In the Service of Kaiser and King: State Sovereignty, Nation-Building, and the German Army, 1866-1918 By Gavin Wiens A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History University of Toronto © Copyright by Gavin Wiens, 2019 In the Service of Kaiser and King: State Sovereignty, Nation-Building, and the German Army, 1866-1918 Gavin Wiens Doctor of Philosophy Department of History University of Toronto 2019 Abstract From its creation during the Wars of Unification (1864-71) until its defeat at the end of the First World War, the German army remained a federal institution. To be sure, the imperial constitution recognized the Kaiser as commander-in-chief of Germany’s land forces. Under the Kaiser’s direction, the Prussian war ministry prepared the military budget and the Prussian General Staff drafted operational plans for future wars. A patchwork of military agreements nevertheless limited the authority of the Kaiser and Prussia’s military leaders over nearly one- quarter of the German army. According to these agreements, separate war ministries, cadet schools, and general staffs oversaw the arming, clothing, feeding, housing, and training of Bavarians, Saxons, and Württembergers, while the monarchs of Germany’s three smaller kingdoms determined personnel appointments, the deployment of units, and even the design of insignia and uniforms. The army’s contingent-based structure ensured that Prussians and non-Prussians served alongside, but only rarely with, one another after 1871. Based on research in archives and libraries in Germany, Austria, England, and the United States, this dissertation explores the means by which the smaller armies of Bavaria, ii Saxony, and Württemberg were integrated into Prussia’s much larger military structure after 1871 and seeks to understand why the German army, burdened by numerous loyalties and overlapping spheres of control, did not simply fall apart during the First World War. It argues that even though the decentralization of military authority and the presence of dual loyalties among Bavarian, Saxon, and Württemberg soldiers remained serious concerns for Prussian authorities, the German army proved remarkably durable because the empire’s monarchs and their advisors preferred compromise, rather than conflict, with one another. This dissertation contributes to ongoing historiographical debates concerning the process of nation-building and the consolidation of state power across Europe since the French Revolution; the evolution of the relationship between monarchs and their militaries in a period characterized by public opinion shaped by parliamentary debates and a mass press; and the ability of multiethnic and multinational empires to mobilize their diverse societies for war at the turn of the twentieth century and on the eve of two global conflicts. iii Acknowledgements I have accumulated numerous debts of gratitude over the past seven years. Professor James Retallack encouraged me to think about the broader political and social context in which the German army existed between 1871 and 1918 and, as a consequence, was instrumental in shifting this dissertation’s focus from the procurement of weapons and equipment and the payment of army salaries in Bavaria, Saxony, and Württemberg into something much more. No less important were his composure when correcting errors in early drafts of chapters and his diligence in pointing out inconsistencies in the project’s closing stages. This dissertation owes much to Professor Retallack’s unflagging dedication to his graduate students. I am equally grateful to Professor Doris Bergen. From this project’s earliest days, she provided continuous support, while never hesitating to ask the tough questions about its focus and direction. Chapter Four is the product of her encouragement to consider loyalties beyond the three state-based contingents. More generally, Professor Bergen’s enthusiasm for teaching has provided me with a model that I hope to emulate in my own career. Although he could not see this project through to its conclusion, Professor Denis Smyth is responsible for this dissertation boasting an appropriate end point. His warnings that military history should not be written “with the war left out” may have forced me to return to the archives in 2015, but they also led me to ask the question: how could such a cumbersome fighting force survive four years of death and suffering? I am likewise indebted to Professor Jennifer Jenkins and Professor Piotr Wróbel for agreeing to read this dissertation’s final draft, and to Professor Frank Lorenz Müller for flying across the Atlantic after doing so. iv Completing this dissertation would not have been possible without the support of the Ontario Graduate Scholarship program and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Whereas this support enabled me to focus on writing in Toronto, generous funding from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies, the University of Toronto’s Department of History and School of Graduate Studies, and the Central European History Society allowed me to spend the better part of two years in archives and libraries in Germany, Austria, England, and the United States. