Danish Auxiliary Corps in Habsburg service 1701–1709

Ten thousand soldiers served as an auxiliary corps to the Habsburg monarchy, fighting under Eugene of Savoy in northern Italy, including the battles of Cremona and Luzzara.

Downsizing the army was not possible, since the Danish king wanted to retain the option of going to war with Sweden at some future date, in order to regain the provinces lost in the treaty of Roskilde 1658; moreover, it was well known in Europe of the time that unemployed soldiers might well turn into robbers.

King Frederick V therefore decided to make more than half of the Danish army's 35,000 soldiers, two-thirds of which were enlisted in Germany, available to the Allied powers during the War of the Spanish Succession.

It marched from Saxony in September 1701 and continued through Germany and Tyrol to Piacenza in northern Italy, arriving on New Year's Eve of 1701, joining a Habsburg army of about thirty thousand men under Eugen of Savoy besieging Cremona.

Later the same year, the Danish corps participated in the siege of Mantua, which Eugen was forced to interrupt upon the arrival of a more numerous French army, and then in the bloody battle of Luzzara that followed.

The Danish corps suffered large losses, especially in the last battle, and only half of the original force was fit to fight at the end of the year.

The Danish king, who planned to resume the war with Sweden, provided the corps with ample enlistment bounties, so that on their return to Denmark its full complement of soldiers were almost restored.