Swiss troops in service in Lorraine
For almost two centuries, Swiss troops in the service of Lorraine served as life guards , disbanded several times and rebuilt again and again, responsible for the personal protection of the dukes and their families and followed their rise from Lorraine via the Grand Duchy of Tuscany to the imperial court in Vienna .
Duke Charles III. von Lorraine recruited forty mercenaries for his Swiss guards in the Catholic Swiss cantons in 1581 for his personal protection . Five generations later, after Duke Franz III. Stephan had renounced the Duchy of Lorraine and Bar for his marriage to Maria Theresa of Austria in 1736 and had been compensated with the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, this bodyguard moved with him from Nancy to Florence in 1737. She accompanied Franz Stephan in 1745 to Frankfurt a / M to his coronation as Franz I , Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, and to Vienna. There she performed guard duty in the Hofburg until it was dissolved in 1767 by the emperor's son and successor, Joseph II .
Swiss troops in foreign service was the name of the paid service of commanded, whole troop bodies abroad, regulated by the authorities of the Swiss Confederation by international treaties . These treaties contained a chapter regulating military affairs: the so-called surrender (or private surrender if one of the contracting parties was a private military contractor).
The establishment in 1581 during the French Wars of Religion
The Catholic King of France, Henry II , occupied the Duchy of Lorraine and the border bishoprics of Toul , Verdun , Metz and Cambrai in 1552 . In doing so, he temporarily supported the uprising of the Protestant German princes against the Catholic Habsburg Charles V , Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation.
He took the 9-year-old Duke Karl III. as a hostage and brought him to Paris at the royal court. Charles was already in 1545 at the age of only two (!) Years succeeding his father died young Francis I Duke of Lorraine and Mercoeur appointed, but by his mother because of his minority Christina of Denmark was represented in regency.
Seven years later, in 1559, Karl, now of age 16 , was reinstated as ruler of the Duchy of Lorraine after he had married the 11-year-old daughter of King Henry II, Claudia von Valois (physically handicapped by humpbacks and clubfoot) . Renward Cysat , the Lucerne town clerk, reports that even then he had a bodyguard of Swiss mercenaries, whose captain, Lucerne Hans Jakob Göldlin, died in 1565.
Charles III For a long time, although he was raised strictly Catholic, he held back neutral during the French wars of religion . On the other hand, he tried several times, as his predecessors had already done during and after the Burgundian Wars , as a petitioner to conclude an alliance with the Confederates , which was regularly rejected by the Diet , the last time in 1583 . The influence of France and the work of its ambassador in Switzerland were too great an obstacle.
In 1581, the duke had sent Melchior von Rynach , Herr zu Bellemont and Montquentin, a descendant of a Swiss knight dynasty who had emigrated to the Sundgau , to Lucerne , a suburb of the Catholic towns. On the other hand, his request for 40 men as Swiss guards, modeled on the French Hundred Swiss to protect the duke and his family, quickly found the approval of a majority of the Catholic parliament members (and even the King of France!).
| Name, duration of use |
(1) Swiss Guard 1581–1638, 1641–1654, 1699–1767 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Year, contractual partner |
1581 1581: Treaty of Charles III. , Duke of Lorraine and Bar, with the Catholic towns of Lucerne , Uri , Schwyz , Unterwalden , Zug and Freiburg . Lucerne, as a suburb of the Catholic places, conducted the negotiations, the result of which was recorded in an orderly (= service regulations). The orderly demanded u. a.
