Although increasingly unable to meet the evergrowing expenses of a standing army, Bavaria maintained the most sizeable contingent of troops among the middlesized states of the Holy Roman Empire around the turn of the eighteenth century. Because of their light blue uniforms, these troops, who gave a good account of themselves in the wars against the Turks and in the War of the Spanish Succession, earned their warlord the appellation the "Blue King." The birthday of the Bavarian army may be set as 1679, the year that the Elector Max Emanuel ascended to the throne. In the electoral service, he found forty-five foot companies, which he combined into seven regiments. Each company consisted of some two hundred men, about one-third musketeers and the rest pikemen. He also found twenty-five mounted companies, which he consolidated into four regiments of cavalry. Altogether, the army consisted of 8,400 foot, 2,400 horse, as well as some two dozen pieces of artillery. Max Emanuel concentrated these forces in camp at Schwabing near Munich, where training in large formations was undertaken. Permanent barracks, the first in Central Europe, were built from 1672 on. THE OFFICER CORPS As in most contemporary armies, a large number of foreigners were in the officer corps, especially among the generals and colonels; the lower grades were commonly filled with natives, who entered the army as privates but usually made a more rapid career than the foreigners. Usually, officers of the "Blue King" served for long periods, for between eleven to thirty-five years. No purchase system existed in Bavaria. Realizing the need for better trained officers, Max Emanuel founded an artillery school in Munich in 1682, followed in 1711 by the Noble Academy (Ritterakademie) at Ettall Monastery. Even so, training of the noble as well as non-noble officers was deficient. There were no examinations, and personal qualities-above all, bravery-were considered of the utmost importance. There existed no general staff in times of peace, but, when a campaign was imminent, such a body, consisting of the adjutant general, the commissary general, the quartermaster general, the chief medical officer, engineer, field judge, and others, was formed. The most important individual perhaps was the quartermaster general, responsible for maps, routing, field fortifications, and other technical duties. In the field, Max Emanuel, a brave and able leader, always took personal command. RANK AND FILE Men were recruited by free enlistment, with the restriction that only Germans were to be enlisted. Enlistment was in the name of the elector with age limits for enlistment set at between twenty-two and fifty years of age. For economic reasons, no Bavarian tradesmen or free peasants were to be taken. In practice, the ranks were filled from the lowest classes. In addition, the army, based on the old medieval militia organization, could call out the local citizenry and peasants, but for service within the country only. However, when there was a shortage of replacements, the militia sometimes was pressed into the regular army. As a result, there were the usual disciplinary problems -- with desertion the most common. This, and other crimes against the military and civil order, were judged by court martials, which, according to regulations dating to 1664, had to be comprised of superior officers as well as persons of equal rank. Punishment ranged from extra duty, to flogging, to death. Discipline was harsh, though perhaps less so than in Prussia. Non-commissioned officers were not much better educated than their men; few if any of them could read and write. They ordinarily came from the same lower classes as the privates and included above all several grades of corporals, then sergeants, and finally the Obristwachtmeister or regimental sergeant major. From 1682, company commanders, usually captains, took over the training of their units with the disadvantage that training within a regiment tended to become uneven. TRAINING To provide more uniform training, new regulations were introduced beginning in 1674. The first manual, the Kriegs-Exercitien Manual in der Musqueten und der Picquen. Nach der Chur-Bayerischen Kriegs-Art, und Manier, already revealed how much progress had been achieved in the handling of individual weapons since the Thirty Years War. The manual, a total of thirty-four pages, was devoted to the school of the individual soldier. It contained thirty-nine commands for loading and firing the musket, a total of fifty-four separate steps, and forty-nine steps for handling the pike. Compared with the ninety-nine steps required for muskets during the Thirty Years War, this was progress. Even so, training was rather limited. The new manuals prescribed only 2 two-hour training periods, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, sessions when officers had to be present. Furthermore, a considerable number of soldiers were always on furlough to reduce expenditures. Companies were on full establishment only in April, May, and June; during the rest of the year the men were furloughed to help with the harvest or to pursue their own trades and occupations. This practice, of course, also was true in other contemporary armies. TACTICAL FORMATIONS At first, regiments were basically administrative formations. During combat, the regimental colonel, sometimes even the regimental sergeant major, led the first battalion; the lieutenant colonel, the second. Officers, as well as ensigns and colors, had their battle stations in front, ahead of the line. From 1674 on, the three-to-six company strong battalion became the main tactical element. However, the battalion was subdivided into three divisions-right wing, left wing, and corps de bataille. Grenadiers, originally the first rank of each company, were formed into separate units in the 1680's. Before any army was generally equipped with flintlock muskets, the right and left wing divisions of each battalion provided the shot, the corps de battaile the pike. This practice disappeared in the 1680's. From then on, the battalions formed a four-rank deep linear order in battle. Each of the three divisions was subdivided