All Scholars

Hans Delbrück was a politically engaged modern historian who is of interest to classicists for his works comparing the art of warfare in antiquity with that of modern Germany. His great work was his compendious 4-volume work on the history of warfare, greatly influenced by his reading of Clausewitz. He grew up in a political family in Greifswald and received the first doctorate in German given at Bonn, under the modern historian Heinrich von Sybel (1817-95). Initially opposed to Otto von Bismarck (1815-98), he fought in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1 and came to admire the Chancellor. Beginning in 1874 he was tutor to Prince Valdemar of Prussia (1868-79), brother of future Kaiser Wilhelm II, until his untimely death from diphtheria. Delbrück’s biography of Field Marshall August Neidhardt von Geisenau (1760-1831) led him to the study of military history and to comparative histories of ancient and modern warfare. Conservative historians found his work learned but narrow and amateurish for a professorship, so Delbrück expanded his focus to the history of warfare in the entire range of European history. On the basis of his military experience and external data (demographics, topography, logistics) and following the lead of Karl Julius Beloch (1854-1929), he denied the great numbers of participants and losses in battle recorded by the ancients.  This brought him into protracted conflict with the Leipzig historian Johannes Kromayer (1859-1934). He was work was considered that of a learned amateur until he finally was made professor at Berlin, in 1895 and a year later succeeded Heinrich von Treitscke (1834-96).  He had hoped to elevate military history into a discipline of its own in hopes of incorporating it more fully in standard history courses, but in this he failed, despite his great contribution and influential position.