The Prussian artillery arm was generally considered to be the worst out of the five major powers during the Napoleonic period. Looked down upon by Frederick the Great, and generally misunderstood by him as well, this attitude continued to haunt the Prussian artillery into the Napoleonic period (the engineers suffered a similar fate to an even worse degree). Almost destroyed during the Jena campaign and hampered by a subsequent lack of funds, nevertheless a great reform was instituted in 1812 that helped to alleviate some of the issues that plagued the arm.

What Came Before

During the 1740's the Prussian artillery was highly regarded and their guns were regarded as some of the best in the world, being far superior to the French artillery of the Vallière system. During the War of Austrian Succession, the Prussian artillery was far lighter and more mobile than the Austrian artillery. Prussia had been a leader in artillery theory led by officers such as like von Holtzman and had developed one of the first effective systems of field artillery which greatly impressed French and Austrian observers - the Austrian Prince of Lichtenstein and the French artillery general Gribeauval were both heavily inspired by the Prussians for their artillery systems. Holtzman had invented several key innovations in artillery - including the screw quoin for elevating the gun and a new type of artillery limber. From the opening battles of the Seven years War, the new Austrian artillery outperformed the Prussian artillery despite the Prussian invention of horse artillery in 1759. Having lost the edge in materiel, Frederick's attitude to the artillery resulted in the further degradation of the arm - Napoleon put it bluntly "Frederick, great man though he was, did not understand artillery". Artillery (and engineer) officers were looked down and shunned by the other arms of the army as grubby bourgeois toilers - horse artillery officers were ordered to remove their plumes on returning to Berlin during the revolutionary so as not to be confused for the more glorious Cuirassier officers. Frederick mishandled his artillery, preferring to use it for counter-battery fire rather than using it against infantry as its primary role and even then not to great effect - at Prague and Kolin the Prussian artillery barely intervened as enemy artillery battered the infantry, though artillery was beginning to improve as at Leuthen and Kunersdorf until forced to be broken up due to great losses in the infantry and was dispersed amongst the infantry. He also interfered in the design of guns, which resulted in slow and clumsy loading and increased the chances of misfire. Subsequent developments in design in Austria and France were ignored and the arm stagnated; the revolutionary horse artillery was disbanded at the end of the Seven years War and no permanent artillery school was set-up until 1791.

The Nightmare of Jena

At the time of Jena, the Prussian artillery was organised into 5 artillery regiments - 4 foot and 1 horse for a total of around 70 batteries (the horse artillery had been gradually reformed after its disbandment), however most of the artillery strength was concentrated into guns assigned directly to infantry battalions which was unfortunately left with the worst of the men. This was starting to be reformed at the time of Jena with the battalion guns being replaced by batteries assigned to each of the all-arms brigades and additional batteries at the corps level. At Jena the Prussian and Saxon artillery outnumbered the French, but tactical handling was poor - the guns were spread out in penny-packets and unable to concentrate their fire, batteries were usually emplaced on the nearest high ground to the detriment of their shooting and the guns themselves were simply too heavy and clumsy to manoeuvre effectively. Results were devastating - over 300 pieces were captured at Jena and Auerstadt and the first 3 artillery regiments were destroyed, the 4th only surviving as it was with the reserves in East Prussia, though it too would suffer great losses during the Friedland campaign. There was even greater losses of guns during the pursuit phase of the campaign - over 800 guns by the 7th of November

Reform and Regeneration

From the debris of the army in 1807 a new artillery arm was formed. Placed under the command of Prince Augustus of Hohenzollern, who was not an artilleryman but whose royal influence was seen as a positive, the arm underwent a significant transformation led by Scharnhorst (who had been an artilleryman himself in the Hanoverian army). This led to the règlement of 1812 which modernised Prussian artillery drill and gun handling at a battery level; organisation of the batteries themselves was also rationalised. 3 brigades of equal size were organised out of what was left of the artillery, titled the East Prussia, Brandenburg and Silesia brigades. Each would contain 3 horse and 11 foot companies. However there were still limitations that restricted the arm during the campaigns of 1813-15. Training of the gunners was considered good but the absence of higher level artillery organisation and the lack of concentration was still a major drawback - there was no army level artillery reserves, artillery staff was virtually non-existant and the règlement concentrated on battery employment only at a brigade level. Artillery officers at a Corps level were usually of lower rank than those commanding the infantry brigades and were frequently overruled. There was no permanent artillery train organisation, with drivers being organised at an artillery brigade level and then assigned to individual batteries - contrasting to the expansive train organisation of the French. One of the largest drawbacks was a lack of funds, as a result guns were in short supply - for the 1813 campaign over 20% of the guns with the army had been supplied by Britain and other batteries were formed from captured French guns; despite this the Prussian army had over 1,600 guns available by 1813. Expansion during the course of the war led to further difficulties, especially after the 1814 armistice led to a reduction in manpower, and during the Waterloo campaign several batteries were manned by infantry reservists whose performance was noted as being quite poor. The army artillery commander, von Holtzendorff, was seriously wounded at Ligny and he was replaced by the artillery commander of II Corps - a mere Lieutenant-Colonel resulting in command difficulties during the subsequent campaign.

Sources:

Artillery of the Napoleonic Wars - Kevin Kiley

The Army of Frederick the Great - Christopher Duffy

Prussian Staff & Specialist Troops 1791–1815 - Peter Hofschröer

The Waterloo Companion - Mark Adkin