Pre-national Prussia’s army housed more foreigners than native middle-class citizens
Evidence
More than 1,000 of the 7,000–8,000 men on the Prussian Army’s officer list in 1806 were foreigners. ‘Middle-class Prussians were outnumbered by foreigners in their own army; this lent colour to the saying that Prussia was not a country that had an army, but an army that had a country.’ — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 138
Categorization
- XREF: Contrast case: an army/nation organized before nationalism, useful baseline for what the national imagination later changed. — connects to: Imperial European armies recruited heavily from ethnic minorities and colonized peoples — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1520; Cultivated middle classes drove vernacular nationalist movements across Europe — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 480; Europe’s high nobility was highly mobile across national borders — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 500
Broader Connections
- Imperial European armies recruited heavily from ethnic minorities and colonized peoples
#expands(0.80) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1520 - Cultivated middle classes drove vernacular nationalist movements across Europe
#complicates(0.72) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 480 - Europe’s high nobility was highly mobile across national borders
#expands(0.70) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 500