How predetermined was Prussian military excellence?

[Kyro92]

The explanations I've seen for the Prussian military's over-performance despite Prussia's relatively small size and population are mostly "great man of history" explanations. That Prussia had a lucky stretch of competent military reformers, and Frederick the Great was able to leverage that to secure Prussia's position and reputation as a great power, shored up by the richness of Silesia.

My question is, is there any deterministic interpretation that Prussia was particularly likely to undergo such reforms and overperform, as opposed to some other European state of comparable size/population/wealth? Is there any reason, for example, that a TL in which one of the larger Italian states had a series of leaders institute comparable military reforms, and subsequently position themselves as a contender with the French and Austrians in the Italian peninsula, ought be considered implausible?

I anticipate a pretty solid consensus behind the Great Men/luck interpretation, so to promote discussion: if you were to make an devil's advocate argument in favour of the deterministic position, what would it be?

 

[The_Devil]

The explanations I've seen for the Prussian military's over-performance despite Prussia's relatively small size and population are mostly "great man of history" explanations. That Prussia had a lucky stretch of competent military reformers, and Frederick the Great was able to leverage that to secure Prussia's position and reputation as a great power, shored up by the richness of Silesia.

My question is, is there any deterministic interpretation that Prussia was particularly likely to undergo such reforms and overperform, as opposed to some other European state of comparable size/population/wealth? Is there any reason, for example, that a TL in which one of the larger Italian states had a series of leaders institute comparable military reforms, and subsequently position themselves as a contender with the French and Austrians in the Italian peninsula, ought be considered implausible?

I anticipate a pretty solid consensus behind the Great Men/luck interpretation, so to promote discussion: if you were to make an devil's advocate argument in favour of the deterministic position, what would it be?

Any country whose leaders not only sold me their souls but also those of all the soldiers they would defeat in battle would've done just as well

 

[Kyro92]

Any country whose leaders not only sold me their souls but also those of all the soldiers they would defeat in battle would've done just as well

I wont sell you my soul, but I will sell you the souls of those I defeat. Deal?

 

[Beedok]

They got lucky more from the bickering of their foes than their own ability.

 

[WunWun]

(Note: I only have an intrest in history, and there could be a lot that i have missed/ have wrong)

To play the devil's advocate:
The need of reforms springs from the discovery of faults. If people do not know there is anything wrong, how can you expect them to change it? Since we are talking here about military reforms, there needs to be war (or another form of military conflict) to discover those faults. This is the deterministic approach I am going to take (that war is inevitable for the Prussian State, and that it would either be a military power, or conquered)(The Prussian state here is from King-in-Prussia until its eventual dissolution).

Prussia grew from the Electorate of Brandenburg. Therefor it played a major role in the HRE, and would clash with the Emperor, being Austria more often than not. France, since the end of the hunderd years war, was expanding eastwards, and would get into conflict with the HRE, and ultimately Prussia.
To the east lay the P-L-Commonwealth at first and later Russia. The Duchy of Prussia was once a fief of the PLC, and they probably would have been glad to get it back. After the Partitions, Prussia shared a border with Russia, who were ever expanionist to ensure strategic depth and warm water ports. To say another thing about Russia's need for access to the oceans, the Ottomans were in control of the Dardanelles for a long time. Thus, the only access to the sea (in Europe) for Russia is through the Baltic.

To summarise:

• South: Austria, Emperor of the HRE and greatest of Catholic german states
• East: Irridentist(? maybe, it was only a fief) PLC and later Russia
• West: France
• North: Baltic Sea, necessary for Russian warm water ports.

Conflict was inevitable, and there is a saying that goes: "Hard times breed hard men"

 

[unprincipled peter]

don't agree with the "Hard times breed hard men". History is paved with men that didn't rise to the occasion and got steamrolled over. The only thing sure to make a man hard is Viagra.

Prussia simply had folks who saw a weakness and remedied it. Not luck. not really 'great' men. simply competent men who fostered an atmosphere of competent armed forces.

 

[Gloss]

I don´t think it was predeterminet in the slightest.

 

[Jürgen]

I think the rise of the Prussian military a mix of several factors.

1: Protestantism allow the ruler of a relative small state to have strong control over the state.
2: A alliance between king and nobles allow the elector to remove power from the other estates
3: The Swedish occupation allow the elector to remove power from the nobles, creating a strongly centralised state.
4: The religious difference between the king (Reformed) and his subjects (Lutheran) made the king push a Lutheran doctrine, which was pseudo-Reformed (Pietism), one of the way he did this was by using Pietist priest as a kind of NCO in the army. This helped create the NCO model.