Which says a lot about the reputation of the Swiss mercenaries at the time! In 1641, the 6 Catholic towns approved by Charles IV , Duke of Lorraine and Bar, to re-establish the guard without concluding a new agreement. 1699 1699: Surrender of Leopold , Duke of Lorraine and Bar, with the Catholic towns of Lucerne, Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Zug and Freiburg. Lucerne conducted the lengthy negotiations. The contract was renewed in 1721 by Duke Leopold and in 1760 by Emperor Franz I Stephan . It contained the clause that the commander could also be a non-Swiss, which complicated the own jurisdiction of the troops, exercised by Swiss officers under Lucerne law. The negotiated conditions for the appointments, the sutler, the German confessor, the pay and the equipment, the nursing and the quarters, four of them for married guardsmen, turned out to the satisfaction of the Confederates. But the Duke's promise to provide a bed for two guardsmen each should have made her suspicious! The surrender was supplemented with an ordinance of 36 articles (code of conduct) and a particular instruction for the lieutenant (essentially instructions for reporting to the authorities in Lucerne and for maintaining relationships with the responsible colonel). During the first renewal, the privileges with regard to customs duties, consumer taxes and meat supplies for the guards, widows and all troop members with more than 12 years of service were improved and the quarters for married guardsmen increased from four to six. In 1760, the salaries were adjusted to the inflation rate and a red uniform was introduced. Their re-establishment period was extended from two to three years, but a new gray overcoat is given every year to protect them. In 1764, Emperor Franz I Stephan raised a short-lived new Swiss Guard for his son Joseph II , led by Lieutenant Xaver Emanuel Pfyffer von Altishofen. It was merged with the Swiss Guard again in 1765. |
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| Stock, formation |
When it was first deployed in 1591, the company consisted of 40 men.
In 1634, during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), the number had fallen to 32 men, rose again to 60 men by 1636 and, after the first dissolution in 1638 and re-establishment in 1641, three years later, in 1644, only 18 men out. In 1654 it was dissolved for the second time. A request from Duke Charles IV in 1667 for the re-establishment of the guard with 3 officers and 64 men to the Catholic cantons failed due to the lack of agreement on the outstanding claims of the previous and the financial requirements for the new guard. It was not until 1698 that Duke Leopold succeeded in recruiting a Swiss Guard with 1 officer, 2 NCOs and 63 men. In 1716 it was increased to 1 captain, 2 lieutenants and 1 ensign, expanded to 100 men in 1721 with renewed surrender, reinforced with 20 men in 1749 and 10 men in 1755 and 10 men and 1 corporal in 1760. In 1764, the Swiss Guards of Emperor Franz I Stephan and Crown Prince Joseph II, which existed side by side, reached the highest number of the (Habsburg, Tuscan) Lorraine Swiss Guard. In 1767, shortly afterwards, the Swiss Guard in Vienna, which was reunited from the two in 1765, was finally dissolved. The Swiss Guard's team has changed over time as follows:
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| Owner, commander, namesake |
The Council of Lucerne pulled out all the stops to be able to assign the lucrative position of the guards commander himself to an officer of the local leadership, which he usually succeeded with with a few exceptions and varying financial success. But not right away: 1581–1596: Captain Girard von Rynach. An Alsatian nobleman from a family of knights who originally immigrated from Aargau was appointed first commandant. At least Philipp Jakob von Wartensee was his deputy as a Swiss lieutenant. 