industry and trade with financial rewards to be a larger draw and challenge for the aristocracy. One of the great military theoreticians of the time, Von der Goltz, argued repeatedly th the at the aristocratic background was required as aristocrats were in the habit of commanding others. It was also thought that less nobility would lead to a breakdown in military discipline and the blurring of the line between enlisted and officer ranks. The underlying apology was that only aristocrats would have the tie to the Kaiser and only they could be relied upon.

The chart above gives you a feel that cavalry and infantry guards were highly favored by the aristocracy. So were regiments that were located in major urban areas. In 1913, 61% of the regiments in the Prussian army were more than 50% noble and 16 regiments were specifically, entirely and exclusively aristocratic [Third Regiment of foot had 67 aristocrats and zero non-nobles.]. The 31st infantry in Altona had 47 nobles and six non-nobles the 92nd infantry in Brunswick had a split of 44/10. By comparison, the 45th infantry in the in east of the Elba had 2 aristocrats and 50 non-nobles. Most cavalry regiments were entirely noble. However, the first Dragoon Regiment, in Tilsit, had a split of 3/24. Field artillery regiments in large cities like the sixth Regiment in Breslau had a split of 29/6 whereas the first regiments in the East had a split of 3/40. Foot artillery was almost entirely non-noble even to include the guards [Foot Guard Artillery split was 10/37] Pioneers were also considered technical and pioneer battalions in large cities routinely had zero nobles . The mindset of the nobility regarding these branches was relatively historic in nature. One historian of Renaissance Italy had referred to the artillery as "this pestilential armament." Historically, the pioneers were not even soldiers at all. They had been civilians who were hired to dig and construct the siege works. Regiments which relocated their Garrisons would lose their nobles such as the 15th Uhlan when relocated to a frontier garrison went from a split of 25/3 to a split of 7/17. The general staff was 60% noble in 1906 and had grown to 80% by 1909.

[Zipperheads9]

Jack Great info .The undesirable sects and loyal soldier theory can be shown in 1915 the 12 reserve division Silisia was broken up to break up the "Heavy Polish elments".

Mark

[duckman]

Yet another factor in rural over-representation was the desire to increase the number of units located areas on the French and Russian frontiers - in relatively rural places like Alsace and Lorraine and very rural places like East Prussia. To do this, the German Army created new army corps districts in those areas. This, in turn, greatly increased the odds that a given inhabitant of those places would be called upon to serve with the colours. That is to say, when the German Empire was formed, the provinces of East and West Prussia were divided into two corps districts. In 1890, a third corps district was carved out of these territories. Thus, at a time when these provinces represented a shrinking percentage of the German population (and, at times, were sufferring a net loss of population), they were called upon to form a larger percentage of the German Army.

I'm not certain about the pre-war/early war impact, but "The History of the 251 Divisions" has some interesting remarks on this aspect. By late in the war, two trends are clear:

1. Units nominally belonging to the newly created districts in Alsace-Lorraine and W.Prussia/Posen were heavily recruited from areas with a surplus of men - "Alsatian" units contained a high proportion from VII and VIII Corps districts (Westfalen and Rheinland) and in the East, a heavy leavening of III and VI Corps men (Brandenburg and Silesia). The organisation of Corps districts did not align with population distribution, and 3 Corps areas in A-L cover a smaller area that III District, based on Berlin, which would ahve had a substantially higher population. That was partly related to preferred recruits, but also to their mobilisation plans. In that context it is worth noting that a relatively higher proportion of recruits from those areas (III< VI, VII, VIII) would have come from big cities (the Ruhr area and Berlin esp).

On the subject of their fitness, generally I completely agree, except in regard to exposure to pathogens. The fact that city-slickers would have been exposed to these would have given them resistance when a typically urban disease broke out (as it inevitably would when you throw thousands of people together). The farm boys would have had suffered more, I expect, even with better overall health.

2. Alsace, Lorraine and Posen furnished men to units outside their Corps areas, and the units held against those regions were the least homogenous in the army. ie rather than concentrating them in local units, they were spread throughout the army. Many of the Eastern Front units supplying men to the West for Kaiserschlacht were then "restocked" with A-L and/or Posen recruits. The consistent assessment of the intel chaps compiling the "251 Divs" was that this had a negative effect on the divisions' combatworthiness.

The above is based on the appraisals and recruitment details from 1917-18, and I am unsure if they are relevant to an earlier period. Also, these are just my conclusions based on their opinions. I have no means of assessing the accuracy of those opinions.

[joerookery]

Some Rural data about the Reichstag.

The representation in the Reichstag changed over time. The number of seats and their assignment with the exception of Alsace-Lorraine did not. Originally representatives were selected on the basis of one representative to 100,000 members of population. If you had 50,000 or more you rounded up to another representative. As the population moved into cities and other urban areas, one district in Berlin had 219, 000, another 339,000, and a third 163,000. Yet some rural districts had only 13,000 or 15,000 qualified voters. The number of representatives was not adjusted. This was a major cause of friction between the government and conservative forces who believe that the Reichstag should represent the different classes and the liberal Social Democrats who believe it should be done using an arithmetical exactness. By 1912, the Conservative Party had 74 deputies supporting 1,933,000 voters. By contrast, the Socialists had 110 representatives supported by 4,250,000 voters. Of the 397 districts, 243 were rural with the majority of the population living in communities of less than 2000 inhabitants. The social Democrats controlled only 24 of those districts. Of the 154 urban districts the conservative groups controlled only five. While the North German Federation had a majority of noble members, there were only 57 noble Reichstag members in 1912. 80 deputies had reserve commissions. 189 members had served in the army.