The Soldier’s Family in the Habsburg Army from the Late Eighteenth to the Mid-Nineteenth Centuries
The Soldier’s Family in the Habsburg Army from the Late Eighteenth to the Mid-Nineteenth Centuries

Summary/Abstract: Like all modern armies, marriage in the Habsburg military was drastically limited, with officers and especially soldiers facing many difficulties in starting a family. Throughout the period under investigation, the army and the state increasingly interfered in the soldiers’ lives, including their private lives. Not being able to meet the necessary conditions for marriage, most soldiers had to wait for favorable moments to legalize cohabiting relationships or even to live for many years in stable relationships, but without formalizing them. The military environment was, however, conducive to adventurers who could take advantage of a regiment change or the beginning of a war to suddenly break off these relationships and leave behind children to swell the ranks of beggars. Social assistance for soldiers’ families became more and more important as the number of regiments increased, so that a system was gradually organized and perfected, even if it could not cover all the needs of these families.

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