But what in the end made Prussian army so dominant was not all this, the truth was that soldier to soldier, the Prussian army wasn't better than the Hessians, Danes or Swedes. The Hessians and Danes even raised more soldiers per capita. But Prussia ended up through a mix of planning and luck with large possessions, which allowed them to raise a bigger army. In 1740 the Prussian army was 2/3 the size of the Danish, but at the death of Frederick the Great the Danish army was 2/5 the size of Prussian one, even through the Danish army had almost been doubled in the same period. But the increase in Prussian possession and the general population increase allowed the Prussians to raise a much bigger army. If we lived in another world where as example the Danes had gotten control over Sweden in 18th century, we could very well talk about the Danish army in similar way, except we wouldn't have the potential for population increase as Prussia had in the 19th century, which really gave them their great reputation. But in the end the Prussians was in a better position to expand and had incredible streak of luck.

 

[Saphroneth]

Not at all, because - for example - their spectacular military of the Wars of Unification owes itself to a set of reforms passed in 1860. Before that they were merely average (at best), both in quality and numbers.

If they could be average for a good few decades in the middle of the 19th century, they're not predetermined to be awesome in any potential 19th century war IMO.

 

[GeneralBoomstick]

Not really predetermined or lucky I'd say. They just made the best out of the opportunities presented. The core state of Brandenburg got thoroughly wrecked during the 30 years war which allowed Brandenburg to be rebuilt from the ground up, thus consolidating power into a more centralised system and a more efficient state apparatus. This and the numerous wars that it got involved in between the 30 years war and the reign of Frederick the Great allowed for the flaws of the military to be worked out. It also helped that the Prussians were likely consistently underestimated during this period (honestly, who would put money on the prussians beating the austrians without the benefit of hindsight?). And then during this period, Prussia had a string of consistenly competent rulers pulling all of this together. Though all of this was nearly undone during the 7 years war, so the rise of Prussia was anything but predetermined.

 

[The Undead Martyr]

Not really predetermined or lucky I'd say. They just made the best out of the opportunities presented. The core state of Brandenburg got thoroughly wrecked during the 30 years war which allowed Brandenburg to be rebuilt from the ground up, thus consolidating power into a more centralised system and a more efficient state apparatus. This and the numerous wars that it got involved in between the 30 years war and the reign of Frederick the Great allowed for the flaws of the military to be worked out. It also helped that the Prussians were likely consistently underestimated during this period (honestly, who would put money on the prussians beating the austrians without the benefit of hindsight?). And then during this period, Prussia had a string of consistenly competent rulers pulling all of this together. Though all of this was nearly undone during the 7 years war, so the rise of Prussia was anything but predetermined.

Iron Kingdom by Christopher Clark (the same dude who did the Sleepwalkers) emphasizes the Thirty Years War and its role (along with that of the Great Elector) in founding the Prussian state. Prussia was (like Austria) a lucky string of inheritances (Prussia, Julich-Kleve), and also like Austria is dead center in the middle of Europe, and unlike Austria a Prince Elector. That combination gave several advantages and also disadvantages: Prussia could use her vote to extract concessions, and that plus Prussia being outside the Empire allowed her to gain a Royal title. Brandenburg-Prussia's rise owed itself to skilled diplomacy- marriage diplomacy (akin to the Habsburgs), but also realpolitik on the part of the Great Elector, who leveraged his newly minted army and electoral dignity to gain concessions from the Great Powers by playing each against the other.

The Thirty Years War utterly devastated Brandenburg (and Germany) worse than anything short of the Second World War, which gave the Great Elector means, motive, and opportunity to centralize power to a degree that was unthinkable to his forefathers, Sweden's bellicosity and Poland's preoccupation with Russia, Sweden, and her own internal troubles opening the door for her to play her game. Prussia, like Austria, ultimately owed its continued existence to her army- as a dynastic chimera, spread thinly from the Rhineland to the Baltic, and at the crossroads of Europe, she needed a skilled and professional army to survive, let alone rise to prominence.

Prussia's rise was definitely contingent- but then so were the Habsburgs (if they were less fortunate in the 15th century, they could have either gone extinct or remained like the Wittlesbachs or Wettins- divided between three or more rival lines- instead of consolidating under Maximillian as OTL) and basically every other great power, however she owed herself especially to leadership and diplomacy, with a strong state apparatus and capable army serving as tools. ("War is politics by other means" is basically the national motto of Prussia). One should compare her to Saxony- a protestant, north-west German Prince elector who, due to less fortunate history, failed to consolidate or break out as a major power, remaining a second rate power at best.

 

[Nivek]

Prussia existed thanks their military kings, from the mercenary king to the Postdam still sergeant to the soldier king, when those start to flattered they got a martial tradition endure by generation.