Die deutsche Heeresrüstungspolitik 1890-1914: Das Militär und der Primat der Politik, and: Preußische Heeresreformen 1807-1870: Militärische Innovation und der Mythos der 'Roonschen Reform' (review)

Mirabeau once wrote with only slight exaggeration: "Prussia is not a state which possesses an army; Prussia is an army which possesses a state." Given this central role of the military in the history of Prussia, it is therefore regrettable that military history has been somewhat neglected in Germany since the Second World War. Most of what was written in that country over the last fifty years about the history of its armed forces in the nineteenth century has taken a socio-economic or political perspective. Operational and detailed organizational histories appeared to have fallen out of fashion. The loss of the main military archives in Potsdam to an allied air raid in February 1945 doubtless discouraged many scholars from pursuing detailed research in this area. Over the last decade this has begun to change. A new generation of professional military historians has emerged in Germany who are enthusiastically embracing this subject and are producing some excellent studies. A number of the best recent examples of this trend have appeared as part of a first-rate collection of military historical literature entitled Krieg in der Geschichte (War in History).

The re-examination of the history of the Prussian army as part of this excellent series was initiated a number of years ago by Dierk Walter's ground-breaking and exhaustive study of the development of the Prussian army in the years 1807-1870. Centered around a long-overdue critical examination of the 'Roon reforms' of 1859/60, Walter exhaustively analyzed the evolution of the Landwehr and the internal debates leading to the controversial army reform legislation championed by Albrecht von Roon, the Minister of War. It was these modifications to the structure of Prussia's armed forces which gave rise to the constitutional conflict that brought Bismarck to power. By placing these reforms into the broader context of the development of the Prussian army since 1807, Walter convincingly argued that Roon's changes were not as significant as has been generally thought. In particular, this book details how the 'myth' was cultivated after 1866 that Prussia owed her victories in the wars of unification to these structural improvements. More importantly, he argued that purely military considerations played a much more important role in the controversy than has been generally believed. In challenging orthodox views, Walter also provided considerable (and at times too much) general context for his main argument so that this work really represents a modern organizational history of the Prussian army up to the unification of Germany.

Stein's new book in this series continues this fascinating story, concentrating on the period after 1890, but also providing an overview of the Bismarck era based largely on Michael Schmid's recent study. At the heart of this work is a detailed examination of the various army bills passed in the 25 years between Bismarck's fall and the outbreak of the First World War. And this is a topic that is linked to some important historical controversies amongst German historians. Fritz Fischer and his pupils used Germany's armaments policy during these years to support their central thesis of pre-meditated aggression in 1914. Similarly, many of the disciples of Eckart Kehr (such as Bernd Schulte) have argued that the development of the German army in this period was driven by a desire to maintain it as a possible weapon to support the existing regime against internal threats from Social Democrats. In re-examining this subject, Stein debunks these kinds of...