The Problem of Desertion in the Army of the Habsburg Empire: From the Reign of Maria Theresa to the First Decades of the Nineteenth Century
The Problem of Desertion in the Army of the Habsburg Empire: From the Reign of Maria Theresa to the First Decades of the Nineteenth Century

Summary/Abstract: The article analyses the problem of desertion in the army of the Habsburg Empire and in the regiments recruited from Transylvania in the eighteenth century, a century considered by the historiography of the last decades as the classic “era of deserters.” The causes of desertion are varied and they concern mainly the mode of recruitment specific to those times, when most men did not freely choose to become soldiers. Discipline based on harsh physical punishment, the strenuous efforts to which soldiers were subjected, especially during campaigns, the very poor hygiene and sanitary conditions, alcoholism and mental illnesses (melancholia, Heimweh) and, last but not least, the desire for adventure influenced this phenomenon. There were young men who defected without any qualms of conscience, going from one regiment to another or even from another army to another. In theory, defection was punishable by death, but in practice there was a wide variety of mitigating circumstances in the application of punishments, and the number of those executed was very small in relation to the number of defectors.

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