The purpose of this book is to provide a one-volume resource for collectors and historians with an Imperial German army interest. The more we researched, the more we found there were more stories, myths and misunderstandings about Imperial Germany than there were facts. Different authors addressed different aspects: collectors, historians and educators all had their own area of expertise, but there was no readily available resource to give a general overview of Imperial Germany. Though it is convenient to call it "Germany," at the start of the First World War, there was still no united Germany, no German army, and no German officer corps. At 333 pages with 183 pictures and over 670 footnotes, this is an attempt to explain the intricacies of how the country worked -- militarily, politically and socially.
The complexity of governing the German nation and the army resulted in too small of an army for an industrialized age. Further, society had created an officer corps steeped in tradition and stuck in the past. Upon mobilization, this small army rapidly expanded beyond its capabilities.
The army had four distinct components - Prussian, Württemberg, Saxon, and Bavarian armies. This was and is incredibly confusing as far as terminology is concerned. Even Bismarck was confounded by the references. He admitted that it was not constitutionally correct, but rather than name each individual army, he elected to use the expression “imperial army” for the sake of succinctness. Reichsheer was the term favored by the Kaiser. The Imperial German army is the term used in many sources, but most of time one sees “German army” used even though it is not correct.
According to the imperial constitution, the empire covered the expenses of the Prussian, Württemberg and Saxon components. Bavaria had to cover the peacetime expenses of its army from its own resources. Only upon mobilization did Bavaria receive financial support from the Reichstag. Art. 53 of the imperial constitution declared that the Navy of the Empire was united and under the Supreme Command of the Kaiser. Art. 53 was written, in part, because of all the 25 states, only Prussia had a navy prior to the Constitution. Art. 63 stated: “The entire land force of the Empire shall constitute a united army, which in war and in peace shall be under the command of the Kaiser.” Art. 63 is legal language, which makes for many loopholes. There was no imperial army but simply contingents of the member states. The navy was an internal indivisible organization set forth in the constitution. The army was a collective unit and its unity did not cancel the existence of state contingents. The term “Imperial German Army” is an improper collective phrase that is used continuously under which the combining of the different armies may be easily understood.
The key to understanding this is that when the states joined the Imperial German Empire, they ceased to be sovereign but did not cease to be states. Nowhere did the states give up sovereignty more completely than in military affairs. Most states had their own armies but each army was recruited, organized, equipped, and drilled not in conformity with state regulations but rather by the rules of the empire, which were determined by Prussia. Formally, the state possessed military supremacy but the content and extent of that supremacy was determined by the military conventions between the state and Prussia.
The Hanseatic cities and four principalities did not form their own military . Rather, Prussia had units stationed in their capital cities and often those Prussian units are erroneously considered units of the hosting state; however, they were not -- they belonged directly to the Prussian army. The conscripts from these states entered directly into the Prussian army through separate military conventions. This was really a holdover of the North German Confederation, i.e. the Militärkonvention zwischen dem Norddeutschen Bunde und Hamburg vom 23, Juli 1867. This made sense at the time; however, these agreements froze regimental structure and eventually led to a very convoluted recruiting and naming system. For instance, Infantry Regiment 31 (1st. Thüringisches) was moved from Erfurt in Thüringia to Altona, a suburb of Hamburg, in 1871 and lost any connection to Thüringia except in name.
All states eventually entered into military conventions with Prussia. These conventions ceded to the King of Prussia what constitutional powers the states may have had relative to military matters. Unlike the North German Confederation, each of the armies was placed underneath the Kaiser and Imperial Army in the event of war as well as in peace. The King of Saxony and the King of Württemberg could appoint officers within their contingents; however, the appointment of generals was contingent upon the consent of the Kaiser. The Kaiser personally approved the appointment of every army corps commander. The King of Bavaria had no such restrictions; he still had the right to appoint commanding generals of the Bavarian army corps without being endorsed by the Kaiser. By these conventions, the rulers of the states resigned all power over their armies into the hands of the King of Prussia. Their sovereignty over the military was in name only. The rulers retained military honors and the right to appoint aides-de-camp. The small states paid a certain price to the Prussian treasury for each soldier absorbed into the Prussian army. Prussia then paid the men, promoted them, and received their oath of allegiance. Officers of the small states were normally required to provide a written document to their ruler reinforcing their faith as loyal subjects, but then submerged themselves in the Prussian army. In many cases, the rulers of the small states, published farewell greetings to their troops.
So why was Prussia so dominant? In addition to great success in recent wars, when the 22 states of the North German Confederation united, Prussia represented 80 percent of the total population and 85 percent of the total area. (Of that population of 30 million, 24 million were Prussian; 2 million were Saxon, leaving 4 million to be divided between the other 20 members.) Art. 61 of the North German Confederation constitution gave Prussia the power of having all military legislation immediately introduced into the entire territory of the union.