“und dieses gute Verhaltenszeugniß geben kann”: Two Jewish Soldiers in the Croatian Campaign of 1790
On 6th January 1791, Captain Joseph Baron von Soyer signed the papers of two soldiers who were to be transferred from the 1st Staff Infantry Regiment to the Imperial-Royal Military Transport Corps (k.k. Militar-Fuhrwesens-Corps). Written in the margins of the document was the following uncharacteristically long remark:
Während ihres bey der Division Beschiedenes stets guthes aufrichtig angewießen sodaß man mit ihren aller Zufriedenheit und dieses gute Verhalthenszeugniß geben kann[1]
While not giving full justice to its Baroque German phrasing, an English translation of this text would roughly read as follows:
During their time at the Division, they held themselves in an earnest and trustworthy manner so that one is fully satisfied with them and can issue them with this certificate of good conduct
Even the way in which this text was entered into the document makes it stand out. It was written vertically along the edge of the paper sheet [Image 1].
The content is even more of an anomaly. The document in question is a Transferierungs-Liste – a standard pre-printed form used to record the transfer of soldiers between different units of the Habsburg Army [Image 2]. In addition to the names and personal data of the soldiers (age, place of birth, religious affiliation, height), the form included a short service itinerary, and a sub-table listing all army-issued equipment and items of uniform which the men had with them. There was a place for the unit’s military surgeon to note any medical issues. With his signature the captain certified the correctness of the entire information on the sheet and that no backpay was owed to the soldiers.
As one can already gather, the Transferierungs-Liste was an administrative and financial document. Nevertheless, it did have a narrow column – labelled as Conduite – where one could evaluate individual behaviour. This was usually indicated by one word, the most common being Gut, Schlecht or Mittelmassig (good, bad, mediocre).[2] The place in the table was too small to add much else, but sometime a short phrase with more precise information would be squeezed in. Zum Trunk ergeben was a polite way of saying the soldier was a drunkard; Raisonnaire meant the man was insubordinate. Outstanding soldiers could be singled out as Sehr Gut (very good) [Image 3] or praised for their Untadelhafte Haltung – blameless conduct.[3] As with the rest of the Habsburg military paperwork of that time, the guiding principle of Transferierungs-Liste was that of practical functionality – with little place for individuality of any kind. In our case we have here something very different. The Conduite field on our form was left empty. Instead, the company clerk who drafted the document entered the above-mentioned sentence under the slightly wider column Sonstige Anmerkungen (other notes). Still, it had to be written sideways to fit it into the form.
Such a deviation from established administrative practice could not have happened unless it was on the deliberate initiative of the officer in charge. Instead of simply informing the future officers about the good character of his former soldiers, Captain Soyer turned their transfer sheet into a personal letter of reference. Furthermore, by standards of the dry language of Habsburg military administration, the men in question – Privates Loibel Landtmann and Samuel Seelig – were praised in glowing terms. While the document itself is insufficient to prove this, my interpretation of this case builds upon its broader historical context. Landtmann and Seelig belonged to the very first cohort of Jewish conscripts in modern history.
