Jewish Soldiers of the Habsburg Army (1788-1820)

Version 2 (18 March 2025) includes a further 356 service itineraries. In addition, 41 entries from the previous version were updated or expanded. Currently the database covers a total of 1,858 Jewish soldiers, 421 wives and 83 children. ORIGINAL VERSION 1 (18 September 2024) With more than 1,500 individual entries, this is the inaugural instalment of my research database collated in the framework of the Project Forgotten Soldiers: Jewish Military Experience in the Habsburg Monarchy. This is an open access database, and everyone is welcome to use it according to their own scholarly and personal interests. In 1,189 cases we have official documented records confirming the soldiers were Jewish. In another 313 entries I was able to identify likely Jewish soldiers based on circumstantial evidence cross-referencing names and places of birth, with the presence of confirmed Jewish soldiers drafted into the same units as part of the same recruitment drive. This dataset further includes evidence for 156 spouses and 47 children. While military records do mentions these, their number suggests that the Habsburg army preferred to enlist unmarried men. The database is structured in a similar way to an official individual entry in the Habsburg military records. These were arranged in tables, with soldiers listed by seniority. Name, place and land of birth are followed by age and religion. This latter rubric allows identifying the bulk of the Jewish soldiers. Also included in the record is marital status, profession (if any), number, names and ages of children (if any), followed by a short summary text of the soldier’s service itinerary. While not always consistent in detail, these texts mention enlistment dates, transfers between units, promotions, desertions, periods as prisoner of war and military awards (if any). I have taken the material from the personal records and added several additional parameters: The soldiers are entered into the database according to their date of enlistment. This is followed by a colour-coded table showing their years of service. To see the meaning of the different colours employed, scroll to the legend at the end of the dataset. Following the years of service, we see the date when the soldier left service (final year in service for incomplete service records). When known, the reason the soldier left the army is given (discharge/ death/ desertion etc). Then come the three most important columns within the table: service record, primary sources and units. At first glance, these columns have only a few letters and numbers, but bring your mouse courser onto the relevant field marked with red triangles. An additional window will then open: a. Service Record: Shows the entire service record of the soldier arranged by date. I use original German as it appears in the archival records. If you see spelling differences with modern German – they are there for a reason. b. Primary Sources: Provides the information on all the archival records consulted to reconstruct the service itinerary. The number in the field denotes the number of the archival cartons consulted. c. Units: Number of units in which a soldier serves. Bringing the cursor on to the field will open their list. Most Jewish soldiers served in the line infantry (IR) and the Military Transport Corps (MFWK or MFK). However, there were also Jewish sharpshooters, cavalrymen, gunners and even a few members of the nascent Austrian Navy. The next two columns provide entries of the soldier’s conduct and