Army of the Holy Roman Empire

Last updated
Army of the Holy Roman Empire
Latin: Exercitus Imperii
Active1422–1806
CountryBanner of the Holy Roman Emperor (after 1400).svg  Holy Roman Empire
Branch Army
HeadquartersVienna
Engagements Ottoman–Habsburg wars
Franco-Dutch War
Nine Years' War
War of the Spanish Succession
French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars
War of the Polish Succession
Commanders
Notable
commanders
Nicholas, Count of Salm
Charles V
Johann Tserclaes von Tilly
Albrecht von Wallenstein
Raimondo Montecuccoli
Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg
Eugene of Savoy
Count de Mercy
Ludwig Andreas von Khevenhüller
Leopold Joseph von Daun
Ernst Gideon von Laudon
Franz Moritz von Lacy
Archduke Charles

The Army of the Holy Roman Empire (German : Reichsarmee, Reichsheer or Reichsarmatur; Latin : exercitus imperii) was created in 1422 and came to an end when the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806 as a result of the Napoleonic Wars.

Contents

The Army of the Empire was not a standing army. When there was danger, it was mustered from among the elements constituting it, [1] in order to conduct a military campaign or Reichsheerfahrt during an Imperial War (Reichskrieg) or an Imperial Execution (Reichsexekution). It could only be deployed with the consent of the Imperial Diet and should not be confused with the Imperial Army (Kaiserliche Armee) of the Emperor.

In practice, the various forces of the Army of the Empire often had stronger local allegiances than to the Emperor.

History

A unit of the army at Memmingen,
Bavaria (re-enactment) Reichsarmee (Wallenstein HRR)f.JPG
A unit of the army at Memmingen,
Bavaria (re-enactment)
Maximilian Armour used by the Holy Roman Empire's army Paris Invalides Maximilian armour and horse armour (musee de l'Armee).jpg
Maximilian Armour used by the Holy Roman Empire's army

Prompted by the threat posed by the Hussites, the Imperial Diet of 1422 held in Nuremberg created the Army of the Empire by demanding specific contingents of troops from the various parts of the Empire. [2] The Hussite Wars continued from 1420 to 1434, by which point the army had proved its worth. Over the next hundred years, the size of the Army was controlled either by the number of serving men being strictly regulated or by limits on the money that paid for it. At the Diet of Worms in 1521 a commitment was made to keep the strength at 20,063 infantry and 4,202 cavalry. This was later simplified to 20,000 and 4,000. The monthly cost of paying for an army of this size was known as the Roman Month (Römermonat). [3] The Imperial Register (Reichsmatrikel or Heeresmatrikel) determined the contributions of the individual states making up the Empire, the first being the Register of 1422. [4]

Contrary to popular belief, the Army of the Empire did not take part in the Thirty Years' War of 1618 to 1648. The Emperor participated in this war with the Imperial Army (Kaiserliche Armee) instead. [5]

The Constitution of the Army of the Empire (Reichsdefensionalordnung) of 1681 finally determined the composition of the army, fixing the contingents to be provided by the various Imperial Circles. The simple total strength (called in Latin the Simplum) was now fixed at 40,000 men, consisting of 28,000 infantry and 12,000 cavalry, including 2,000 dragoons (that is, mounted infantry). In emergencies, the size of the army could be increased by doubling or tripling the contingents. [6] [7] Such multiples were called in Latin the duplum and the triplum. [8]

Nominal composition of the Army of the Empire in 1681 [9] [10]
Imperial CircleCavalryInfantry
Austrian Circle 2,5225,507
Burgundian Circle 1,3212,708
Electoral Rhenish Circle 6002,707
Franconian Circle 9801,902
Bavarian Circle 8001,494
Swabian Circle 1,3212,707
Upper Rhenish Circle 4912,853
Lower Rhenish–Westphalian Circle 1,3212,708
Upper Saxon Circle 1,3222,707
Lower Saxon Circle 1,3222,707
Total12,00028,000

The figures for the contingents to be supplied by each Imperial Circle were little altered until the demise of the Empire. In practice, they were organized into a number of separate regiments. In some cases, money was provided instead of men to fulfil these military obligations to the Emperor. [11]

Campaigns

Between the 1590s and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the Army fought in the wars directly affecting the Empire, usually with units of the Imperial Army of the Empire and other local territorial forces. It did not take part in the Thirty Years' War of 1618 to 1648.

