DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.10948813
title: Jewish Soldiers of the Bohemian Freikorps 'Legion Erzherzog Carl' and other Volunteer Formations of the 1809 War

description: In 1808, as it was preparing for a major new war against Napoleonic France, the armed forces of the Habsburg Monarchy were augmented by two additional recruitment systems. In parallel to the creation of a trained reserve, which significantly increased the manpower available to the regular army, a popular levy was raised in the Austro-Bohemian crown lands. With a strength of nearly 150 battalions, the Landwehr was intended primarily for national defence. Its individual battalions were formed on a strictly territorial basis, ensuring men from the same area would serve together. In March 1809, when general mobilisation was declared, members of the Landwehr were asked to offer themselves as war volunteers. In the Kingdom of Bohemia, six battalions of such volunteers were drawn out of a total of 50 Landwehr battalions. To emphasise that they were wartime formations and not part of the standing army, these volunteer battalions were formally designated either as Freikorps or as Freiwillige. The Bohemian Freikorps was named Legion Erzherzog Carl in honour of the Austrian commander-in-chief, Generalissimo Archduke Charles. Unlike the regular army and the Landwehr, the bulk of the Legion was made of genuine volunteers. The unit sustained heavy combat casualties, but relatively few of its soldiers were taken prisoner, deserted, or went missing. Despite the defeat of the Austrian army, the Legion's battalions maintained their combat effectiveness to the very end of the war.

Based on all available manpower reports preserved in the Austrian State Archives, this database covers all 16 documented Jewish soldiers of the Legion EH Carl. Apart from one veteran non-commissioned officer who was transferred from the regular army, the remaining Jewish soldiers volunteered from their respective Landwehr battalions or were exempt civilians who signed up directly into the unit. The detailed monthly tables enable the reconstruction of their entire service itineraries, almost on a daily basis. When considered together, the Jewish soldiers of the Legion appear to have been enthusiastic fighters. By the end of the war, half of them had either become casualties or had been promoted to non-commissioned officers. Contrary to many regular army and Landwehr units, the EH Carl Legion did not experience disciplinary disintegration. It was, therefore, able to retain most of its men during the retreats from Bavaria and from the Battle of Wagram. Hence, most of its Jewish soldiers survived the war and were honourably discharged when the Legion was dissolved in January 1810.

The remaining 25 entries cover all the documented Jewish soldiers who served in other volunteer formations of the Austrian army during the 1809 War. Similar to Bohemia, volunteers were raised from the 24 Landwehr Battalions of Moravia and Silesia. The service record of the Mährische-Schlesische Freiwillige was similar to that the Legion EH Carl. Its three battalions fought well, as did its eight Jewish soldiers. Very different was the experience of the three Free Battalions from Galicia where not enough local volunteers came forward. After failing to reach the desired strength at the start of the war, these units first took foreign mercenaries and deserters and then, when many of these ran away, had to resort to conscripts. The fifteen Jewish soldiers of the Galician battalions were just that - a combination of transferees from the regular army, foreigners (including a deserter from the French army), and later in the war, conscripts. Almost half of them had deserted before the battalions were disbanded. The Bukovina Freikorps actually had two stages: a popular levy, which was badly defeated by the advancing Poles and which was subsequently re-organised as an army-run Freikorps manned primarily by second echelon troops: border guards, garrison troops, and members of the deserter cordon. Each of these formations had a Jewish soldier. Both were volunteers, and one of them even came with his own horse.

It should be made clear that the 41 individual entries in this dataset cannot give a full picture of the Jewish presence in volunteer formations in 1809. Unusually, the enlistment papers of the six battalions of the Wiener Freiwillige, by far the best-known volunteer formation of the Austrian army, did not record the religion of the recruits. Any Jew who served in that unit would not be known to us. Furthermore, the experience of the Jewish members of the volunteer formations should be seen in wider context. It was colourful but unrepresentative. There were probably hundreds of Jews in the Landwehr and several thousands in the regular army. Collective enthusiasm to volunteer pro-actively for military service to prove a point, which occurred in Jewish communities of the Habsburg Monarchy later on and particular during the First World War, was still very far away.

For more information on the Austrian Volunteer Formations during the 1809 War, see:

Alfons von Wrede, Geschichte der k. und k. Wehrmacht, 5 Vols., (Vienna: Seidel, 1898–1905), Vol. 2, pp. 459-66.

For more information on the Legion EH Carl, see:

Anton Ernstberger, Böhmens Freiwilliger Kriegseinsatz gegen Napoleon 1809, Veröffentlichen des Collegium Carolinum 14, (Munich: Robert Lerche, 1963), pp. 9-55.