1596–1630: Colonel Rudolf Pfyffer (Small Councilor in Lucerne). Colonel Rudolf Pfyffer was only temporarily present in Nancy, and his ailing deputy, the younger Dr. Rudolf Pfyffer, stayed alternately in Kreuzheim, Ruffach or Kaisersberg. The guard was de facto led by the scheming Lieutenant Michael Pfyffer, in the absence of a clear order of competencies, fairly arbitrarily. Colonel Pfyffer decreed the transfer of command from Lieutenant Pfyffer to Lieutenant Golder and Knight Jost Bircher as his own successor in 1627, but he immediately canceled the whole thing and took over command again himself. A subsequent investigative commission from Lucerne came to nothing. Colonel Pfyffer was the lieutenant and his deputy, Dr. Pfyffer sold the captaincy (for CHF 12,000) to Baron Antoine du Châtelet (from the de Trichâteau-Bonney line )! 1630–1634: Colonel Antoine von Châtelet and Cirey. The appointment of a non-Swiss as a guard commander met resistance in Lucerne. Duke Karl, however, agreed with the combatant officer, since military service should now be added to the previous guard service. In order to ensure recruitment in Switzerland, Châtelet applied for a guard governor in Lucerne. The council then appointed: 1630 councilor Johann Leopold Peyer, 1636 lieutenant Johann Leopold Peyer in the courtyard. 1634–1638: Lieutenant Johann Leopold Peyer in the courtyard. In 1635 Peyer reported to Lucerne that he had been in command of the guard of 60 men for two years. 1638–1641: the Swiss Guard of the Dukes of Lorraine was dissolved for 3 years. 1641–1654: Lieutenant Niklaus an der Allmend commanded the Swiss Guard according to the old orderly of 1591. 1654–1698: the Swiss Guard of the Dukes of Lorraine was dissolved for 44 years. 1699–1727: Captain Hans Kaspar an der Allmend. With the capitulation in 1699, the commandant of the guard at the ducal, grand-ducal or imperial court received a nobleman as a contact person, mostly a war-experienced Lorraine colonel: 1699–1701 Count de Salins in Nancy, 1701–1707 Baron de Chauviray, 1707–1745 Baron Ferdinand Lunati-Visconti, 1745–1756 Count Kaspar Fernandez of Cordua and Alajon, 1757–1767 Count Anton von Colloredo. 1727–1753: Captain Alphons Franz Pfyffer von Altishofen. 1753–1767: First Lieutenant Fridolin Leonz Hartmann. |
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| Origin squad, troop |
Nominally from the Catholic cantons of Switzerland with a focus on Lucerne, the officers almost always from (the city) Lucerne. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Use, events |
The Swiss Guard was a bodyguard for guard duty for personal protection and the security of their employers . These were successively the Dukes of Lorraine and Bar , the Grand Duke of Lorraine-Tuscany and the family of Franz I Stephan von Habsburg-Lothringen, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.
She fulfilled this mandate at the following locations: 1591–1634: Nancy, 1634 Besançon: Duchess Nicole , Charles IV's wife remaining in Nancy, dissolved the 32-man guard in Nancy in 1634 (from the cantons of Lucerne, Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Zug, Friborg and von Delsberg). Under the leadership of Châtelet, the company marched to Besançon to see Duke Karl, who immediately reinstated them. She accompanied him, chronically unpaid and underserved, on his wanderings. 1635–1638: Tübingen: The Bavarian commandant of Tübingen even refused to provide the guard with food. The Council of Lucerne then allowed Lieutenant Peyer to withdraw and return home. 1638–1641: the Swiss Guard of the Dukes of Lorraine was dissolved for 3 years. 1641–1643: Worms, 1644: Frankfurt a / M and Cologne: After the guards were reestablished, their commander, Lieutenant an der Allmend, was initially optimistic and reported to Lucerne in 1643:
But then Karl was put under a spell by the Pope for bigamy and halved the pay, which, however, constantly failed to materialize. Just one year later, the Allmend complained that he had been keeping the guard from his own resources for 3½ years and had used up all of his fortune. The guards suffered from hunger, the bad circumstances, were even ordered to combat operations and shrank to 18 men, but held out anyway. 1645–1648: Cologne, 1649: Cambrai, 1650: Antwerp, Brussels, 1651–1654: Limburg: Duke Karl was arrested at a report at the Spanish court in Brussels in 1654, taken prisoner to Toledo and released from the Swiss Guard by his brother, Duke Nikolaus Franz. 1654–1698: the Swiss Guard of the Dukes of Lorraine was dissolved for 44 years. 
