Untertanengeist durch Militärpflicht?: Das preussische Kantonverfassung in brandenburgischen Städten im 18. Jahrhundert (review)

The "canton system" of conscription in eighteenth-century Prussia has entered military history as a precursor to universal service and a major factor in that country's rise as a great power. It is also central to Otto Büsch's influential "social militarisation" thesis from 1962 that claimed it entailed a symbiosis of conscription with the East Elbian manorial economy. Officers and Junkers were closely related, if not one and the same, so that military authority supposedly reinforced feudal jurisdiction, firmly subordinating the serf-soldiers to absolutism and aristocracy. Infused by the writings of Hans Rosenberg and others, this interpretation was expanded to suggest that German development deviated from an allegedly western liberal norm to follow its own deviant "special path" to Hitler and the Holocaust.

Büsch receives a long-overdue rebuttal in the form of another published dissertation that deserves equally wide attention. Not only does Martin Winter provide the most comprehensive discussion of the canton system to date, but he grapples with the seemingly immovable clichés of Prusso-German history. His work falls into four parts. The first traces the development of Prussian recruitment from the mid-seventeenth century through the formal establishment of the canton system in 1733 to its demise in Prussia's defeat in 1806. The second examines the structural determinants of the system, including the emphasis on stature imposed by the physical requirements of weapons handling. Then follows a series of detailed case studies drawing on particularly rich local archival material for the towns of Prenzlau and Strasburg, both around 100 kilometers north of Berlin, that formed part of the recruiting district for infantry regiment nr. 12. These sources are supplemented by a wide range of regional and central archival material to enable Winter to overcome the obstacle posed by the destruction of most of Prussia's military archive in 1945. Some of these new sources are reproduced in sixty-eight pages of documents at the end of the volume.

While not the first to question Büsch, Winter has gone much further than anyone else in examining new material upon which to base his challenge. First, he confirms other recent works that indicate the canton system drew on earlier roots and underwent a number of changes across the eighteenth century. It was not unique to Prussia, though it displayed some distinctive characteristics. Second, he makes a significant and original contribution by examining its impact on an urban society that was thought previously largely exempt. This plays a major part in his demolition of Büsch, who argued the system depended on the feudal agrarian system. Third, his extraordinarily rich sources allow him to examine actual practice at the local level. He has not only analysed the records of over 12,200 men enrolled on the military registers, but gives many of them a voice by examining their personal histories. Urban recruits were not the "scum" presented by popular military history, but often came from respectable artisan backgrounds. Military institutions failed to penetrate civilian spheres. Urban magistrates and conscripts were quite prepared to challenge the army. Yet, Winter also explains why the system worked. Its relative flexible implementation adapted military requirements to specific conditions and enabled most problems to be resolved locally without involving higher authorities.