End

In 1804, the imperial forces originating from the lands of the new Emperor of Austria, a title created that year, became the Imperial and Royal Army (Kaiserlich-königliche Armee), which was defeated by the French at the battles of Ulm and Austerlitz in 1805. [12] In 1806 the victorious French organized much of the former empire into the Confederation of the Rhine, a grouping of client states of the French Empire, with a common federal army. [13]

Further reading

See also

Notes

  1. André Corvisier, John Childs, A dictionary of military history and the art of war (1994), p. 306
  2. John Rigby Hale, John Roger Loxdale Highfield, Beryl Smalley, Europe in the late Middle Ages (Northwestern University Press, 1965), p. 228
  3. Thomas Robisheaux, Rural Society and the Search for Order in Early Modern Germany (2002), p. 177
  4. John G. Gagliardo, Reich and nation: the Holy Roman Empire as idea and reality, 1763-1806 (Indiana University Press, 1980), p. 36
  5. Vladimir Brnardic, Darko Pavlovic, Imperial Armies of the Thirty Years' War, 1: Infantry and Artillery (2009)
  6. William Coxe, History of the House of Austria, vol. 1, part 2 (1807), p. 1040: "Oct. 1681: This heterogeneous mixture was now avoided by assembling the troops according to vicinity of territory, and apportioning the contingents on the respective circles. By this system, arrangements were made for forming an army of 28,000 infantry and 12,000 cavalry, which could be raised to 80,000 or even 120,000 men by merely doubling or tripling the contingents."
  7. Militärgeschichtliche Zeitschrift, vol. 62 (Militärgeschichtlichen Forschungsamt, 2003), p. 121
  8. Corvisier & Childs (1994), p. 306: "...when more men were needed, further troops would be called up, the Duplum, Triplum, etc."
  9. 'Pütter's Political History of Germany' in The Analytical review, or History of literature, domestic and foreign, on an enlarged plan, vol. 8 ([s.n.], 1788-1798, 1790), p. 527: "The division among the ten circles of the 40,000 men, consisting of 12,000 cavalry, including 2,000 dragoons, and 28,000 infantry, was rated in the following proportions..."
  10. Militärgeschichte - Zeitschrift für historische Bildung (issue of March 2006), table S. 7
  11. Robisheaux (2002), p. 220
  12. Robert Cowley, Geoffrey Parker The Reader's Companion to Military History (2001), p. 43
  13. Michael Hughes, Early modern Germany, 1477-1806 (1992), p. 182

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor</span> Last Holy Roman Emperor (1792–1806) and first Emperor of Austria (1806–35)

Francis II and I was the last Holy Roman Emperor as Francis II from 1792 to 1806, and the first Emperor of Austria as Francis I from 1804 to 1835. He was also King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, and served as the first president of the German Confederation following its establishment in 1815.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Holy Roman Empire</span> European political entity (800–1806)

The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages and lasted for almost one thousand years until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Treaty of Lunéville</span> 1801 Treaty during the War of the Second Coalition

The Treaty of Lunéville was signed in the Treaty House of Lunéville on 9 February 1801. The signatory parties were the French Republic and Emperor Francis II, who signed on his own behalf as ruler of the hereditary domains of the House of Austria and on behalf of the Holy Roman Empire. The signatories were Joseph Bonaparte and Count Ludwig von Cobenzl, the Austrian foreign minister. The treaty formally ended Austrian and Imperial participation in the War of the Second Coalition and the French Revolutionary Wars.

The Battle of Rastatt saw part of a Republican French army under Jean Victor Marie Moreau clash with elements of the Habsburg army under Maximilian Anton Karl, Count Baillet de Latour which were defending the line of the Murg River. Leading a wing of Moreau's army, Louis Desaix attacked the Austrians and drove them back to the Alb River in the War of the First Coalition action. Rastatt is a city in the state of Baden-Württemberg in Germany, located 89 kilometers (55 mi) south of Mannheim and 94 kilometres (58 mi) west of Stuttgart.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Rossbach</span> 1757 battle of the Third Silesian War

The Battle of Rossbach took place on 5 November 1757 during the Third Silesian War near the village of Rossbach (Roßbach), in the Electorate of Saxony. It is sometimes called the Battle of, or at, Reichardtswerben, after a different nearby town. In this 90-minute battle, Frederick the Great, king of Prussia, defeated an Allied army composed of French forces augmented by a contingent of the Reichsarmee of the Holy Roman Empire. The French and Imperial army included 41,110 men, opposing a considerably smaller Prussian force of 22,000. Despite overwhelming odds, Frederick managed to defeat the Imperials and the French.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Free imperial city</span> Cities of the Holy Roman Empire with self-rule and representation in the Imperial Diet

In the Holy Roman Empire, the collective term free and imperial cities, briefly worded free imperial city, was used from the fifteenth century to denote a self-ruling city that had a certain amount of autonomy and was represented in the Imperial Diet.