Ducal Palace in Florence (right) 1742 by Canaletto
1699–1703: Nancy: After the re-establishment of the Swiss Guard, the situation in Nancy was bleak. Not even Duke Leopold initially had an apartment. He quartered the guard with private individuals and converted the free accommodation into a pay allowance, which then regularly failed to materialize. The only job of the guard was to accompany the Duke and Duchess on the way to church! Already in 1705 the agreed number of 4 married guardsmen was exceeded with 15 women and the guardsman Jost Vonesch from Ettiswil even got into difficulties because he had married a citizen of Lunéville. 1703–1737: Lunéville, 1737–1738: Brussels, Mons, Ostend, Dunes, Plymouth, Livorno: After a long period in Lunéville, the Guard, with inevitable discussions about travel expenses, was ordered to Florence by Grand Duke Franz II Stephan and gradually shifted to embarkation for Ostend. The crossing to Livorno was almost a disaster: when, after waiting five weeks, the winds seemed favorable, the Virgin Mary set sail , but was driven to England and almost capsized. When she was able to anchor in the roadstead at Dunes, she was torn loose by the storm and barely managed to escape to Plymouth. After she finally sailed on, the storm came up again and drove her 300 km back into the English Channel. Two men had to hold the wheel, four men were constantly pumping the water, all were seasick, the guards chaplain distributed the last sacraments and 1,100 rosaries were prayed and 3 masses were read every day. After the sea was finally calmer, a pirate ship appeared west of Portugal , but it turned away when the guardsmen in their yellow-red uniforms and loaded weapons lined up on deck. There was no wind and great heat and six weeks after departure from Plymouth, after entering the Mediterranean, again headwinds and storms, until after two months the happy landing in Livorno, safe and without losses, could be celebrated with a big Te Deum . 1738–1745: Florence: Quiet times followed for the Guard in Florence. But soon disputes broke out about the amount of wages and the value of money. 1745–1767: Vienna: These discussions continued when the Guard, after having accompanied Franz Stephan to the imperial coronation in Frankfurt and moved to Vienna, took over guard duty in the Hofburg and also performed mainly at parades. The soldiers were housed in rented rooms ( 1, Freyung 1 , Strauchgasse 2, then owned by the Counts of Kaunitz , now Palais Hardegg ) from 1745 to 1748, and from 1748 in the court stables of Schönbrunn Palace . In 1760, according to some sources, the Swiss Guard at Kotzemitz and on the White Mountain near Prague seems to have been deployed in the war, and in 1764 a large detachment accompanied Crown Prince Joseph to his coronation in Frankfurt. The high-handed attitude of certain councilors in Lucerne, however, created more and more dissatisfaction with the employer. After Emperor Franz I Stephan died in 1765, the guard was initially only sworn provisionally and then not at all, and departures were no longer replaced. A renewal proposal of Lucerne for the surrender, with demands misunderstanding the situation, suffered shipwreck after lengthy negotiations: the young Emperor Joseph II finally disbanded the Swiss Guard in 1767. 1767: the Swiss Guard of the Dukes of Lorraine was finally dissolved. Empress Maria Theresia took care of the dismissed: the four officers received pensions or bridging pensions until they were given a new job. The 167 troops were offered continued employment or severance payments. Even the bereaved were compensated. After they had settled their financial affairs with the help of Captain Hartmann, he led almost 40 guardsmen, as requested by Lucerne (!) With a waving guard flag and sounding game (rolled up on the way and without musical accompaniment), on the march from Vienna home. They were welcomed and accompanied in full honor by the places they crossed on federal territory. Two men of the rest of the guards had died and 15 had joined the imperial body regiment in Vienna (with the approval of Lucerne, which had actually stipulated strict non-military employment - with the exception of officers -). Twelve guardsmen had found employment in Innsbruck, 17 in Prague, 24 in Schloss Hof, 52 in Hollitsch (Slovakia) and 14 in Vienna, Schönbrunn, Laxenburg and Eckartsau as castle guards and so-called gate swiss workers in imperial properties. After Maria Theresa's death in 1780, the benefits in Switzerland were adjusted downwards or canceled, which caused further financial aftermath. |
The Duchy of Lorraine, French "plaything" between all fronts until 1736
In 1584, Duke Charles III joined. but then to the Catholic League of Henri de Guise , which the overthrow of his brother-in-law Heinrich III. aspired to. This, the last French king of the House of Valois and childless, was murdered in 1589 by a fanatical young Dominican . German Protestant mercenaries then devastated the Duchy of Lorraine on their way to the troops of his successor and first Bourbon , Henry IV .
