Setting the Record Straight: Scharnhorst and the Origins of the Nineteenth-Century Prussian General Staff

Abstract

Scharnhorst established the modern general staff. He was among the first anywhere to comprehend the transformation of war wrought by the citizen armies of the French Revolution. As early as 1793, then a captain in the Hanoverian army, Scharnhorst recommended combining organization and intellect into a collective or corporate genius called the General Staff with Troops. After Prussia’s defeat in 1806, he was able to lay the foundations of the modern general staff. Using primary and secondary source material, this article analyses the tremendous contribution of Gerhard von Scharnhorst to modern military history.