La Grande Armée was the main military component of the French Imperial Army commanded by Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte during the Napoleonic Wars. From 1804 to 1808, it won a series of military victories that allowed the French Empire to exercise unprecedented control over most of Europe. Widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest fighting forces ever assembled, it suffered enormous losses during the disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812, after which it never recovered its strategic superiority.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">German mediatisation</span> 1802–14 territorial restructuring in Germany

German mediatisation was the major redistribution and reshaping of territorial holdings that took place between 1802 and 1814 in Germany by means of the subsumption and secularisation of a large number of Imperial Estates, prefiguring, precipitating, and continuing after the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. Most ecclesiastical principalities, free imperial cities, secular principalities, and other minor self-ruling entities of the Holy Roman Empire lost their independent status and were absorbed by the remaining states. By the end of the mediatisation process, the number of German states had been reduced from almost 300 to just 39.

Within the Holy Roman Empire, the privilegium de non appellando was a privilege that could be granted by the emperor to an imperial estate. It limited the right of an estate's subjects to appeal cases from territorial courts to either of the imperial supreme courts, the Imperial Chamber Court or the Imperial Aulic Council. The privilege itself could be limited or unlimited. When unlimited, it effectively turned the highest territorial court into a court of last resort.

<span title="German-language text"><i lang="de">Reichsdeputationshauptschluss</i></span> 1803 resolution of the Imperial Diet of the Holy Roman Empire

The Reichsdeputationshauptschluss, sometimes referred to in English as the Final Recess or the Imperial Recess of 1803, was a resolution passed by the Reichstag of the Holy Roman Empire on 24 March 1803. It was ratified by the Emperor Francis II and became law on 27 April. It proved to be the last significant law enacted by the Empire before its dissolution in 1806.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Austrian Army during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars</span>

The Imperial-Royal or Imperial Austrian Army was the armed force of the Habsburg monarchy under its last monarch, the Habsburg Emperor Francis II, composed of the Emperor's army. When the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806, it assumed its title of the troops of the Austrian Empire under the same monarch, now known as Emperor Francis I of Austria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peace of Leoben</span> 1797 armistice during the War of the First Coalition

The Peace of Leoben was a general armistice and preliminary peace agreement between the Holy Roman Empire and the First French Republic that ended the War of the First Coalition. It was signed at Eggenwaldsches Gartenhaus, near Leoben, on 18 April 1797 by General Maximilian von Merveldt and the Marquis of Gallo on behalf of the Emperor Francis II and by General Napoléon Bonaparte on behalf of the French Directory. Ratifications were exchanged in Montebello on 24 May, and the treaty came into effect immediately.

Imperial Army of the Holy Roman Empire may refer to

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Imperial Army (Holy Roman Empire)</span> Armed forces of the Holy Roman Emperor

Imperial Army or Imperial Troops was a name used for several centuries, especially to describe soldiers recruited for the Holy Roman Emperor during the early modern period. The Imperial Army of the Emperor should not be confused with the Army of the Holy Roman Empire, which could only be deployed with the consent of the Imperial Diet. The Imperialists effectively became a standing army of troops under the Habsburg Emperors from the House of Austria, which is why they were also increasingly described in the 18th century as "Austrians", although its troops were recruited not just from the Archduchy of Austria but from all over the Holy Roman Empire.

The Imperial Military Constitution was the collection of military laws of the Holy Roman Empire. Like the rest of the imperial constitution, it grew out of various laws and governed the establishment of military forces within the Empire. It was the basis for the establishment of the Army of the Holy Roman Empire, which was under the supreme command of the Emperor but was distinct from his Imperial Army, as it could only be deployed by the Imperial Diet. The last Imperial Defence Order (Reichsdefensionalordnung), entitled Reichsgutachten in puncto securitatis, of 13/23 May 1681, completed the military constitution of the Holy Roman Empire.

A Reichskrieg was a war fought by the Holy Roman Empire as a whole against a common enemy. After the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, a Reichskrieg was a formal state of war that could only be declared by the Imperial Diet.

<i>Reichsexekution</i> German intervention against a member state

In German history, a Reichsexekution was an imperial or federal intervention against a member state, using military force if necessary. The instrument of the Reichsexekution was constitutionally available to the central governments of the Holy Roman Empire (800–1806), the German Empire of 1848–49, the German Empire of 1871–1918, the Weimar Republic (1918–33) and Nazi Germany (1933–45). Under the German Confederation (1815–66) and the North German Confederation (1867–71), the same right belonged to the confederal government and is called Bundesexekution.

In the Rhine Campaign of 1796, two First Coalition armies under the overall command of Archduke Charles outmaneuvered and defeated two Republican French armies. This was the last campaign of the War of the First Coalition, part of the French Revolutionary Wars.

In the Holy Roman Empire, Landeshoheit or superioritas territorialis was the authority possessed by the immediate lords within their own territories. It was possessed by all imperial estates and imperial knights. It has often been conflated with sovereignty but while it "carried with it nearly all the ingredients or attributes of true sovereignty, [it] was legally distinct from it, and was everywhere in Germany admitted to be so."