What put the Duchy of Lorraine and Bar between the fronts of the religious battles of the time and the clashes between France and Habsburg was not only the geographical location of the Duchy, which made it a marching region, or its modest size, which gave little respect to the powerful countries of the time was able to infuse. The internal quarrels and the repeated changes in foreign policy of some of his dukes also contributed significantly to theirs.
In 1608, after the death of Duke Charles III, his eldest son Henry II succeeded him as Duke of Lorraine and Bar. Although a fundamentalist Catholic, he had married the staunch Calvinist Catherine de Bourbon in 1599 - for reasons of state. The papal dispensation was a long time coming and the unhappy, childless marriage ended after only 5 years with Catherine's death.
His second wife, Margarita Gonzaga, gave birth to no son, but four daughters. He married two of them to the sons of his younger brother Franz II : Nicole with the later Duke Charles IV and Claudia with his younger brother Nikolaus II Franz .
Heinrich II tried to stay out of the Thirty Years War. To protect against foreign troops moving through, he strengthened several of his fortresses and thereby almost ruined the Lorraine state finances.
The Swiss Guard spent a relatively quiet time with him in Nancy.
That changed when, after his death in 1624, his daughter Nicole did not succeed him, as he had planned, but the Lorraine General Estates appointed his younger brother Franz II as Duke of Lorraine and Bar in 1625. However, the latter resigned five days later, after paying his debts at state expense, in favor of his son Charles IV.
Duke Charles IV, an unsteady, warlike character, also referred to by some as Richelieu's nightmare , was rarely in Lorraine and often changed sides. Although he had ceded the duchy to his politically unencumbered brother Nicholas II Franz at the last moment, his partisanship for the anti-French forces led to the conquest of Lorraine by French troops in 1634. From then until the end of the 17th century, the French king ruled the duchy more or less openly on his own authority or temporarily through appointed dukes.
The Swiss Guard led an unsteady life under Charles IV. Their service was characterized by frequent changes of location, lack of pay, poor nutrition, lack of supplies and even occasional combat missions. For a long time she fulfilled her mission faithfully, despite the strongly fluctuating inventory. For a short time it no longer existed and was finally dissolved in 1658 after a new structure.
Charles IV was appointed by France two more times as Duke of Lorraine. His government and military leadership was interrupted by the time he was imprisoned in Toledo (a total of five years).
In 1664 the council in Lucerne rejected his request to raise a regiment of 1,000 men, despite the Duke's promise to recruit half of them first, not to use the troops against France or Spain and to guarantee Lucerne the right of recall if necessary. The financial demands of the councilors could not be reconciled with the ducal possibilities. Not even three years later, when Lucerne even rejected the re-establishment of the Swiss Guard when Charles IV applied again. At least Charles IV, taking advantage of the religious differences between the confederates, succeeded in recruiting 120 mercenaries as crews for his various castles.
After all, it was the descendants of his brother Nicholas II Franz, the Dukes Charles V (1675–1690) and his son Leopold (1690–1729) who, after his death in 1675, served as titular dukes of the Duchy of Lorraine under French occupation in imperial service European powers except France were recognized. It was only Leopold who succeeded in rebuilding the Swiss Guard, which was disbanded in 1654 when Charles IV was captured, towards the end of the century.
The steep career of Duke Franz III. Stephen of Lorraine and Bar after 1736
Franz Stephan , the 15-year-old son of Duke Leopold, was sent to the Austrian court in Vienna for training and there by Emperor Karl VI. treated almost like a son. The emperor had no male offspring and therefore sought the approval of the most powerful princes in Europe for his pragmatic sanction , which his daughter Maria Theresa provided as heir to the throne.
Six years later, in 1729, after the death of his father Leopold, Franz Stephan returned to Nancy as Duke of Lorraine and Bar. The tender ties between the young Duke of Lorraine and the Habsburg Archduchess Maria Theresa were to give his life a decisive turn. His marriage wish was passionately reciprocated by Maria Theresa and came to his future father-in-law, Emperor Karl VI. located. In 1735 it became part of the preliminary peace treaty for the Peace of Vienna .
