SCHARNHORST, GERHARD JOHANN DAVID VON (1755-1813)

This article appears in Volume V24, Page 314 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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SCHARNHORST, GERHARD JOHANN DAVID VON (1755-1813) , Prussian general, was born at Bordenau near Hanover, of a farmer stock, on the 12th of November 1755. He succeeded in educating himself and in securing admission to the military academy of Wilhelmstein, and in 1778 received a commission in the Hanoverian service. He employed the intervals of regimental duty in further self-education and literary work. In 1783 he was transferred to the artillery and appointed to the new artillery school in Hanover. He had already founded a military journal which under various names endured till 18o5, and in 1788 he designed, and in part published, a Handbuch fur Offiziers in den anwendbaren Theilen der Kriegswissenschaften. He also published in 1792 his Militarische Taschenbuch fur den Gebrauch im Felde. The income he derived from his writings was his

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

means of support, for he was still a lieutenant, and though the farm of Bordenau produced a small sum annually he had a wife (Clara Schmalz, sister of Theodor Schmalz, first director of Berlin University) and family to maintain. His first campaign was that of 1793 in the Netherlands, in which he served under the duke of

York

with distinction. In 1794 he took part in the defence of Menin and commemorated the escape of the garrison in his Vertheidigung der Stadt Menin (Hanover, 18o3),which, next to his

paper

PAPER
PAPER (Fr. papier, from Lat. papyrus)

Die Ursachen des Glucksthe staff of the Hanoverian contingent.
In 1795, after the peace of Basel, he returned to Hanover. He was by now so well known to the armies of the various allied states that from several of them he received invitations to transfer his services. This in the end led to his engaging himself to the king of Prussia, who gave him a patent of

nobility

NOBILITY

, the rank of lieutenant-colonel and a pay more than twice as large as that he had received in Hanover (1801). He was employed, almost as a matter of course, in important instructional work at the War Academy of Berlin, he had Clausewitz (q.v.) as one of his pupils, and he was the founder of the Berlin Military Society. In the mobilizations and precautionary measures that marked the years 1804 and 18o5, and in the war of r8o6 that was the natural consequence, Scharnhorst was

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

of the general staff (lieutenant-quartermaster) of the duke of Brunswick, received a slight wound at Auerstadt and distinguished himself by his stern resolution during the retreat of the Prussian army. He attached himself to Blucher in the last stages of the disastrous campaign, was taken prisoner with him at the capitulation of Ratkau, and, being shortly exchanged, bore a prominent and almost decisive part in the leading of L'Estocq's Prussian corps which served with the Russians. For his services at Eylau, he received the order pour le merite.
It was now evident that Scharnhorst was more than a brilliant staff officer. Educated in the traditions of the Seven Years' War, he had by degrees, as his experience widened, divested his mind of antiquated forms of war, and it had been borne in upon him that a " national " army and a policy of fighting decisive battles alone responded to the political and strategical situation created by the French Revolution. The steps by which he converted the professional long-service army of Prussia, wrecked at Jena, into the national army as we know it to-day, based on universal service, were slow and laboured. He was promoted major-general a few days after the peace of Tilsit, and placed as the head of a reform commission, to which were appointed the best of the younger officers such as Gneisenau, Grolman and Boyen. Stein himself became a member of the commission and secured Scharnhorst free access to the king by causing him to be appointed aide-de-camp-general. But Napoleon's suspicions were quickly aroused, and the king had repeatedly to suspend or to cancel the reforms recommended. In 1809 the war between France and Austria roused premature hopes in the patriots' party, which the conqueror did not fail to note. By direct application to Napoleon, Scharnhorst evaded the decree of the 26th of September 181o, whereby all foreigners were to leave the. Prussian service forthwith, but when in 18111812 Prussia was forced into an alliance with France against Russia and despatched an

auxiliary

AUXILIARY (from Lat. auxilium, help)

army to serve under Napoleon's orders, Scharnhorst left Berlin on unlimited leave of absence. In retirement he wrote and published a work on firearms, Uber die Wirkung des Feuergewehrs (1813). But the retreat from Moscow at last sounded the call to arms for the new national army of Prussia. Scharnhorst was recalled to the king's headquarters, and after refusing a higher post was made chief of staff to Blucher, in whose vigour, energy and influence with the young soldiers he had complete confidence. The first battle Li.itzen or Gross-Gorschen was a defeat, but a very different defeat from those which Napoleon had hitherto been accustomed to inflict. In it Scharnhorst received a wound in the foot, not in itself grave, but soon made mortal by the fatigues of the retreat to Dresden, and he succumbed to it on the 8th of June at Prague, whither he had been sent to negotiate with Schwarzenberg and Radetzky for the armed intervention of Austria. Shortly before his death he had been promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general. Frederick William III. erected a statue in memory of him, by Rauch, in Berlin.
See C. von Clausewitz, Uber das Leben and den Charakter des General v. Scharnhorst; H. v. Boyen, Beitrage zur Kenntnis des General v. Scharnhorst; lives by Schweder (Berlin, 1865), Klippel (

Leipzig

LEIPZIG

, '869); M. Lehmann (

Leipzig

LEIPZIG

, 1886-1888, an important
work in two volumes) ; also Max Jahns, Gesch. der Kriegswissenschaften, 2154; Weise, Scharnhorst and die Durchfuhrung der allgemeinen Wehrpflicht (1892); A. von Holleben, Der Frii.hjahrsfeldzug, i813 (1905); and F. N. Maude, The Leipzig Campaign (1908).
SCHAUMBURG-LIPPE, a principality forming part of the German Empire, consisting of the western half of the old countship of Schaumburg, and surrounded by Westphalia, Hanover and the Prussian part of Schaumburg. Area, 131 sq. m. Its northern extremity is occupied by a lake named the Steinhuder Meer. The southern part is hilly (Wesergebirge), but the remainder consists of a fertile plain. Besides husbandry, the inhabitants practise yarn-spinning and linen-weaving, and the coal-mines of the Buckeberg, on the south-eastern border, are very productive. The great bulk of the population (in 1905, 44,992), are Lutherans. The

capital

CAPITAL (i.e. capital stock or fund)
CAPITAL (Lat. caput, head)

is Buckeburg, and Stadthagen is the only other town. Under the constitution of 1868 there is a legislative diet of 15 members, to elected by the towns and rural districts and 1 each by the

nobility

NOBILITY

, clergy and educated classes, the remaining 2 nominated by the prince. Schaumburg-Lippe sends one member to the Bundesrat (federal council) and one deputy to the reichstag. The annual revenue and expenditure amount each to about 41,000. The public debt is about 23,000.

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