Exempt (military)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Exempt ( French ), Esente ( Italian ), from Latin Exemptus : free, except (of certain obligations), the highest ranking designated since the late 16th century, officers of a regiment, especially in the Guard - Cavalry , rare in the Guards infantry (but never with the artillery ). The exempt served as a deputy officer at company level and had assumed a hybrid position between non-commissioned officer and officer since the 17th century at the latest . As a rank he holds up to the recent present, for example with the English Yeomen of the Guard under the name Exon .

history

As a military rank , Exempt was first mentioned in 1578 in an orderly of the French King Henry III. This particular that the four oldest teams or contactors ( Archer ) a Compagnie d'ordonnance ( band d'ordonnance or Compagnie d'ordonnance ) from wearing the Hellebarde and the jacket-like tunics ( hoqueton ) were freed; the regulation was 1598 a. a. extended to the Gardes du Corps . Depending on the unit and epoch, between four and twelve, in some cases even more, examples per company were budgeted.

French model is Exempts soon found in many European Guard formations as well as in Bavaria in the bodyguard of Hartschiere .

tasks

Initially, Exempten were often the only NCOs in their units and thus direct superiors of the teams. Their tasks were initially similar to those of sergeants or corporals in other corps. With the emergence of a fixed hierarchy of NCOs in the 17th and early 18th centuries, they moved to the top of the NCO corps. Since then, exempten have been exempted from the duties of the other NCOs, such as drill training or district supervision. Instead, they mostly served as officers of the guard , such as the "Exempt from service" ( Esente di servizio ) of the Pontifical Nobel Guard .

In the absence of the officers, Exempten often also carried out the general official business of their unit, which was the rule especially with guard units.

As members of guards or police units, they could also be entrusted with the arrest and guarding of high-ranking (state) prisoners, such as B. at the French Maréchaussée .

Ranking

The exempten stood at the top of the NCO hierarchy, but enjoyed various privileges of the officers, such as the use of the command staff as a service badge ( canne , since the 18th century often resembling a walking stick; in contrast to the shorter and coarser baton or corporal staff of the other NCOs) . In the cavalry they partly took on the duties of a sergeant , in the infantry those of a company sergeant, but were higher in rank. They enjoyed a higher social prestige than those, mostly received a higher salary and were therefore extremely rarely established at the same time as them (exception today: the Yeomen of the Guard ). Subordinate to the examples were still the lower NCOs, such as the brigadiers (cavalry) or corporals (infantry).

The complicated ranking of the exempten illustrates the cumbersome procedure on the occasion of the abolition of the exempten rank at the Maréchaussée in 1778: A number of longer-serving exempten were taken over to the re-introduced rank of sub-lieutenant ( sous-lieutenant ) and thus clearly counted among the officers . The others were downgraded to sergeant major ( maréchal des logis ) or had to quit if they refused.

In aristocratic guards, whose simple members already had officer rank (namely as ensign or cornet "of the army"), exempten also usually held the rank of captain or captain of the army, in the papal noble guard that of a colonel . In civil troop or police units, Exempten often ranked as army lieutenants, as was the case in the Maréchaussée.

In the German literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the rank was often incorrectly translated as private ; In its hybrid position between NCO and officer corps, the German rank of sergeant lieutenant was better comparable .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Queen's Body Guard of the Yeomen of the Guard
  2. ↑ Etienne Alexandre Bardin, Oudinot de Reggio : Dictionnaire de l'armée de terre , Vol. 4, p. 2220, Paris 1851
  3. ^ Archive for customer of Austrian historical sources , vol. 13, p. 31, Vienna 1854
  4. ↑ Ulrich Nersinger: Soldiers of the Pope. A little history of the papal guards. Nobelgarde, Swiss Guard, Palatingarde and Gendarmerie , p. 20, Kirchliche Umschau, Ruppichteroth 1999
  5. ↑ For example, the French mousquetaires de la garde did find maréchaux des logis (police officers), but no examples. The reverse was the case with the French Garde du corps du roi .
  6. ↑ Up until the beginning of the 20th century, members of the guard or police often had two ranks: one within their unit and a higher rank “from the army”. This is still the practice today at the Pontifical Swiss Guard. Compare Nersinger: soldiers of the Pope. P. 36 f.