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Documents - Military Affairs, Diplomacy, and War
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1.   The Imperial War Constitution [Reichskriegsverfassung] (1681-82)
In response to two threats – the Ottoman advance against Austria and Louis XIV’s aggressive annexationist policy along the Holy Roman Empire’s western border – this resolution mandated the raising....
2.   Ottoman Sultan Mahmud IV's Declaration of War on Emperor Leopold I, signed at Adrianople [Edirne] (February 20, 1683)
This ominous statement accompanied the resurgence of war between the Ottoman Empire and Habsburg Austria. The sultan’s threat-laden declaration shows that religious and political questions were inseparable....
3.   The Turkish Defeat at Vienna (September 12, 1683)
Taken from a pamphlet “Printed for Samuel Crouch at the Corner of Popes-Head Alley next Cornhill, 1683,” this English eyewitness account offers a vivid picture of Christian-Turkish warfare in seventeenth-century....
4.   Introduction of the Brandenburg-Prussian Canton System of Military Recruitment [Kantonreglement], issued by Frederick William I ("the Soldier King"), as an Order to General Field Marshal Albrecht Konrad Finck von Finckenstein (May 1, 1733)
To avoid the high cost of foreign mercenaries, and to minimize desertions, the Prussian king decreed that the physically robust (and tall) sons of the Prussian common people, especially villagers,....
5.   Frederick II ("the Great") of Prussia, "General Principles of War," 134-Page Manuscript in French (1748), issued as Confidential Instructions to his Generals in 1753 (1748/1753)
Here, Frederick pithily expresses his pride in the largely home-grown Prussian soldiery and their noble-born officers. He also demonstrates his concern for the troops’ provisioning, his preference....
6.   "The Views of Count Kaunitz on the International System" (March 24, 1749)
Wenzel Anton Kaunitz-Rietberg (1711-94) formulated his views at great length after negotiating the....
7.   Evaluation of the Armed Forces of the Holy Roman Empire after their Defeat under Austrian Command at the Battle of Roßbach (November 24, 1757)
The defeat at Roßbach by Frederick II’s smaller but more effectively deployed army was a devastating....
8.   Frederick II ("the Great") on the Eve of the Battle of Leuthen (November 28 and December 3, 1757)
On the eve of the battle of Leuthen, Frederick’s situation seemed desperate, and he dispatched the....
9.   Prussian King Frederick II ("the Great"), Correspondence preceding the First Partition of Poland (1770-71)
These exchanges display Frederick’s caution in the face of an international situation in Eastern Europe in which a Russian war with the Ottoman Empire, accompanied by civil war in Poland, threatened....
10.   Law on the Introduction of Universal Military Service in Prussia, signed by King Frederick William III, Hardenberg, and Minister of War von Boyen, among Others (September 3, 1814)
The desire to mobilize the people [das Volk] to overthrow Napoleonic hegemony in Germany lay at the heart of the post-1806 Prussian state reformers’ program. By this law, anticipated in the....
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