SCHILLER'S WARS

To the young Schiller, warfare and the military formed an integral part of everyday life. Schiller's father, Johann Kaspar Schiller (1723–96), was a surgeon and captain in the Württemberg army, and his godfather Philipp Friedrich Rieger (1722–82), who was to become the director of the Hohenasperg prison, first secured Duke Carl Eugen's favor by substantially enlarging the Duke's army through his brutal recruitment methods. Schiller himself was educated in the Karlsschule, an institution that imposed military discipline on its students. After his graduation, he worked as a regimental doctor, but does not seem to have taken to military life. Determined to become a writer, Schiller broke with his sovereign Carl Eugen who did not look kindly on his subject's artistic aspirations. When Schiller later drafted a letter of reconciliation, the request for permission to wear civilian clothing was listed right along with the wish to publish and travel without restrictions.

During his lifetime, Schiller's eventual home, the duchy of Weimar, was largely spared by the war, although its sovereign Duke Carl August possessed considerable military ambition. Carl August participated in the first campaign of the war, the invasion of France in August of 1792, and called upon his friend and servant Johann Wolfgang von Goethe to accompany him on this venture. Goethe, who followed Carl August much to his own dislike, witnessed the defeat and catastrophic retreat of the allied forces, but did not record his experiences until almost thirty years after the event.