It allowed the army to double from 38,000 to 76,000, making it the fourth largest in Europe, and it linked the local population more closely to the royal government.
Upon his accession in 1713, King Frederick William I abolished the provincial militias, obligated his soldiers to lifelong service and transferred all responsibility for recruitment from civilian authorities to regimental officers.
On 14 September 1722 he published a "Sharpened Edict against the Flight of Subjects and their Children in Western and Eastern Pomerania" and on 11 November a "Patent, that the Property of those Subjects and Native Children who flee from Fear of Recruitment shall be Confiscated", but the solution to the conflict between the army—which required peasant recruits—and the royal finances—which required the peasants' agrarian labour—was only solved by the self-interest of the regimental commanders.
The commanders also introduced enrollment (Enrollierung): male children too young to serve were added to the enlistment rolls and given furlough passes to prevent them from being recruited by other regiments when they were old enough.
As a result, recruitment was technically replaced by enrollment and underage male peasants converted into cantonists (Kantonisten).
[7] On 12 February 1792, on the eve of the French Revolutionary Wars, King Frederick William II issued a revised regulation for the canton system.
[7] A series of reforms, such as the introduction of a progressive legal code, the Allgemeines Landrecht für die Preußischen Staaten, in 1794 and the abolition of serfdom in 1807, as well as the Treaty of Tilsit with France made the canton system increasingly obsolete.