At a field camp in Schwabing on 12 October 1682, the newly recruited troops, under the command of Hannibal von Degenfeld, were officially taken into Bavarian service.

The army distinguished itself under Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria during the Great Turkish War, particularly during the Siege of Belgrade.

Bavaria was occupied by Austrian forces during the war, which led to a rising of the people, bloodily put down at the so-called "Murderous Christmas of Sendling" (Sendlinger Mordweihnacht).

However, Maximilian IV found the army in abject condition on his accession to the throne in 1799: hardly any of the units were at full strength, the Rumford uniforms were unpopular and impractical, and the troops were badly-trained.

The young Prince-Elector, who had served under the Ancien Régime in France as a colonel in the Royal Deux-Ponts regiment, made the reconstruction of the army a priority.

The infantry returned to their traditional light blue and, in 1801, all branches of service introduced the Raupenhelm, a helmet with a fore-and-aft horsehair plume, which became characteristic of the Bavarian army.

The Bavarians initially retreated, but only in order to link up with Napoleon's advancing army and to prepare the counter-attack, which took place quickly, methodically and thoroughly.

At the Battle of Austerlitz, the Bavarians secured the flanks and supply lines of Napoleon's army[1] and in 1806-7 they forced several Prussian forts to surrender.

Bavaria was awarded the Austrian province of Tyrol as a reward, but unrest erupted into a full-blown rebellion under Andreas Hofer in 1809, which could only be put down with French assistance.

In the Russian Campaign, the Bavarian army suffered terrible losses - of about 33,000 men (including following reinforcements) who marched in 1812, only 4,000 returned.

Pressed by the Crown Prince and General Wrede, King Maximilan I Josef turned with a heavy heart away from the French and changed to the Allied camp shortly before the Battle of Leipzig.

The attempt by Wrede to stop the victory of the Grande Armée in 1813 at the Battle of Hanau ended in a narrow defeat for his Austro-Bavarian corps.

The Bavarian Commander-in-Chief Prince Karl, who also commanded the southern forces of the German Confederation, was hurrying to the aid of the Kingdom of Hanover when he heard of the Hanoverians' surrender after the Battle of Langensalza.

The rapid Prussian advance meant that Karl was unable to link up with the western forces of the Confederation under Prince Alexander of Hesse, so the Bavarian troops withdrew to Bad Kissingen.

Due to this criticism, King Ludwig II appointed the battle-hardened veteran General Siegmund von Pranckh as the new War Minister on 1 August.

When the candidacy to the Spanish throne of Leopold, Prince of Hohenzollern led to a worsening in relations between Prussia and France in 1870, von Prankh mobilised the two Bavarian army corps on 14 July.

The Bavarians under Jakob von Hartmann stormed Wissembourg and took part in the Battles of Wörth, Beaumont, Sedan and the Siege of Paris.

At the beginning of World War I, the Bavarian Army had an effective strength of 87,214 men including 4,089 officers, physicians, veterinarians and officials; and 83,125 NCOs and other ranks, plus 16,918 horses.

Only in the following units was the proportion of aristocratic officers considerably higher than average: The Bavarian NCO Corps consisted of long-serving and career soldiers, usually recruited from those completing military service.

The system offered the possibility for men to buy exemption from conscription by means of paying a substitute, called an Einsteher ("Proxy") or Einstandsmann ("Stand-In"), to serve in their place (which had to be for a longer time).