4."THE RED MANTLES AND THE TURKISH ARROW"... Before discussing the salient points in respect of the evolution and further development of the "light infantry" arm of the Austro-Hungarian Empire during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, it is important that we spend a little time back in the middle of the eighteenth century. If you have read the previous "Prime Your Pan" (issue 13) outlining the development of the Russian skirmisher, I think you will agree that a basic under-standing of the "early days" is desirable; indeed, there are instances where parallels in early ideology existed with the other armies (the adoption of the Croatian Pandour soldier by the Russians, for example) which may prove to be of use in any analy-sis of the Austrian Army of the "black powder" period. This article (in two parts) will consider the reasons for the evolution of ALL troop types in Austrian service who were (in theory, at least) "skirmish-capable" in every respect. Attention will be given to the "LIGHT INFANTRY" per se (a term which really only existed in the Austrian Army's standing Regulations between the years 1798 and 1801), but the "frontier" GRENZER infantry, the JAGERS, the FREI-CORPS, the VOLUNTEERS, the LANDWEHR and (especially during the early part of the Seven Years War) the Line GRENADIER companies will also be discussed in turn. Others - such as the famed "Hungarian" HUSSARS - will be included as we examine Austria's efforts to provide a fully compatible and skirmish-capable asset for its arises in the field. 1740 - 1748 : the "problem" years... The young Empress Maria Theresa's inheritance (from her father, the Emperor Charles VI, who died in 1740) amounted to the terri-tories of Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Croatia, Transylva-nia, the Austrian Netherlands (Belgium), several minor city states in southern Germany and the Duchies of Milan and Mantua. With her native German Hereditary Lands (Austria) and her al-liance by marriage to her husband, Francis Stephen of Lorraine (adding Tuscany to this truly vast empire of twenty million people) the new Empress - at twenty three years of age - had other, more weighty, difficulties to face immediately other than the deplorable state of the standing armies of Austria and Hungary. The history of Imperial Absolutism as a concept and in practise has filled many volumes and need not concern us here; it is sufficient to note that - after a century of virtually ceaseless warfare - the Army's usefulness as a tool of expansionism had all but disappeared due principally to the worst excesses of deliber-ate mismanagement and neglect, the results of severe under- funding since the turn of the century. One only has to examine the sanitary arrangements provided for the troops in the most southerly garrison towns (during the Wars of the Austrian Succession) to understand that the Army was openly regarded as an unnecessary drain on central government; the Training Regulations of 1742 specified the removal of corpses through disease in these garrisons and the "detailing" of burial units from the recruits for the same. Attention was also given to the redistribution of old uniforms (taken from the dead) as opposed to the regular purchase of new uniforms and materiel! It could be argued that other European standing armies suffered from such abuses throughout the eighteenth century (although Austria lost twice as many men IN PEACETIME as at war from 1740 onwards) but a semblance of professional courtesy was the norm in most other countries. A standing army was (and still is !) an expensive asset that - once sufficiently trained and properly equipped - became the cutting edge of foreign policy. Such an asset was rarely squandered deliberately (actual cam-paigning in the eighteenth century was just as arduous as at any other time in history); it is apparent, however, that Austria - with its power and wealth severely curtailed at Maria Theresa's accession - was financially reluctant to nurture its armies sufficiently. The lowest administrative centres rested with the Colonels of the regiments (in common with most of the armies of Europe), a responsibility which was blatantly wide open to abuse by the less than conscientious field officers; but with little or no support from central government, such corruptive and morally decadent behaviour continued unchecked. Although rudimentary training was still initiated at the depots and garrisons (the main influences at this time were the French and Dutch armies, hearkening back to the great captains of the Grand Alliance and the Spanish Succession) the Austrian Army was totally unable to prevent Frederick the Great's Prussian Army from seizing Silesia (the Prussians consolidating this annexation after the Second Silesian War ended in 1745). 1749 - 1756 : the first significant army reforms The loss of Silesia was a financial disaster for the Austrian Empire, and - determined that the Austrian Army would not become "the hereditary whipping boy" of the Prussian king - Maria There-sa established Austria's first Military Commission in February 1748. The Commission's brief was to examine in detail every aspect of the Army and correct any and all faults : a very tall order indeed. The subsequent reforms were initiated by Counts HAUGWITZ and DAUN and Prince Wenzel von LEICHTENSTEIN under the guidance of the Commission's president, Prince Charles of LORRAINE. But the reforms had to be paid for, and Austria took the revolution-ary step of levying taxes upon the nobles as well as the peasants (collected at the local level through the great estates and the "generalats", the administrative centres of the border regions, but controlled from central government) to ensure a steady flow of cash to meet the budgetary requirements of these reforms (some fourteen million GULDEN per annum). This reformation of the Austrian Army officially