Scharnhorst, GERHARD JOHANN DAVID VON, the organiser of the Prussian army, was born on 12th November 1756, at Bordenau, the son of a Hanoverian farmer. At twenty he entered the army of Hanover, and he took part in the campaigns in Flanders of the years 1793-95. In 1801 he transferred his services to Prussia and was appointed director of the training-school for Prussian officers. Five years later he was wounded at Auerstädt and taken prisoner at Lübeck, but released in time to be present at the battle of Eylau. In 1807 he began the great work of his life: he was put at the head of the commission for reorganising the armies of Prussia. He reformed the army, introduced the short-service (Krümpfer) system, created a better spirit amongst both officers and men, and so converted what had been a mercenary force into a national army. It was principally by means of this new weapon that Germany was able to crush the great Napoleon at Leipzig six years later (1813). But before that event took place Scharnhorst was dead; he was wounded at Grossgörschen on 2d May 1813, whilst acting as chief of the staff of the Silesian army, and died on 28th June at Prague.
See Life by Lehmann (2 vols. Leip. 1886-87) and Klippel (3 vols. Leip. 1869-71)—the former rather an account of his public work than a biography—and the Erinnerungen of Von Boyen (1891).