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In the wake of Sadowa, on 30 August 1866, Napoleon signed a decree to re-arm his infantry with breech-loading rifles. The weapon adopted was the Chassepot, named after its inventor Alphonse Chassepot, who for a dozen years had been developing and improving it with encouragement from the Emperor and Marshal MacMahon but in the face […]

The test of state power that really mattered was its ability to sustain a standing army. Prussia not only had a big one, it came to be synonymous with militarism. In the eighteenth century, however, this status was of recent origin. In 1610, when the Elector Johann Sigismund instructed his militia to conduct training exercises, […]

FREDERICK II (1712-1786). Known as Frederick the Great. King of Prussia, 1740-1786. Frederick the Great returning from Manoeuvres. Oil, 1787, by Edward Francis Cunningham. WAR OF THE BAVARIAN SUCCESSION So far, so good, but the long-term prospects for Frederick’s Prussia were alarming. The army’s performance had been dismal, as many of the participants recorded. “The […]