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I owe a debt of gratitude to my parents, John and Alexandra, and to my partner, Tracy. The former put up with their son’s long journey through the Canadian post-secondary education system, from Waterloo to Calgary to Toronto. The latter endured countless off-the-cuff lectures on a range of topics in German history and patiently taught me the skills necessary to produce the maps on the following pages. Much more impressively, Tracy never complained when I opted for an afternoon in the reading room of the Bavarian war archive over a picnic in Munich’s Englischer Garten. v Table of contents Introduction 1 1 – Coming together The Wars of Unification and the creation of the German army 31 2 – The limits of integration Prussia and the South German contingents 85 3 – Risk and reward Warrior princes in the German army 148 4 – Divided contingents Religion and small-state loyalties in the German army 204 5 – Celebrating Kaiser and king Festive culture in the German army 256 6 – Enduring the trenches The German army in the First World War 298 Conclusion 350 Bibliography 361 Appendices 387 vi List of tables 1 – The Prusso-German armies, August 1870 69 2 – The contingents of the German army, 1875 105 3 – Commanding generals of the XIII Army Corps, 1871-1895 126 4 – Warrior princes in German army, 1871-1914 158 5 – Commanding generals of the XIV Army Corps, 1871-1914 189 6 – Commanding generals of the XIII Army Corps, 1895-1919 197 7 – Non-Prussian units in the North German army, 1867-70 215 8 – The contingents of the German army, 1912 230 9 – Infantry regiments with Regimentschefs, 1914 287 10 – Mobilization of the German army, August 1914 304 vii List of maps 1 – The German Empire, 1871 13 2 – Army Corps, 1871 94 3 – Army Inspectorates, 1871 109 4 – Army Inspectorates, 1892 174 5 – Army Inspectorates, 1913 201 6 – Central Germany, 1871 212 7 – German mobilization, 1914 307 8 – Army Corps, 1912 322 viii List of appendices 1 – Monarchs of the German empire 385 2 – Germany’s government leaders 386 3 – Germany’s military authorities 387 4 – Military plenipotentiaries in the German empire 389 5 – Prussian envoys in the German empire 391 6 – Bavarian envoys in the German empire 392 7 – Saxon envoys in the German empire 393 8 – Württemberg envoys in the German empire 393 ix Introduction This dissertation analyzes the organization of the German army and the distribution of military power in the German empire between the Wars of Unification (1864-71) and the end of the First World War in 1918. It does so by exploring the means by which the smaller armies of Bavaria, Saxony, and Württemberg were integrated with the much larger Prussian military after 1871 and by seeking to understand why the imperial German army did not simply fall apart under the pressure of industrial warfare between 1914 and 1918. It argues that even though the limits placed on the Kaiser’s military power and the presence of dual loyalties among Bavarian, Saxon, and Württemberg soldiers remained a serious concern for Prussian authorities in the decades following unification, the German army’s decentralized organization proved flexible enough to mitigate the accompanying dangers. This complex and unwieldy fighting force survived until the last days of the First World War in part because Germany’s monarchs and their advisors preferred compromise, rather than conflict, with one another. Until the “de-crowning” of Germany in the autumn of 1918, the contingent-based structure of the German army and the distribution of military power between the Kaiser and the empire’s three lesser kings were considered by contemporaries to be necessary evils. When Allied statesmen convened in Paris in January 1919, they were united by a common belief: the preceding four and a half years of fighting, which had resulted in the deaths of almost ten million combatants and an equal number of civilians and had devastated large swathes of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, had been the product of German, or more accurately, Prussian militarism. This belief reflected long-standing fears about the growth of 1 2 German power. In three brief conflicts between 1864 and 1871, the kingdom of Prussia had expanded its control over much of German-speaking Europe, becoming in the process the continent’s foremost military power. Benefitting from rapid industrialization and encouraged by the imperial projects of other leading states, the Prussian-dominated German empire soon sought recognition on the global stage. These global ambitions were personified by Wilhelm II, the head of Prussia’s House of Hohenzollern and German emperor, or Kaiser.