This article sets out to explain the background of one of the more unusual aspects of l8th century warfare by focusing on the history of a little- known unit, the Freihusaren von Glasenapp.

The term freikorps, or 'Free Corps', originally applied to small units not attached to any regiment. Initially, they were employed as garrisons for fortresses, but soon took on other roles as light troops, scouting for the main army, or operating in difficult terrain unsuitable for larger formations. Their heyday was around the middle of the 18th century when they were to be found in most of the armies of continental Europe.

The nearest equivalent in the British Army of the time were the units of light infantry and rangers, raised in the colonial wars by local notables on behalf of the Crown, and disbanded once the emergency had passed. The so- called 'Independent Companies' were Freikorps in the original sense: small units of regulars not attached to a larger formation.

Regardless of which army they were serving, all the Freikorps shared one common characteristic: they were raised on the initiative of a private individual rather than the government. In return for cash payments to cover the cost of recruiting the unit, an individual entrepreneur would undertake to raise and equip a set number of soldiers for service with a particular state.

Almost invariably, the contract permitted the entrepreneur to serve as the unit's commander and usually granted him a fair degree of latitude in the appointment ,of the subordinate officers. The unit would then be paid and fed at the hiring government's expense for as long as it was required.

This method of recruitment will be familiar to anyone who has read something on how the armies of the Thirty Years War were formed. It evolved out of the breakdown of feudal society which made it more difficult for a ruler to recruit soldiers by calling on his subjects' obligation to do military service. Reliance on private contractors also enabled a ruler with a relatively underdeveloped bureaucracy to raise large armies without also needing correspondingly large numbers of civil servants to manage them.

The drawback of the system was the limited level of political control a ruler could exercise over his military entrepreneurs. This lack of control also made it difficult for the authorities to check that they were getting 'value for money' and that their money was not simply disappearing into the entrepreneurs' pockets.

To curb such excesses and increase their control over their armed forces, many states began, from about the mid-seventeenth century onwards, to take over the functions which had previously been contracted out to private enterprise. This was a long drawn-out process which went hand-in-hand with the development of the modern state itself and which was far from complete by the 18th Century.

The Freikorps were one of the last bastions of this old-style military entrepreneurship. They were tolerated, or even encouraged, by governments as they represented a useful expedient in times of emergency. Provided enough money was still available, an embattled government could off-load part of the burden of recruiting and equipping its troops to a private contractor. Once the war was over, these extra troops could be disbanded as the government did not owe them the same obligation as it did to its regular regiments which were largely composed of its own nationals and commanded by members of the native aristocracy.

The Freikorps were also given tasks which the regular units were either unwilling to do, such as raiding enemy outposts and supply lines, or maintaining control of captured territory in the winter months; a time when many of the regular officers traditionally took extended leave to attend the court or see to their personal affairs. On the battlefield the Freikorps were also assigned the unglamorous posts, such as on the wing intended not to engage the enemy, or to occupy woods and buildings.

Clearly this was not the sort of unit for the sons of the high aristocracy to make their careers in . Instead, the founders of such corps came from the ranks of the lesser nobility and common folk who otherwise stood little chance of achieving high rank. Often they were low-ranking officers who lacked the necessary wealth to buy a higher commission, or whose promotion was blocked by a string of superannuated superiors serving out their time.

To such individuals, raising a Freikorps opened up attractive prospects of promotion to unit commander and the possibility of making a handsome profit on the contract by purchasing substandard arms and equipment, or paying the recruits smaller bounties than the government allowed for. Under such circumstances it is not surprising that, while there were honest and professional Freikorps officers, this sort of unit attracted many disreputable, larger-than-life characters. One of these was Baron Joachim Reinhold von Glasenapp, who raised the unit featured in this article.

Formation of the Freihusaren in 1760

Glasenapp was a member of the numerous minor nobility of the Holy Roman Empire. Very little is known about him, but from his surviving letters in the Stuttgart State Archive he seems to have been a fairly coarse character with a fiery temper. By his own admission, his education had been patchy, although, as he styled himself Rittmeister, or cavalry captain, he appears to have had some military experience. His property consisted of the castle of Holtmuhle, which still exists and stands south of the Dutch town of Venlo, just inside the border with present-day Germany. Glasenapp's marriage with Baroness Anna Elisabeth Louisa von Hundt, also from the minor nobility, had increased his property only slightly.

In founding his Freikorps in 1760, Glasenapp's motives appear to have been very similar to those of the other military entrepreneurs. He intended to obtain promotion to the rank of major, find 'job security' in the form of permanent employment, and to amass a fortune in the process. To realise these aims he needed a suitable employer. The man he turned to was Duke Carl Eugen of Wurttemburg, ruler of one of the minor German states engaged on the side of France and Austria against the Anglo-Prussian alliance in the Seven Years War (1756-1763).

Carl Eugen had joined the war only reluctantly in 1757 when it had become clear that the proximity of his lands to those of France and Austria would make continued neutrality inadvisable. Once involved in the fighting, he was determined to extract as much from it as possible. By expanding his army, he hoped to make himself so indispensible to the French and Austrians that they would be obliged to reward him richly at the eventual peace.