into three platoons, each platoon into six sections. In 1691, following the re-equipment of the infantry with flintlocks and bayonets, Bavaria, first among the German states, introduced the three-deep linear formation. Firing was modified. Normally, it was by platoon, the first rank kneeling. After 1701, bayonets were carried fixed at all times. Instructions called for aiming at the "middle of the enemy's body," though in practice speed and volume of fire were considered most important. In any case, there was little individual training in aimed musketry with every soldier firing only three rounds per year at a target. The mounted army, consisting of Cuirassiers and, after 1715, of Dragoons, constituted about a quarter of the fighting strength. Light horse were rare in the Bavarian army until later in the century. The main tactical formation of cavalry was the company, subdivided into three platoons with a combined total of 150 to 200 men. Against the Turks, instructions called for an attack in line three deep, while against the French a two-deep formation was adopted. After 1670, all cavalry was equipped with flintlock carbines and pistols, as well as with a heavy, straight-bladed sword. Dragoons, o course, carried infantry muskets and bayonets and, even when considered cavalry rather than mounted infantry, were trained for dismounted combat roles. Artillery was still regarded as a guild rather than a combat arm and therefore usually was listed by the number of pieces only. In 1676, for instance, the Bavarian artillery was comprised of twelve guns and about one thousand mixed personnel, including gunners, drivers, artificers, train drivers, etc. Draft horses as well as oxen were employed. In 1683, fighting in the relief of Vienna, the Bavarians mustered two 24pounders, two 18-pounders, ten 12-pounders, six 6pounders, and four mortars, supplied with 79 wagons and 706 horses. Total personnel numbered about seven hundred. For every piece, thirty rounds of ammunition were carried, and another one hundred rounds per barrel were held in the army ammunition reserve train. In addition, the Bavarian army had six pounder regimental guns, four for every foot regiment and two for every dragoon regiment. The Cuirassiers, and later the light horse, had no guns. The regimental guns did not count as artillery but were manned by detached personnel from their units. While the regimental guns were more mobile than the heavier guns, they were still cumbersome and, in Bavaria at least, were ordinarily used in defensive rather than offensive situations. The heavier guns were placed "in battery" before the commencement of battle and remained in their positions throughout the entire affair. Bavaria had few other technical troops. A number of commissioned engineers were employed on a contract basis, and from 1702 there existed a small corps of pontooniers, equipped with copper pontoons and other bridging equipment. SUPPLY AND RATIONS Supplies were of the pattern common to all contemporary armies. From 1680 on, uniforms consisted of light blue coats, red stockings or gaiters, black shoes or boots. The ration scale provided for one pound of bread, half a pound of meat, half a litre of wine or a litre of beer per man per day, in addition to smalll quantities of salt, pepper, vinegar, and firewood. Provisions were supplied through a system of magazines, which in turn was furnished by wagon trains. However, since there were fewer than two hundred state-owned wagons, others had to be hired from contractors when the army went on campaign. An attempt was made to keep down the size of battalion transport. Even in 1661, there was an order that every infantry company was to have no more than two wagons, one for the transport of the sick and wounded, the other for supplies. In practice, however, officers often brought their own vehicles, and the troops often did not receive their rations, leading to the usual abuses. Camps were elaborate, usually on a Roman legion square pattern, with main, field, and out post guards. Ceremonial was stressed above security, and location of units as well as movement governed by strict precedent. NUMBERS OF FINANCES In round numbers, the Bavarian army never increased much above the ten thousand soldiers it contributed to the relief of Vienna in 1683. Even at that number, expenses for the army were considerable, 1,848,567 gulden in that year. By 1703, during the War of the Spanish Succession, with twelve thousand men under arms, expenses ran well over two million gulden, a sum almost exceeding the total state income and forcing the Elector Max Emanuel to put a special levy on the Church. Although his troops, fighting under his personal leadership, were well regarded, clearly maintenance of an army was beginning to be beyond the capabilities of a middle state. Some princes, the Hesse come to mind, tried to raise funds by hiring out a part of their army to the British or the Dutch, but this was at best an uncertain method of raising revenue and increasingly unacceptable to the spirit of the age. If states, nonetheless, continued to maintain such armies throughout the eighteenth century, it was because of the need for an internal police force and a viable posture in international relations. However, except for Austria and Prussia, no German state in the eighteenth century managed to maintain an army capable of fighting a major campaign on its own. Wars of coalitions rather than wars of individual states became the rule; and, when these ended after the Treaty of Paris in 1763, the military system of the middle- and smallsized states of the Holy Roman Empire fell into rapid decline. In 1792, when the Diet of the Empire decided to mobilize against France, even the joint contingents of these states could not make up a respectable corps. SOURCES Fuchs, Theodor. Geschichte des europaischen Kriegswesens, Vol. 2. Vienna, 1974. Staudinger, Karl. Geschichte des kurbayerischen Heeres unter Kurfurst Max II Emanuel, 1680-1729. Munich, 1904. Back to Table of Contents -- Courier Vol. III #6 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1982 by The Courier Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com