medical condition, which in Habsburg military jargon was referred to rather callously as Defekten. I note the original medical diagnoses verbatim. When possible to identify, I note the modern medical term. General database-wide parameters are then noted in the next part of the table. Among others, it provides information on enlistment type (conscript/ volunteer?), main branches of service (such as Infantry/ Cavalry/ Artillery), and roles within the military (such as non-commissioned officers/ drummers/ medics). Concluding this part of the table are columns covering desertions, periods as prisoner of war and awards of the army cannon cross (for veterans of 1813-14) and other military awards. The last column provides the original German outtake rubric as to how the soldier left service. In special cases, additional service notes are provides on the right. How to use this dataset This depends on what you are looking for. Firstly, download the dataset on to your computer via the link provided below. It is a simple Excel file which is easy to work with. If you wish to find out whether one of your ancestors served in the Habsburg army, use a simple keyword search. Please note that in our period there was no single accepted orthography meaning that some letters were used interchangeably (for instance B/P; D/T). There were also various patronymic suffices used in different parts of the monarchy (-witz in German/ -wicz in Polish/ -vits in Hungarian). Habsburg military clerks were mostly German speakers who often recorded the name phonetically. For instance, Jankel/ Jankl/ Jacob/ Jacobus all denote the same name. A Jewish teenager who identified himself as Moische when first reporting to duty, may have stayed so in the military records for decades, even if he was already a non-commissioned officer whose subordinates referred to as Herr Corporal. If you study the history of concrete Jewish communities, use the keyword search and the filter option to find entries in the database where this locality is mentioned. Some places like Prague and Lublin could be identified effortlessly. In other cases (and see the above point on German-speaking clerks), place names were recorded phonetically. The military authority usually stuck to official Polish names in Galicia, and Hungarian in the Lands of the Crown of St. Stephan. In reality, a Jewish recruit from Transcarpathian Ruthenia could have his place of birth recorded in Hungarian, Romanian or Rusin. When I could not identify the place in question, I marked it with italics. Do you think you identified something I could not? Excellent! Then please write me, and I will correct the entry in the next instalment of this database. I should stress that, currently, the database is not statistically representative. I have worked chronologically, meaning that there are disproportionally more entries for Jewish soldiers from the Turkish War, the first two Coalition Wars, and the Wars of 1805 and 1809. If you look at some of my other databases (for instance, that of the 1st Line Infantry Regiment 'Kaiser'), you will find least as many Jews who served in the wars of 1813-15. I will cover these in due course. This said, using the filter option of the Excel sheet, you can already make some individual queries. For instance, did Jewish grenadiers meet the minimal height requirement to be eligible for transfer into the elite infantry? (Hint: they did not!) If you are interested in the historical study of nutritional standards, compare the height of the soldiers with their year and place of birth. In