During the winter of 1759/60 he busied himself with raising more troops while negotiating simultaneously with France and Austria to see who would offer him the best terms. As he had already come to the end of his resources and was finding it difficult to recruit more soldiers from his unwilling subjects, he was open to offers from men like Glasenapp. The campaign of 1759 had also shown the need for additional light troops as his forces had been taken by surprise and defeated in November.

To make up the shortfall, he decided to expand his existing light troops, the Jagerkorps , to 400 men and to recruit an additional 150 as an independent Freikorps Hussar Squadron. Upon hearing of the Duke's intention, Glasenapp immediately sent his representative, Captain Charles Jaunis, to Stuttgart to discuss the project with the head of the Wurttemberg military administration, Colonel Rieger. However, before he could open negotiations, another competitor appeared.

This was the famous Colonel Johann Michael Gschray. Gschray's career is a good example of why the Freikorps remained an attractive form of employment to those of low birth. Gschray was the son of a public executioner, a job with poor career prospects and one despised by the rest of society. Through his own bravery and good fortune, however, Gschray had made a name for himself as a daring commander of light troops in the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748).

After his regiment had been disbanded after the demobilisation in 1748, Gschray seized the opportunity in 1756 to try and raise another unit. Unfortunately for him, he made the mistake of opening negotiations with both sides simultaneously, with the result that neither side trusted him when news of his tactics leaked out. By 1760 he was desperate, short of money and his family was held virtual prisoner by their landlord in Donauworth, demanding that they pay their rent.

At first, Carl Eugen was pleased that such a distinguished commander as Gschray should offer his services to him. His enthusiasm quickly cooled, however, when he read Gschray's proposal for an entire regiment of 800 Troupes Legers which was more than he could afford. When he finally met Gschray personally and realised that the once dashing colonel was now a gouty septagenarian who was nearly deaf, he dropped the idea altogether. Glasenapp's plan looked far more attractive and Rieger came to an agreement with Jaunis on February 27, 1760.

Once he was given the go-ahead, Glasenapp immediately set about raising the unit on his estate at Holtmuhle. The agreement specified that he was to form a single squadron of 158 hussars, divided into three companies, by the end of April. He was given the rank of major in the Wurttemberg army and was permitted to appoint his own subordinates. If the unit was disbanded, he and the other officers were to be retained on half pay until they could find a post in the regular Wurttemberg hussar regiment.

In addition, Glasenapp's wife was promised half of her husband's pay as a life pension should he be killed in action. These terms appeared to give Glasenapp the 'job security' he was obviously seeking.

The detailed organisation of the corps was specified as follows:

1 Major and "Chef', i.e. commander
1 Rittmeister and second-in-command
1 Adjutant with the rank of Wachtmeister (sergeant-major)
1 Fourier (roughly, an administrative assistant)
2 Feldscherer (surgeons)
1 Sattler (saddler)
1 Schmid (smith)
3 Captain-lieuts. (representatives of the company commanders)
3 Cornets
3 Trumpeters
12 Corporals
126 Hussars
158 total

Glasenapp was instructed not to recruit Wurttemberg subjects and to accept as few deserters as possible. In fact, he had no shortage of volunteers who were reported to be "burning with desire to enter Ducal service". Many were in fact deserters, especially from the armies of the Electors of Cologne and the Palatinate, whose lands lay close to Glasenapp's estate. They joined up for the same reason as most others in their position at the time: having deserted from one army, they had little choice but to join another to avoid punishment and find employment. Clearly, some also joined because they liked the free-wheeling lifestyle and prospect of booty which service in a Freikorps offered.

Having collected his men, Glasenapp's problem was how to pay and equip them. He soon realised the reason why Carl Eugen had accepted his proposal so readily. In the agreement, the Duke was only obliged to pay the officers from the day the corps was founded. The other ranks were not to be paid until he had personally reviewed the unit.

In the meantime, Glasenapp was to pay for everything, including the cost of marching the unit from the Dutch border to join the rest of the Wurttemberg army at Stuttgart. All of Glasenapp's pleas for financial assistance merely met with the assurance that if he turned his men out finely, he would be rewarded in due course.

To save himself from bankruptcy and to prevent his men from deserting, Glasenapp accepted an offer from a dubious group of his neighbors. These were Franz von Prangen, who claimed to be a Russian Rittmeister, and his brother-in-law Friedrich von Johnson (sic), who purportedly had served in the Saxon army and was a "very rich cavalier".

Together with Johnson's wife and a mysterious third man, they agreed to advance Glasenapp the money he needed on the condition that they were each given command of one of the companies. Both also claimed to know where Frederick the Great of Prussia's buried treasure was located and said that another brotherin-law of theirs was guarding it. This provided sufficient bait to persuade Glasenapp and his wife to mortgage the castle of Holtmuhle as security for a loan of 23,420 Reichstaler.

Part II: Active Service, Disbandment, and Uniforms

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