ABSTRACT
The Prussian reforms and ‘revolutionary war’ ‘In the beginning was Napoleon.’1 With this much-repeated quotation, historian Thomas Nipperdey began his history of the German nation in the nineteenth century. It is precisely because of this ‘national’ redefinition that the quarter of a century between 1789 and 1815 appears as an ‘axial age’ or ‘saddle period’.2 The rise of the ‘nation’ as a sociopolitical force was combined with the transformation of ‘small wars’ ( petite guerre, kleiner Krieg) from special operations to popular uprisings or ‘people’s war’ (Volkskrieg).3 By the same token, small wars in the Napoleonic period mirror this transformation. In Prussia, they mark a political/ military turning point. The defeat of the Prussian army at Jena and Auerstedt on 14 October 1806 is a classic example of the failure of the ancien re´gime and its armies
when pitted against Napoleon. While before 1806, the old Prussian army had been aware of innovations,4 it was not until the Prussian catastrophe that a ‘people’s war’ could be contemplated. In the winter of 1806-1807 there were alreadyminor yet highly effective stirrings aiming at the ‘liberation’ of Prussia or its lost territories. The kingdom of Westphalia in particular, half of which comprised former Prussian territories, was repeatedly the target of patriotic Prussians’ plans, as in the attempted uprising of 1809 and the ‘war of liberation’ of 1813.
