King Frederick Wilhelm I of Prussia was a decent king in many regards, but he is perhaps best known for raising up a large army of giant men.

The story of King Wilhelm I of Prussia is perhaps one of the more odd and fascinating tales of history – the king of story that would make an interesting film or work of creative non-fiction, though in either case it would be most likely end up a comedy.

And it all begins with a quote, which is no way taken out of context. It is as it appears:

“The most beautiful girl or woman in the world would be a matter of indifference to me, but tall soldiers--they are my weakness” - King Wilhelm I of Prussia.

Yes indeed, King Wilhelm loved his tall soldiers.

Wilhelm’s Giants

It all began when Wilhelm first ascended to the Prussian throne in 1713. Unlike his father, King Frederick I (but very much like his son, the famed Frederick the Great), Wilhelm placed his highest priority in building up a great Prussian military. He believed in harsh discipline and decided to raise up the greatest, most well-trained army in the world.

When Wilhelm had been the prince, his father had given him command of a single regiment of soldiers. By the time he was king himself, Wilhelm had already decided that any great army should be made up of the largest men one could possibly find. He thus placed a rule on his regiment that every man had to be at least 5'11” (and it has been shown that people were shorter back then than they are now), though it is said that some of his men reached a staggering height of nearly seven feet. Indeed, once Wilhelm found himself wielding the unlimited power of the kingdom, his appreciation for tall soldiers turned into an absolute obsession (today one might even go out on a limb and call it a fetish).

These armies of Wilhelm I were known, originally, as the Grand Grenadiers of Potsdam (Potsdam being the city in present-day Germany where Wilhelm's men were trained), though once they were tall enough, they were usually referred to as the Potsdam Giants.

Controversial Methods of Recruitment

Wilhelm did everything he could possibly do to find tall soldiers for his 'giant' army. He offered rewards for tall men who joined the army on their own, gave substantial rewards to fathers who sired tall sons, he offered great sums of money to the armies of other nations, hoping that their tall men would desert and join the Prussian army. Once he had some tall soldiers established in his army, he paid the tallest women in the kingdom to come into the army camps in order to create more tall children to join the army.

If one happened to be a tall man in Prussia during the time of Wilhelm I, there was very little chance of staying hidden for long. Wilhelm would resort to any means to get such men into his army, even if he had to resort to kidnap. It didn't matter if the tall man was a weak, skinny klutz. If they were taller than six feet, Wilhelm wanted them in his army.

Furthermore, if one was tall and lived in another country nearby, it would have been a very good idea not to do any traveling through Prussia during this time either, for they would most likely have been kidnapped and forced into service en route. In fact, it was just best not to be tall in the first place, one should think, because Wilhelm wasn't entirely against sneaking into your own country to do his kidnapping (or rather, sending someone to perform said kidnapping).

Obviously, with all the kidnapping and forced servitude, the morale amongst the giants themselves wasn't exactly the stuff that a grand army is made of. These men finally drew the line, however, when Wilhelm proposed inventing a machine which would stretch his men even taller. One can imagine the kind of riots this sort of idea would have surely caused. Fortunately, there is no account of such a tactic actually being used, probably due to the risk of rebellion amongst the troops.

So, Wilhelm I of Prussia had under his command, probably the tallest army in history.

Military Results

Clearly, the Potsdam Giants were a grand and powerful conquering army, right?

Well, there’s actually no way of knowing how great the army actually was, for Wilhelm I never actually sent his giants into battle. He was far too vain for that. If he had sent his prized specimens into battle, they might have been killed or wounded, and he couldn't possibly have that. Instead, he simply forced them to train hard and stay tall while he admired them himself. He showed them off every chance he got to anyone who cared to look. He forced them to march before him in order to cheer him up. He even personally painted portraits of them.

Yes, he was most likely more than a little bit insane.

When Wilhelm died in 1740 (after having grown terribly obese), his son, Frederick the Great (himself no stranger to warfare) decided to relieve the giants of duty, finally allowing them to return to their homes (though as many of them had been bred for the specific purpose of joining the army, some of them didn't actually have homes to go back to, and therefore just wandered around for the rest of their lives, or so the stories go).

Frederick the Great understood, apparently, that taller soldiers did not necessarily mean better soldiers. And so, things went back to normal in Prussia.

But Wilhelm I left quite a legacy. Standing only 4'11” himself, King Wilhelm I was perhaps the greatest compensator who ever lived.

References:

“Biography of Frederick Wilhelm I of Prussia.”