The debate regarding Jewish military service in the Habsburg Monarchy went on and off as part of the broader reform efforts following the Seven Years War (1756-1763). After the substantial expansion of conscription obligations upon the general population during the 1770s,[4] the idea was raised more prominently, not least by Emperor Joseph II who viewed it as part of his wider programme of political and social modernisation. The emperor’s explicit aim was to make his Jewish subjects ‘more useful to the state’.[5] Starting with the 1782 Edict of Tolerance for the Jews of Vienna and Lower Austria, the emperor issued several decrees which enabled Jews to enrol in general schools and universities. Jews were given greater liberty in choosing their profession and acquiring property in places they were already allowed to live. Several particularly humiliating practices, such as being forced to wear “Jewish signs” and paying “cattle tax” or double fees for judicial and administrative services, were abolished. Successful Jewish entrepreneurs and other men of quality were explicitly permitted to wear a smallsword – the outward sign of gentlemanly status.[6]
At the same time, the Edicts of Toleration did not change the existing ban on Jews living in large parts of the Habsburg Monarchy. Furthermore, the Edicts made substantial inroads into Jewish life. The emperor annulled the right of Jewish communities to self-administration and forced them to accept secular subjects into their schools. From that point Jews were only allowed to conduct formal affairs in the language of the land – German or Hungarian. Use of Yiddish in official documents was forbidden, as were several types of traditional Jewish dress. Jews were also ordered to take German names. While expressed primarily in terms of enlightenment and rational utilitarianism, Joseph’s approach was not devoid of a more sinister ideological motive. Although it was coined much later and in a different context, Joseph’s Jewish policy is a classic example of a Mission civilisatrice.[7] By half encouraging, half pushing, the Jews into mainstream society, the emperor hoped to promote their acculturation and eventual assimilation. Conscription appeared as the next logical step. Firstly, the Habsburg Army always needed men. Secondly, there was the implicit premise that more rights entailed greater obligations to the state.[8]
The Habsburg military administration did not share Joseph’s enthusiasm for Jewish military service. The Aulic War Council (Hofkriegsrat) – the highest military authority of the realm – raised practical concerns about Jewish customs (Kashrut, Shabbat) which it saw as incompatible with army life. However, the main reason behind the opposition to Jewish conscription was a deep-seated cultural prejudice. Whatever happened in the glorious days of the Bible, the modern descendants of King David and the Maccabees were seen as utterly unfit for the army.[9] Whatever, we might think of this today, this biased view was not entirely outlandish. While some recent scholarship has demonstrated that the ban on Jews owning or carrying arms was not as universal as previously thought,[10] Jewish cultural discourse spurned the idea of martial masculinity of the early modern period. For the Jewish communal leadership, this self-fashioning as meek and peaceful people, was an important defence mechanism. Firstly, it was to ensure that Jewish young men would be left alone. Secondly, it was to prevent Jews as a people from being drawn into conflicts in which they had no part. Finally, the higher taxes paid by Jews were justified in part by exemption from military service. In other words, Jews already contributed to the war effort.[11]
Joseph II cared little about Jewish unwillingness for military service, and when the Last Ottoman War broke out, he simply brushed aside the reservations of Hofkriegsrat and the army officialdom, by introducing Jewish conscription by Imperial Edict. Nevertheless, even the emperor could entirely forgo the existing prejudices about Jews and warfare. The initial conscription edict assumed that Jews recruits would serve in the army transport branch. At that time, the Habsburg Monarchy was a pioneer in the militarisation of army logistics. While other armies still relied on hired civilian contractors to carry their supplies, since 1776 the Habsburg Army had its own Fuhrwesens-Corps. This was a standing formation with a small core of regular soldiers, which would swell in wartime by a factor of 20 or more.[12] This is where the Jewish conscripts were to serve. This decision was not illogical. Many Jews worked as carters or in commerce and had experience with supply and logistics. Furthermore, although its men stood under full military discipline and wore uniforms, the Fuhrwesens-Corps was not a combat branch. This made it less well regarded among the army.[13] Sending Jews to serve there would be a nod to the established view that Jews were not fighters.
About a year later, in May 1789, another Imperial Toleration Edict was issued for Galicia, which stated that Jews capable and willing may join the Infantry. The Hofkriegsrat took the matter seriously by creating a Jewish version of the army oath.[14] So far, I have come across about a dozen Jewish soldiers who served in the Infantry during the last Ottoman war.[15] For that period, I consulted all the available manpower record for each of the Habsburg Army’s 57 Line Infantry Regiments produced between 1788 and 1791 held in the Austrian State Archives. This includes all their surviving musters, enlistment and transfer papers. Considering that the survival rate of these documents for the period of the Last Ottoman War is between 40 and 50 per cent, simple arithmetic suggests that the number of Jewish soldiers who came to serve in infantry was between two and three dozen men. Even though, their service broke an existing taboo on Jews in combat roles, they were but a small fraction of the Jewish conscripts. Concrete figures for the period until 1790, suggest that at least 1,200 Jews were drafted. Some modern scholars suggest it could have been double that number.[16] To put this into perspective, the Habsburg Monarchy entered the Last Ottoman War with some 300,000 troops, together with 80,000 trained reservists, and then enlisted another 230,000 men.[17] Whether they landed in the infantry or in the Transport Corps,Jewish soldiers were rather a novelty. As with the very first Afro-American police officers hired in the southern USA in the 1960s: they were few, their presence was noticeable, and their colleagues were often initially biased against them.[18] As the first of their kind, their conduct and actions would be scrutinised. In other words, any Jew serving in the Habsburg army in these years would be compelled to prove his worth.
Even the formal part of the transfer sheet of the soldiers Seelig and Landtmann is a mine of information. Samuel Seelig was conscripted on 21st June 1789. Interestingly, he was a foreigner or at least a migrant into the Habsburg Monarchy as he was born in Kron Polen – the still existing but already rump Kingdom of Poland.[19] His comrade Loibel Landtmann also had Poland given as his land of birth. This was technically correct, but his birth town Sambir was already under Habsburg rule since 1772. Thus, Landtmann was a native-born Habsburg subject since his early childhood. His enlistment date is missing, but the transfer sheet states that Landtmann was issued with several new clothing items in May 1790. This indicates his latest possible enlistment date, although he probably entered service earlier. The military equipment list reveals further important information. Unlike infantrymen, who were issued with breeches and cloth trousers only, Seelig and Landtmann also had overpants (Überzug Hosen), which were supplied only to mounted troops. The marital status of both men is given as single. The fact that both were recorded Ohne Profession does not necessarily mean they had no occupation, rather that they did not possess skilled professional training that the army recognised. The latter usually required formal guild membership from Jews were usually banned. In spite of gaps in the record, the suggestion that Landtmann and Seelig were Fuhrwesen soldiers and not infantrymen is attested by the regimental manpower reports for 1790. Landtmann appears on the first surviving monthly table from August that year, as a member of the regimental transport detachment (Regiments-Bespannung).[20] At that point, he was already serving with the staff infantry detachment of the Habsburg Army Corps in Croatia under the command of General Joseph Nikolaus Baron de Vins.
While the men of the staff infantry were trained foot soldiers [Image 4], their primary purpose was to provide support to the army staff. Their duties were to secure the marching routes and guard the supply magazines and baggage convoys, to establish and maintain the army camps and to provide personal guard for the general officers on campaign and in battle.[21] These tasks meant that the Staff Infantry Regiment was broken down into smaller detachments (called ‘divisions’) of several companies each, which were attached to different army corps. For the campaign of 1790, the Habsburg Corps in Croatia was allocated a division of two staff infantry companies. As the more senior of its two captains, Baron Soyer commanded the entire detachment, including its attached military transport personnel. This explains why he subsequently signed Landtmann’s and Seelig’s transfer papers, even though – formally speaking – they were not staff infantry soldiers.
The Habsburg troops in Croatia marched out of their winter quarters on 20th May 1790. In the next few months, Du Vins’ Corps captured several Ottoman strongholds along the Bosnian border.[22] On 20th July, it took the castle of Cetin after a month-long siege [Image 5]. The staff infantry division remained in Cetin with most of its men assigned to demolishing the Austrian siegeworks. On 6th September, Samuel Seelig arrived there from the 18th Fuhrwesens Pro Cento Division. With him, the military transport soldiers under Captain Soyer numbered four men, half of them Jewish. Fighting ended in early October after news was received of a general truce concluded between the Habsburg Monarchy and the Ottoman Empire. By the end of the month the Corps had returned to Croatia. Du Vins took quarters in the Karlovac fortress, while the staff infantry detachment marched further east to Gradec, a village directly on the border with the Varaždin Military Frontier Province.[23] It was there that Landtmann and Seelig were ordered to transfer back into the Transport Corps. Their original Transferierungs-Liste, whose discovery has prompted this article, indicates that the two men left the unit on 10th January 1791. In total, Landtmann served at least five months with Soyer’s division and Seelig four months.
Whatever their duties while attached to the staff infantry, Landtmann and Seelig performed them very well, otherwise it would be hard to explain why their transfer sheet praised them so highly. Perhaps Captain Soyer was keen to atone what might have been his initial mistrust as the dutiful service of his two Jewish soldiers broke existing stereotypes. Contemporary reports in the immediate aftermath of Joseph II’s Conscription Edict were either enthusiastic praise for the new Jewish soldiers, or the usual biased cliches that they were timid, untrustworthy and corrupt.[24] Whether positive or negative, all this was based on hearsay. In comparison, the transfer sheet of Loibel Landtmann and Samuel Seelig offers the only original document known at this date in which Jewish soldiers received a detailed evaluation by their direct commanding officer.
[1] Austrian State Archives [ÖStA], Military Archive [KA], Musterlisten und Standestabellen der k.k. Armee [MLST] 11.201, 1st Staff Infantry Regiment (1791): Transferirungs-Liste [TL], Nrs. 1-2 (Gradec, 6th January 1791).
[2] Out of 142 documented Conduite entries in the inaugural version of my open access database only two soldiers are evaluated with different terms than these three words, see: Ilya Berkovich, Jewish Soldiers of the Habsburg Army (1788-1820), [Dataset], Version 1, Zenodo (18 September 2024), https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13787516.
[3] See for example the papers of the Jazko Jacobowitz, who was transferred into the Vienna Military Police Guard: ÖStA KA MLST 1071, 14th Line Infantry Regiment ‘Erzherzog Rudolf’ (1817): TL Nr. 1, (Salzburg, 5th May 1817). For more about the first Jewish Policemen in the Habsburg Monarchy, see: Ilya Berkovich and Evelyn Knappitsch, ‘Deserteur aus Gewissensgründen? Der Wiener Polizeisoldat Joseph Reinbach (1806-1810)’, Der Standard: Geschichte Österreichs (Blog), [forthcoming February 2025].
[4] Ilya Berkovich, ‘Conscription in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1740-92’, in: William Godsey and Petr Mat’a (eds.), The Habsburg Monarchy as a Fiscal-Military State, c. 1648-1815: Contours and Perspectives, Proceedings of the British Academy 247 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), pp. 298–321, [here pp. 300–1, 310–2] https://doi.org/10.5871/bacad/9780197267349.003.0014.
[5] Joseph used these very words in the preamble to his first policy statement regarding his Jewish subjects, issued half a year into his personal reign on 13th May 1781. See Derek Beales, Joseph II, Vol. 2, Against the World, 1780– 1790, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 201, who also provides an excellent summary of the Emperor’s subsequent Jewish Edicts.
[6] B. Ann Tlusty, The Martial Ethic in Early Modern Germany: Civic Duty and the Right of Arms, Early Modern History: Society and Culture, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), pp. 124–30 https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230305519.
[7] See the superb definition on the starting page of Boris Barth and Rolf Hobson, ‘Civilising Missions from the 19th to the 21st Centuries, or from Uplifting to Democratization’, in: ibid. (eds.), Civilizing Missions in the Twentieth Century, Studies in Global and Social History 40, (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2020) pp. 1–20 https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004438125_002.
[8] Beales, Joseph II, pp. 209-210, 602; Michael K. Silber, ‘From Tolerated Aliens to Citizen-Soldiers: Jewish Military Service in the Era of Joseph II’, in Peter M. Judson and Marsha L. Rozenblit (eds), Constructing Nationalities in East Central Europe, (New York: Berghann, 2004), pp. 19-36 [here: 25–6] https://doi.org/10.1515/9781782388579-007.
[9] On the army’s consistent opposition to Jewish soldiers, see: Erwin A. Schmidl, Habsburgs jüdische Soldaten, 1788–1918, (Vienna: Böhlau, 2014), pp. 29–32 https://doi.org/10.7767/boehlau.9783205793366; Michael Hochedlinger, Thron & Gewehr: das Problem der Heeresergänzung und die “Militarisierung” der Habsburgermonarchie im Zeitalter des Aufgeklärten Absolutismus (1740–1790), Veröffentlichungen des Steiermärkischen Landesarchivs 45, (Graz: Steiermärkisches Landesarchiv, 2021), pp. 603–5, 675–6.
[10] Tlusty, The Martial Ethic, pp. 175–85; Reinhard Buchberger, ‘„… unter die Soldaten gekommen”: Jüdische Söldner und Soldaten un mitteleuropäischen Armeen der Frühen Neuzeit’, in: Martha Keil, Peter Rauscher and Sabine Ullmann (eds.), Juden und Krieg in der Frühen Neuzeiten: Akteure – Erfahrungen – Strukturwandel, Vorschungen zur Geschichte der Juden, Abteilung A: Abhandlungen 33, (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2022), pp. 25–44 [particularly 26–28].
[11] An outward expression of Jewish disdain for military matters is to be seen in illustrations of the early modern Passover Aggadahs, where the archetypical wicked son is often portrayed as a soldier, see: Michael Silber, ‘Einst waren Krieger. Zur bildlichen Darstellungen von Juden im Militär der frühen Neuzeit’, in: Keil, Rauscher and Ullmann, Juden und Krieg, pp. 45–78 [here pp. 60–2]. On established martial values in early modern Europe, see: Lucian Staiano-Daniels and Ilya Berkovich, ‘Soldiers’, in: Tim Reinke-Williams (ed.), Routledge Companion to Masculinity in Early Modern Europe, (Abington: Routledge, 2025) [forthcoming].
[12] Hochedlinger, Thron & Gewehr, pp. 481–2.
[13] Erwin A. Schmidl, Habsburgs jüdische Soldaten, pp. 28–9.
[14] Schmidl, Habsburgs jüdische Soldaten, p. 33; Hochedlinger, Thron & Gewehr, p. 606.
[15] Ilya Berkovich, Jewish Soldiers of the Habsburg Army (1788-1820), [Dataset], Version 1, Zenodo (18 September 2024), https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13787516. Entries for David Koschler, Salomon Zupferer, Samuel Glasser, Joseph/Salomon Kaufmann, Joseph Mareck, Samuel Gross, Michael Sawitz, Jacob Bley, Bernard Stiasny, Naphtali Neumann, Isak Joseph and Jacob Popper.
[16] Hochedlinger’s Thron & Gewehr is the first study to cite actual numbers from the Hofkriegsrat reports see: pp. 607 and 647. The figure of 2,500 soldiers, which appears in Johann Sznajdman, Die Zeit der Aufklärung und die Juden in Oesterreich unter der Regierung Josef II., (University of Vienna: Unpublished PhD Dissertation, 1934), p. 96, has been repeated uncritically several times, including by the current author, see for instance: Christoph Lind, ‘Juden in den habsburgischen Ländern 1670–1848’, in Eveline Brugger et al., Geschichte der Juden in Österreich, (Vienna: Ueberreuter, 2006), pp. 404–5; Hochedlinger, Thron & Gewehr, p. 607; Ilya Berkovich and Michael Wenzel, ‘The Austrian Army’, in: Alan Forrest (gen. ed.), The Cambridge History of the Napoleonic Wars, 3 Vols., (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022-23), Vol. 2, pp. 106–28 [here p. 111] https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108278096.007.
[17] Hochedlinger, Thron & Gewehr, p. 613–4, 641.
[18] Very illuminating in this respect are the experiences of Deputy Chief Lorey Stover, see his biography: Bessie Stover Powell and Don L. Powell, Leroy Stover, Birmingham, Alabama’s First Black Policeman: An Inspirational Story, A Three Decade Perspective, (Maitland, Florida: Xulon Press, 2023).
[19] On links/ connections between migration background and military service, see Ilya Berkovich, ‘The Unlikely Case of the Jewish Mercenary Nathan Leibowitz (1777–1810),’ Mars & Clio (January 2023), 19–24, [here p. 19] https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8352747.
[20] ÖStA KA MLST 11.200, 1st Staff Infantry Regiment (1790): Monat Tabella [ST], August (22nd February 1796).
[21] Christopher Duffy, The Austrian Army in the Seven Years War, Vol. 1: Instrument of War, 2nd Edition, (Warwick: Helion, 2020), p. 420; Hochedlinger, Thron & Gewehr, p. 636.
[22] For an overview of the military operations in Croatia, see: Anon. ‘Feldzug des k. k. kroatischen Armeekorps im Jahre 1790 gegen die Türken’, Österreichische Militärische Zeitschrift 1.1-3 (1827), pp. 1–42; On the general context of this campaign, see: Matthew Z. Mayer, ‘The Price for Austria’s Security: Part II. Leopold II, the Prussian Threat, and the Peace of Sistova, 1790-1791’, International History Review 26 (2004), pp. 473-514 [here pp. 490–91].
[23] ÖStA KA MLST 11.200, 1st Staff Infantry Regiment (1790): ST September (5th March 1796) and October (Mantua, 20th April 1796).
[24] Sznajdman, Zeit der Aufklärung, pp. 94–8; Hochedlinger, Thron & Gewehr, p. 607.
Ilya Berkovich is a Research Associate at the Institute of Habsurg and Balkan Studies. He is working on a new history of the Habsburg Army during the Napoleonic Wars.
OpenEdition schlägt Ihnen vor, diesen Beitrag wie folgt zu zitieren:
Ilya Berkovich (29. Januar 2025). “und dieses gute Verhaltenszeugniß geben kann”: Two Jewish Soldiers in the Croatian Campaign of 1790. Die Habsburgermonarchie. Abgerufen am 8. September 2026 von https://doi.org/10.58079/136fq
