ABSTRACT
A model Napoleonic campaign began by establishing a single line of operations, with the bulk of the army moving in the same direction, its corps deployed for mutual support. Prussian military thinkers evaluating the revolutionary-Napoleonic experience faced several problems. From first to last the Revolutionary-Napoleonic military system never became fully institutionalized. A combination of budget limitations and reform movements had given Prussia a military organization having little in common with its Napoleonic progenitor but the titles of its units. Carl von Clausewitz's role as the theorist of Prussia's response to the Napoleonic legacy, while significant, remained limited in impact. Beginning with the captains of the French Revolution and continuing through Napoleon to Helmuth von Moltke, soldiers unfettered the tamed Bellona of the Enlightenment. The evolution of the Prussian army between 1815 and 1870 was a response to, rather than a continuation of the dynamic forces unleashed by the French and Napoleonic Revolutions.