Franz Stephan renounced it to the duchy of Lorraine and Bar in favor of marriage to Maria Theresa in 1736. He became the prerogative same time the reversion of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany , which a year later, after the death of the last Medici , in Habsburg Sekundogenitur took . From 1739 the couple lived in Vienna; the Grand Duchy of Tuscany was administered by officials as one of its financial sources.
When Charles VI. Died in 1740, the imperial throne went to the Bavarian Wittelsbacher Karl VII. Franz Stephan, Grand Duke of Tuscany, became co-regent of Maria Theresa. As the heir to Charles VI, she was now Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia and thus ruler of the Habsburg hereditary lands .
But that's not all: When Charles VII died in 1745, Franz Stephan was crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation in Frankfurt am Main . So in just nine years he had risen from a simple duke to the most powerful emperor - what a steep career!
As the progenitor of the new Princely House of Habsburg-Lothringen , which still exists today , he had a happy marriage as Emperor Franz I Stephan with Maria Theresa. Of their sixteen children, thirteen reached adulthood. Later two of his sons, Joseph II and Leopold II , succeeded him as emperor and one daughter each became queen of France and Naples-Sicily .
Blessed with little military talent, he tended to stand in the background in the War of the Austrian Succession . But as a competent financial expert he restructured the imperial state budget and founded the Habsburg-Lorraine family fund, which existed until the end of the dual monarchy in 1918.
The end of the Swiss Guard of the Dukes of Lorraine in 1767 in Vienna
The Swiss Guard accompanied Franz Stephan from Nancy to Florence in 1737 and from there to Vienna in 1745. She took part in his coronation as emperor in Frankfurt a / M and led a leisurely life in Vienna, housed in the Swiss wing of the Hofburg, with guard duty and as a representative troop at parades and on ceremonial occasions. Only after the death of Emperor Franz I in 1765 was it finally dissolved in 1767 by his son and successor Joseph II, a supporter of Enlightenment absolutism (everything for the people, nothing through the people!) With a reform-oriented spirit.
Maria Theresa campaigned for the continued employment or compensation of the dismissed, their relatives and survivors. When she died in 1780, the pensions still running were cut, which in Switzerland led to some diplomatic aftermath with Austria.
With that the chapter of the Swiss Guard of the Lorraine dukes was finally over.
literature
- Theodor von Liebenau: Lothringen and Switzerland , in: Katholische Schweizerblätter 1897, OCLC 717496373 .
- Karl Stähelin: History of Alsace-Lorraine , printing and publishing by R. Oldenburg, Munich and Berlin 1920.
- Walter Mohr: History of the Duchy of Lorraine: The Duchy of Lorraine between France and Germany (14th-17th century) , publishing house of the academic bookstore Interbook, Trier, 1986, OCLC 493964656 .
- Renate Zesinger: Franz Stephan von Lothringen (1708–1765): Monarch, Manager, Patron , Böhlau Verlag Vienna Cologne Weimar 2008.
See also
- Swiss troops in foreign service
- Lorraine
- Ducal Palace in Lunéville
- Ducal Palace in Florence
- Hofburg in Vienna
- Schönbrunn Castle
- Laxenburg castles
- Eckartsau Castle
- Hofburg in Innsbruck
- Castle of Prague
- Hof Castle
- Hollitsch Castle
- Lucerne
Web links
- The world of the Habsburgs
- Museum of Lorraine in the Ducal Palace of Nancy ( Youtube )
- Ducal Palace in Lunèville (Youtube)
- Ducal Palace in Florence (Youtube)
- Pedigree the Dukes of Lorraine (English)
- Ducal Palace in Nancy (French)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Theodor von Liebenau: Lothringen and Switzerland , in: Katholische Schweizerblätter 1897.
- ↑ Joseph Schürmann-Roth: The guardsmen of the Federal Guard in Lorraine, Florence and Vienna in the 17th / 18th. Century , register of persons (edited), Lucerne State Archives 1989.
- ↑ Lischer, Markus: Pfyffer, Rudolf (Altishofen). In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .