Baden Army
[1] He also relied on the military academy known as the School of War (Ritterliche Kriegsschule), founded in 1616 by John VII, Count of Nassau-Siegen in Siegen.
Small swivelling howitzers (sometimes also referred to as mortars) were attached to the beams, as well as iron pikes (hence the name) which were pointed outwards, in particular to ward off enemy cavalry.
[9] After the death of the last Baden-Baden margrave, Augustus George Simpert, Frederick of Baden-Durlach finally reunited the two states into the Margraviate of Baden.
The hussar squadron remained as an independent unit, the Baden-Baden Cuirassiers and Baden-Durlachian Dragoons formed the Garde du Corps and on top of that two fusilier battalions were set up.
The French Revolution and resulting tensions between France and the great powers of the Holy Roman Empire put Baden in a difficult situation.
In addition to its regular forces, Heinrich Medicus organised a Baden state militia consisting of single 19–50 year olds, so that the military strength of the Margraviate grew to around 16,000 men.
[17] At the beginning of the War of the Fifth Coalition in 1809, Napoleon asked for a new contingent of 6,850 men, who fought under the French Marshal André Masséna at the Battle of Ebelsberg.
Apart from a battalion assigned to the imperial headquarters, the Badenese contingent under Major General William of Hochberg formed a brigade in Marshal Victor's IX Corps.
[28] The remnants of the Baden Brigade were reinforced in Glogau by 1,200 men in order to defend the French-held fortress against the advancing Russian and Prussian besiegers.
Landwehr and Landsturm were set up based on the Prussian model, and with the introduction of general conscription in December 1813, a total of 16,000 men were called up.
Under the command of William of Hochberg, it besieged the French fortresses of Kehl, Strasbourg, Landau in der Pfalz and Pfalzburg and returned to Baden in June 1814.
The deployment comprised five infantry battalions and one field battery that served in a brigade in the mixed division of the Württemberg General Moriz von Miller and were stationed in Holstein.
Led by Friedrich Hecker, Gustav Struve, Franz Sigel and Joseph Fickler, volunteers (Freischärle) moved from the county of Seekreis in the south-east of the country towards the west and north, while the German Democratic Legion raised in Paris and stationed in Alsace threatened to cross the Rhine.
At the same time, a Württemberg division under General Moriz von Miller was moving southwest from the Baden-Württemberg border to Donaueschingen, and a Bavarian brigade was marching west from Bavaria into the Seekreis.
[47] That left only the German Legion of Georg Herwegh that had been raised in Paris, but he decided to retreat across the Rhine after the defeats of Hecker, Fickler and Sigel.
Gustav Struve, who fled to Switzerland after the April insurrection, crossed the border into Baden again on 21 September and proclaimed the German Republic in Lörrach that same day.
[49] At Staufen, however, he encountered a force that had been summoned from Karlsruhe and Rastatt consisting of two battalions of infantry, one squadron of cavalry and four guns and commanded by General Friedrich Hoffmann.
[52] The rebels were decisively defeated in the Battle of Staufen in the course of which 19 of their number and one soldier were killed, several houses were set on fire and 60 insurgents were captured.
Baden's Minister of War, Hoffmann, marched to Rastatt with other troops to crush them, but most of the soldiers accompanying him also switched over to the side of the revolutionaries.
[58] The advance of I Corps was highly successful, the Palatinate was quickly overcome and, from 15 June Prussian troops were in front of Mannheim, where they were initially stopped by artillery in the Battle of Ludwigshafen.
Mieroslawski switched the main effort of his troops to the south and attacked the outnumbered 1st Prussian Division on 21 June at the Battle of Waghäusel.
Politically, Frederick had also tended to side with Prussia in federal affairs, with the support of his foreign minister Franz von Roggenbach, who advocated the Lesser Germany solution.
They repeatedly expressed their solidarity with their Prussian party comrades, which finally led to the resignation of the Roggenbachs in 1865 and the appointment of the liberal, pro-Austrian Ludwig von Edelsheim.
[74] When the tensions surrounding the Schleswig-Holstein question escalated in 1866, the Grand Duchy initially remained neutral; however, when Prussia left the German Confederation, the armed conflict became a federal execution that the Grand Duchy could not escape, especially since the neighbouring kingdoms of Württemberg and Bavaria both sided with Austria[72] and the people of Baden also had no sympathy for Prussia and its king after 1849.
[80] Baden had to pay reparations of 6 million guldens, and the two states concluded a secret defence and attack alliance (Schutz- und Trutzbündnis).
As early as 15 July 1870, just two days after the Ems Dispatch, the Grand Duchy mobilised its troops, and a week later the government considered the alliance to have come into effect.
Subsequently Werder's formation, now designated as the XIV Army Corps, was deployed against newly raised French troops in south-eastern France.
In heavy fighting, which cost the Badenese division 855 men, the French attacks were finally repelled; Bourbaki's army retreated to Besançon and from there to Switzerland, where it was interned.
Following the victorious Battle of Sedan, the Badenese government proposed Baden's accession to the North German Confederation in a memorandum to Bismarck.
Three weeks later, on Bismarck's recommendation, an official application for accession was submitted and, together with Bavaria and Württemberg, the new German Empire was constituted with William's proclamation as emperor.
