Source
Size of the Army1
Year | Overall size | Officers | Personnel | Noncommissioned Officers | Total size as a percentage of the population |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1880 | 422,589 | 17,227 | 401,659 | 48,531 | 0.937 |
1881 | 449,257 | 18,128 | 427,274 | 51,586 | 0.989 |
1887 | 491,825 | 19,262 | 468,4092 | 55,447 | 1.035 |
1891 | 511,657 | 20,400 | 486,9833 | 58,448 | 1.028 |
1894 | 584,548 | 22,534 | 557,1124 | 77,883 | 1.138 |
1900 | 600,516 | 23,850 | 571,6925 | 80,556 | 1.065 |
1905 | 609,758 | 24,522 | 580,1586 | 82,582 | 1.006 |
1910 | 622,483 | 25,718 | 589,672 | 85,226 | 0.959 |
1914 | 800,646 | 30,739 | 761,438 | 105,856 | 1.181 |
Years were selected in which the army’s overall size increased due to laws governing its peacetime size.
In fact, personnel numbers should have been presented in relation to the male population, but since the ratio between the sexes remains relatively constant in peacetime, the relation to the entire population serves the same purpose. Average population was used as a reference value.
A sizable portion of the army’s overall personnel numbers comprised new recruits. Whereas the number of new recruits stood at 151,180 in 1880, by 1910 the figure had risen to 267,554. Some of the recruits were voluntary: 16,069 in 1875; 18,767 in 1880; 25,954 in 1889 (13,125 of whom were younger than the mandatory age for military service); 49,122 (22,738) in 1900; 69,146 (29,186) in 1910.7
In the 1870s and 1880s, a relatively large number of recruits managed to avoid military service by emigrating illegally; they were convicted by the courts. There were 17,451 such cases in 1875; 11,446 in 1880; and 19,139 in 1889. Figures on the number of convictions due to illegal emigration are not available for subsequent periods; however, the number of emigrants fell sharply during this time (from the mid-1890s on).
1 The size of the navy was comparatively small. The figures are:
1880: 11,116 | 1894: 20,498 |
|---|---|
1881: 11,352 | 1900: 28,326 |
1887: 15,244 | 1905: 40,862 |
1891: 17,083 | 1910: 57,374 |
2 This number represents the army’s peacetime strength set forth in the law of March 11, 1887 (excluding one-year volunteers); Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Deutsche Reich [Statistical Almanac for the German Reich] 1887, p. 161.
3 This number represents the army’s peacetime strength set forth in the law of July 15, 1890 (excluding one-year volunteers): Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Deutsche Reich 1891, p. 148.
4 Based on the figure of
479,229 (the army’s peacetime strength set forth in the Law of
August 3, 1893), plus the non-commissioned officers no longer
included in figures for the peacetime army;
Statistisches Jahrbuch für das
Deutsche Reich, 1894, p.
149.
5 Compiled
as described in note 4. Statistisches
Jahrbuch für das Deutsche Reich, 1900, p.
172.
6 Analogue
to notes 4 and
5.
7 The number
of volunteers includes the number of one-year volunteers, i.e.
privileged recruits who only had to serve one year due to their
school education and payment of their subsistence costs. See Ritter
and Kocka, Deutsche
Sozialgeschichte [German Social
History], p. 224 f.
Source: Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Deutsche Reich, respective volumes; reprinted in: Gerd Hohorst, Jürgen Kocka, and Gerhard A. Ritter, eds., Sozialgeschichtliches Arbeitsbuch: Materialien zur Statistik des Kaiserreichs 1870-1914. Munich, 1975, vol. 2, pp. 171–72.