Free corporal

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In the territorial armies of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (HRR), the (mostly noble) officer candidates of the center companies ( musketeers , fusiliers ) of the infantry and in general the dragoons were named as free corporals (also private corporals , alternatively Fahnenjunker ) . In the cavalry they were called Standartenjunker . The Austrian Field Marshal Prince Eugene of Savoy is considered to be the inventor of this device.

Free corporals were largely exempt from the obligations of the other NCOs ; as a rule, they were charged with carrying the flag.

For the artillery , which carried neither flags nor standards, there were no separate officer candidate ranks in many states of the HRR. The candidates went through the general career, occasionally already as bombardier, in order then to be promoted preferentially to officer. The designation Stückjunker (after the earlier common designation for artillery pieces ) rather denoted the lowest officer rank in the artillery (analogous to the ensign in the infantry or the cornet in the cavalry); One of the few exceptions was the Electorate of Braunschweig-Lüneburg ( Electorate of Hanover), where the piece junker ranked above all non-commissioned officers as an officer candidate.

The rank was generally considered a privilege of the predominantly noble officer candidates. Most of the candidates entered the regiments when they were still young . For example, the later hussar general Hans Joachim von Zieten was free corporal in the Schwendy regiment at the age of sixteen. The promotion was generally pronounced after basic military training . Not infrequently, however, the candidate had to wait several months or years, which he completed in team rank or as a corporal . The Potsdam regiment of the Royal Grenadiers, known as the Giant Guard or Lange Kerls , had quite a few noble soldiers who stood in line with peasant sons and journeymen. After several years of unreproachable service, non-noble NCOs were promoted to Freikorporal, and later to officers .

In Prussia , a free corporal served in every musketeer company. He ranked between the corporals and the sergeants of the company . Since 1763, the five oldest free corporals received the ensign's patent (that is, they now had officer rank and ranked before the sergeants ). They were therefore called portepee ensigns and were allowed to wear the silver officer's portepee on the crew's short saber.

In Prussia, the free corporal was abolished in the course of the Prussian army reform after 1806 . In his place came the ensign (now team rank) and the portepee ensign (now sergeant rank).

See also

literature

  • Georg von Alten: Manual for Army and Fleet , Volume III, Berlin 1911