commenced in the spring of 1749 (the new Army Regulations taking effect in 1751) and was still ongoing almost eight years later. After much hard work, considerable changes were made across the board, but - in 1756 - the Army entered the Seven Years War still unready for action and mobilised incredibly slowly. The lethargy encountered by the reformists was partly due to the Hungarian Diet's virtual boycott of the new levy (the Diet always considered itself a separate entity from Vienna and had difficulty in persuading the many influential Hungarian landed nobles to part with their cash for "German" regiments as opposed to "Hungarian" units), but corruption and fraud were so firmly embedded in the regimental structure that the task of policing the Commission's recommendations was a daunting, uphill struggle. The need for a skirmishing soldier The Wars of the Grand Alliance (the League of Augsburg, 1689 - 1697) proved to be the "melting pot" for the great European standing armies to develop their tactical considerations for the battlefield that would remain in use (although greatly adapted and adopted) for almost two centuries. From the middle of the seventeenth century onwards, the "professional", adequately trained and uniformly equipped soldier filled the ranks of the European armies with the rapid and widespread adoption of linear tactics. Formations in line could be essentially disrupted by terrain and/or fire effect (with the resultant loss of morale) rendering the now disordered lines subject to shock action (if available). The "irregular" peasant soldier with sound, local knowledge and excellent fieldcraft skills had been utilised to reconnoitre the ground and the enemy positions since warfare was in its infancy; with the arrival of practical matchlock/ flintlock weapons, the "irregular" soldier's duties - be he on horseback or on foot - were expanded to encompass a highly active role in the battle proper : on the flanks (preferably in "disordering" terrain), engaging the aforesaid enemy lines with debilitating fire and taking unoccupied ground/positions in rushes. Every major European power had its ethnic peoples who - usually as a direct result of their upbringing in the country of their homelands - naturally excelled at this essentially crude version of fire and movement. Conversely, such peoples disliked "regimentation" (and fostered a healthy disdain for anything emanating from a central authority) regarding the rigid, linear formations of their comrades-in-arms as an unpalatable impedance to their unique brand of warfare. The use of "ethnics" with their peculiar and original skills became agreeable (and fashionable, to a certain extent); given the vagaries of the Austrian Empire's multi-national profile, such soldiers were relatively cheap (especially whilst defending their homelands) and undoubtedly efficient. Their numerous short-comings (of a barbarous nature, on occasion) could be convenient-ly overlooked whilst vigorously employed on active service in distant theatres... The legends of the "Hungarian Hussar" attempt to trace a lineage back to the glory days of the Mongol horsemen ; it is sufficient to say that - from the beginning of the seventeenth century - the words "Hungarian" and "Hussar" were synonymous with the elitist spirit found amongst these expert horsemen, the mounted frontiersmen of the Austrian Empire. (Louis XIV was sufficiently impressed for the French Army to adopt the Hussars just prior to the Wars of the Grand Alliance, the first of the other European powers to do so). It is interesting to take into account the tactics of the "Hungarian Hussar", which did not change significantly until the middle of the nineteenth century. "Skirmish tactics" - with consistent musketoon/carbine fire - was the norm rather than the exception from the opening actions of the Grand Alliance onwards. The Hussars of the Austrian Empire fell into the middle ground between the regular Horse of the Line and the "mounted foot" bodies of the many irregular corps; as specified above, formed enemy formations - of Horse or Foot - would be engaged frontally by a centrally positioned "squadron" in open order using deliberate carbine fire. (This operation could be conducted either dismounted or mounted). The remaining "squadrons" (extended into dispersed order) would then attempt to develop a flank of the advancing enemy body. Little emphasis was placed upon boot-to-boot shock action of any sort, the hereditary independence of spirit of the Hussar spurning any serious attempt to dampen his elitist nature by training him as a mere Line Cavalryman in traditional Hussar dress. Such skirmish tactics are the very stuff of the Napoleonic assault and undoubtedly originate with the Hungarian Hussar ; centuries of hard campaigning against the Turks produced the seeds of such tactics, and - apart from an efficient command and control structure, a well-developed system of close order supports along the lines of the Prussian doctrine (see Issue No. 13) and the absence of mounts and horse-holders judiciously held back in dead ground - there is little difference between the actions of the Hungarian Hussar of legend and the archetypal Napoleonic "skirmish" soldier. 