Freikorps were irregular German and other European military volunteer units, or paramilitary, that existed from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. They effectively fought as mercenary or private armies, regardless of their own nationality. In German-speaking countries, the first so-called Freikorps were formed in the 18th century from native volunteers, enemy renegades, and deserters. These, sometimes exotically equipped, units served as infantry and cavalry ; sometimes in just company strength and sometimes in formations of up to several thousand strong. There were also various mixed formations or legions. The Prussian von Kleist Freikorps included infantry, jäger, dragoons and hussars. The French Volontaires de Saxe combined uhlans and dragoons.
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 employed rapid movement, a flanking maneuver and oblique order to achieve complete surprise.
Jäger is a German military term referring to specific light infantry units.
Chasseur, a French term for "hunter", is the designation given to certain regiments of French and Belgian light infantry or light cavalry to denote troops trained for rapid action.
Baron Franz von der Trenck was an Austrian soldier.
Stormtroopers were specialist infantry soldiers of the German Army. In the last years of World War I, Stoßtruppen were trained to use infiltration tactics – part of the Germans' improved method of attack on enemy trenches. The German Empire entered the war certain that the conflict would be won in the course of great military campaigns, thus relegating results obtained during individual clashes to the background; consequently the best officers, concentrated in the German General Staff, placed their attention on maneuver warfare and the rational exploitation of railways, rather than concentrating on the conduct of battles: this attitude gave a direct contribution to operational victories of Germany in Russia, Romania, Serbia and Italy, but it resulted in failure in the West. Thus the German officers on the Western Front found themselves in need of resolving the static situation caused by trench warfare on the battlefield.
Trenck's Pandurs were a light infantry unit of the Habsburg monarchy, raised by Baron Franz von der Trenck under a charter issued by Maria Theresa of Austria in 1741. The unit was largely composed of volunteers from the Kingdom of Slavonia and Slavonian Military Frontier, and named after security guards otherwise employed to maintain public order. The Pandurs were presented to the empress in May 1741—with the unit's military band—earning them a claim of pioneering martial music in Europe. The Pandurs did not use uniforms and had an overall oriental/Ottoman appearance. The original organization of the unit was retained until 1745, when it transformed into a regiment. Trenck was relieved of command in 1746 and imprisoned in Spielberg Castle, where he died in 1749. The unit ultimately transformed into the 53rd Infantry Regiment, headquartered in Zagreb, until it was disbanded in 1919. The regiment's commemorative medals bear Trenck's image wearing Pandur attire.
Friedrich Christoph von Saldern was a Prussian general and military writer. He proved his organizational mettle with the battlefield clean up after Liegnitz in 1760. At the Battle of Torgau he proved his tactical and command mettle in the assault Austrian lines, which changed the course of the battle. His refusal to sack Hubertusburg in 1763 led to his resignation from the army. Despite retirement from command, however, Frederick the Great promoted him to lieutenant general and made him inspector of troops. Saldern wrote at least two missives on infantry tactics. He received the Order Pour le Mérite and the Order of the Black Eagle; in 1851, his name was included on the Equestrian statue of Frederick the Great.
Line infantry was the type of infantry that composed the basis of European land armies from the late 17th century to the mid-19th century. Maurice of Nassau and Gustavus Adolphus are generally regarded as its pioneers, while Turenne and Montecuccoli are closely associated with the post-1648 development of linear infantry tactics. For both battle and parade drill, it consisted of two to four ranks of foot soldiers drawn up side by side in rigid alignment, and thereby maximizing the effect of their firepower. By extension, the term came to be applied to the regular regiments "of the line" as opposed to light infantry, skirmishers, militia, support personnel, plus some other special categories of infantry not focused on heavy front line combat.
Kriegsspiel is a genre of wargaming developed by the Prussian Army in the 19th century to teach battlefield tactics to officers. The word Kriegsspiel literally means "wargame" in German, but in the context of the English language it refers specifically to the wargames developed by the Prussian army in the 19th century. Kriegsspiel was the first wargaming system to have been adopted by a military organization as a serious tool for training and research. It is characterized by high realism, an emphasis on the experience of decision-making rather than on competition, and the use of an umpire to keep the rules flexible. After Prussia's impressive victory over France in the Franco-Prussian War, other countries swiftly began designing Kriegsspiel-like wargames for their own armies.
The Battle of Trautenau or Battle of Trutnov was fought on 27 June 1866, during the Austro-Prussian War. It was the only battle of the war that ended in an Austrian victory over the Prussians, but at a large cost.
The Battle of Gitschin or Jičín was a battle of the Austro-Prussian War on 29 June 1866, ending with a Prussian victory over the Austrian forces. There is a memorial there today at Jičín in the Czech Republic.
The Battle of Focșani was a battle in the Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792) fought on 1 August 1789 between the Ottoman Empire and the alliance of the Russian Empire and the Habsburg monarchy near Focșani, Moldavia. The Russians were led by Alexander Suvorov, the Austrians by Prince Josias of Coburg, and the Ottomans by Osman Pasha.
The Royal Prussian Army served as the army of the Kingdom of Prussia. It became vital to the development of Brandenburg-Prussia as a European power.
Grenz infantry or Grenzers or Granichary were light infantry troops who came from the Military Frontier in the Habsburg monarchy. This borderland formed a buffer zone between Christian Europe and the Ottoman Empire, and the troops were originally raised to defend their homelands against the Ottoman Turks. When there was no danger of war against the Ottomans, the Grenzer regiments were employed by the Habsburgs in other theatres of war, although one battalion of each regiment would always remain guarding the border.
The Royal Saxon Army was the military force of the Electorate (1682–1807) and later the Kingdom of Saxony (1807–1918). A regular Saxon army was first established in 1682 and it continued to exist until the abolition of the German monarchies in 1918. With the formation of the Confederation of the Rhine by Napoleon the Royal Saxon Army joined the French "Grande Armée" along with 37 other German states.
The Bavarian Army was the army of the Electorate (1682–1806) and then Kingdom (1806–1919) of Bavaria. It existed from 1682 as the standing army of Bavaria until the merger of the military sovereignty of Bavaria into that of the German State in 1919. The Bavarian Army was never comparable to the armies of the Great Powers of the 19th century, but it did provide the Wittelsbach dynasty with sufficient scope of action, in the context of effective alliance politics, to transform Bavaria from a territorially-disjointed small state to the second-largest state of the German Empire after Prussia.
Willy Martin Ernst Rohr was a German Army officer who was a major contributor to the development of infantry tactics in World War I, particularly for the system of Storm Battalions.
Johann von Mayr and was also the head of a Prussian Freibataillon that, during the Seven Years' War, formed part of the advanced guard of Frederick the Great's Prussian Army. He was the prototype of adventurer and mercenary.
The Battle of Dermbach was the first clash between Prussian and Bavarian troops in the Austro-Prussian War near Dermbach, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach in modern-day Thuringia on 4 July 1866.