1751 : the birth of the "elite" companies With the Hussars usefully employed in the skirmish role, was there any real need for additional troops in this mode? The Count DAUN's efforts towards uniformity in all areas in order to establish a new, workable system (efforts which were greatly hampered by severe problems of language and dialect exacerbated by "eccentric" training methodology practised by the Colonels) illuminate the details to answer this question. The resulting Army Regulations of 1751 laid down that all infantry regiments would form line of battle in FOUR ranks with - interestingly - the Grenadier company deployed in THREE ranks on ONE and/or EITHER flank, dependent upon tactical expediency. In these Regulations (which took three years to implement), special attention was given to the Grenadiers' occupation on the flanks : operating in "loose" order, they were to push forwards in order to harass the opposing enemy body AND to cover the advance of the Line (or "centre" companies). As with the Hussars (using fundamental fire and movement tactics) the Grenadier Company was to engage the enemy body (frontally where possible) thus reducing its performance when faced by the slower moving "mother" body, advancing in close order behind the Grenadiers. There is also evidence to support the view that grenades were habitually carried by the Grenadiers to assist with the task of harassing the enemy in OPEN battle (shades of Private Bill Speakman, VC, of the King's Own Scottish Borderers, exactly two hundred years later!) as opposed to carrying grenades for siege work; bearing in mind that the grenade had been declared obsolete by most nations decades before, it is noteworthy that great emphasis was placed upon the need to disrupt the advancing enemy's good order - in theory. The employment of the Grenadier Companies in this fashion clearly illustrates the Army's need for skirmish support as early as 1751; the Hussars were excellent in their way (certainly as far as "eyes and ears" duties were concerned), but regimental integrity could not be sacrificed in order to blanket the infantry formations with close skirmish support. The local requirement was satisfied with the deployment of the Grenadier Companies, surely the direct forebears of the "elite" companies of the Napoleonic Wars (be they of "Grenadier" or "Light" status) utilised by every nation. Regrettably, although the Grenadier Companies received adequate training for their role as skirmish infantry as specified in the Regulations, the "light" mode was considered undignified for the senior Companies by far too many Colonels in the field. Desertion was always very high in the Austrian Army, and having an entire Company scampering about some distance away from a regiment's HQ and at arm's length from its own officers, the desire to maintain regimental integrity was used as a somewhat feeble excuse by many Colonels for not adopting the new tactic. Thus, Commanders in Chief found it necessary to bolster the "skirmish effort" with other troop types, especially when faced by the likes of the Prussian Foot Jäger Corps in the "conventional" theatres of the Seven Years War. 1756 : the "Red Mantles" versus the Prussians Immediately upon her accession to the Imperial throne, Maria Theresa - conceited by the lack of security at the border country with the Ottoman Empire - raised bands of "Croats and Pandours" from the Christian refugee villages at the frontier. The Hungarian Diet assisted with the finances (after the Hungarian nobles had accepted the reasoning behind a centrally controlled defence force for the regions) and the brutal partisan leaders (such as MUETZEL and TRENCK, still a legendary figure in Austria and Hungary today, with many statuettes celebrating the exploits of Trenck's Corps of Pandours) organised the recruitment assisted by Generals LOUDON (the former Jacobite-Russian mercenary of renown) and NADASTI. Recruitment was never a problem (the Serbo-Croat-Slav peasant soldiers were constantly at arms against Turkish encroachment) although the degree of regimentation and a central authority was difficult to understand at first. Their natural fighting abilities with guerrilla warfare made the "Grenz" (or "frontier") soldiers - in defence of their homeland - arguably the most tenacious fighters in the world on a par with the Scottish Jacobite Highlanders (who were also recruited and "regimented" into the service of the British Army at this time). At the outbreak of the Seven Years War (and after sixteen years under Army control) the Grenz units were virtually indistinguishable from the Regulars of the Austrian Empire. Grenz officers were compulsorily seconded to serve with the Line regiments in order for the process of regimentation to be speedily applied upon their return to their own units, and service far away from the Turkish borders was called for more frequently.The Grenzers were now organised under a rigid command structure with each Military District (namely the Warasdiner, the Karlstadter and the Slavonian Districts) mustering and supporting a variable number of Infantry battalions and Hussar regiments. These Districts were ultimately responsible to the Hofkriegstadt (the military council, based in Vienna, controlling the levied finances, training and dispositions of the units held in the field by each District). With their officers indoctrinated into the modern, linear tactics of the day, and being directed by central government when and how to fight, the Grenz units inevitably lost a good deal of their unique identity. They certainly performed well during the early part of Maria Theresa's reign (and during the Austrian Succession campaigns), but the gradual attempt to transform these exotically colourful troops into "proper" infantry quashed their natural skirmishing techniques. Very little "irregular" work was called for, unless they were required to "trade off" against similar troops (such as the Croatian Pandours in Prussian service, the Frei-Corps von Kleist). At the end of the Seven Years War (in 1763), the Grenz infantry marched out of the last campaigns alongside the Regular Line battalions with only their uniforms to differentiate them. They were no longer dedicated skirmishers (and were positively dis-couraged from doing so) but they were an integral part of an army that - from the very first engagement of the war, at LOBOSITZ - had earned a grudging respect from their enemies the Prussians. In Part TWO - Further years of neglect, and then Archduke Charles... 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