my other project, I made calculations of the average height of Habsburg soldiers and I can already reveal that Jewish conscripts were, on average, several centimetres smaller than their non-Jewish comrades drafted in the same annual intake. Whatever stereotypes said, most Jews in the Habsburg Monarchy around 1800 were very poor and the sad fact of malnutrition as a child is reflected in their height as adults. I should stress that this is a cumulative database. ZENODO has an excellent feature allowing updated versions to supersede earlier files while retaining the same DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and metadata. As my research progresses, I plan to upload new versions of this database bi-annually. This includes not only adding new entries, but also expanding and correcting existing ones. It might well be that the service record of a soldier covered up to 1806 will be brought to a later date, possibly even to his discharge from the army. If you have not found whom you are looking for, or if you want to work with larger samples for your research, visit this page again in a few months’ time. And if you do use this database for scholarly research (by all means, please do), do not forget to cite it as you would cite any other item in your bibliography! If you are a museum professional and you want to employ material from your database to illustrate your exhibitions, you are welcome, but please cite this resource for others to learn. Links to this database will also be appreciated.**版本2（2025年3月18日）** 新增356份服役行程记录。此外，上一版本的41条条目已完成更新与扩充。截至目前，本数据库总计收录1858名犹太军人、421名军属妻子及83名子女。 **初始版本1（2024年9月18日）** 本数据库作为「被遗忘的士兵：哈布斯堡君主国犹太军人经历」研究项目的首批成果，共包含逾1500条独立条目。本数据库采用开放获取模式，欢迎所有学者及个人基于自身研究与兴趣使用。其中1189条条目配有官方档案记录，可确认军人的犹太身份；剩余313条条目则通过交叉比对姓名、出生地，并结合同批次征兵中同部队已确认犹太军人的关联线索，推断出其大概率为犹太军人。本数据集还收录了156名配偶及47名子女的相关资料。尽管军事档案中确有提及，但该数据规模也侧面反映出哈布斯堡军队更倾向于征召未婚士兵。 本数据库的结构参照哈布斯堡军事档案中的官方个人条目格式设计，以军衔等级为序整理为表格形式。条目依次包含姓名、出生地及所属领地、年龄与宗教信仰，其中宗教信仰一栏可用于识别绝大多数犹太军人。档案中还包含婚姻状况、职业（若有）、子女数量、姓名及年龄（若有），随后附有该军人服役历程的简短总结文本。尽管细节未必完全统一，但此类文本均记载了入伍日期、部队调动、军衔晋升、开小差记录、战俘经历及军事嘉奖（若有）等信息。本人从个人档案中提取相关素材，并新增了多项参数： 数据库将按入伍日期录入军人信息，随后附有色标编码的表格，展示其服役年限。若需了解各颜色标识的具体含义，请滚动至数据集末尾的图例说明。 服役年限表格之后，将展示军人的退伍日期（若档案不全，则标注其服役的最后一年）。若可查证，还会注明退伍原因（退伍、阵亡、开小差等）。 表格中最为核心的三列依次为：服役记录、原始来源与部队编制。初看之下，这些列仅包含少量字母与数字，但将鼠标光标移至带有红色三角标记的相关字段时，将弹出额外窗口： a. 服役记录：按时间顺序完整展示该军人的服役历程，本人采用档案中原始的德语记录。若发现其拼写与现代德语存在差异，均有其特定原因。 b. 原始来源：说明为复原该军人服役历程所查阅的全部档案资料，字段中的数字代表所查阅的档案盒编号。 c. 部队编制：标注该军人服役过的部队编号，将光标移至该字段可查看完整部队列表。绝大多数犹太军人隶属于线列步兵团（IR）与军事运输团（MFWK或MFK），但也有部分犹太军人担任狙击手、骑兵、炮兵，甚至极少数隶属于初创时期的奥地利海军。 接下来的两列记录了军人的行为表现与健康状况，在哈布斯堡军事术语中，此类信息被颇为生硬地统称为「缺陷档案（Defekten）」。本人将完整保留原始医疗诊断记录，若可确认对应现代医学术语，也会一并标注。 表格的后续部分将记录数据库通用参数，其中包括入伍类型（义务兵/志愿兵）、主要服役兵种（如步兵、骑兵、炮兵）以及军中职务（如士官、鼓手、军医）等信息。 本部分表格的末尾列项，记录了开小差情况、战俘经历，以及陆军炮兵十字勋章（授予1813至1814年退伍军人）与其他军事嘉奖信息。 最后一列展示了原始德语的退伍原因分类标签。特殊情况下，右侧还会补充额外的服役相关备注。 ### 数据集使用指南 使用方式取决于您的研究目标。首先，请通过下方链接将数据集下载至本地，本数据集为易于操作的简易Excel文件。若您希望查询某位先祖是否曾在哈布斯堡军队服役，可使用简单的关键词搜索功能。请注意，该历史时期并无统一的正字规范，部分字母可互换使用（例如B与P、D与T），且君主国不同地区拥有各异的父名后缀（德语区为`-witz`、波兰语区为`-wicz`、匈牙利语区为`-vits`）。哈布斯堡军队的文书大多以德语为母语，常按语音记录姓名，例如Jankel、Jankl、Jacob与Jacobus均为同一姓名。一名初次报到时自称Moische的犹太青年，即便日后晋升为士官并被下属称为「下士先生」，其姓名在军事档案中也可能数十年保持不变。 若您研究特定犹太社区的历史，可通过关键词搜索与筛选功能，查找数据库中提及该地点的条目。诸如布拉格、卢布林等城市可轻松识别，但部分地名（结合前文提到的德语文书记录习惯）会按语音拼写。军事当局在加利西亚地区通常使用官方波兰语地名，在圣斯蒂芬王冠领地则使用匈牙利语地名。实际上，一名来自外喀尔巴阡鲁塞尼亚的犹太新兵，其出生地可能被记录为匈牙利语、罗马尼亚语或鲁塞尼亚语形式。若本人无法识别某一地名，将以斜体标注。若您发现本人未能识别的信息，欢迎来信告知，我将在数据库的下一版本中修正相关条目。 需特别说明的是，当前数据库尚不具备统计代表性。本人按时间顺序整理数据，导致土耳其战争、前两次反法同盟战争以及1805、1809年战争相关的犹太军人条目占比偏高。若您查阅本人的其他数据库（例如「『凯撒』线列步兵团第1团」数据库），会发现其中1813至1815年战争的犹太军人条目数量至少与此相当，相关内容将在后续版本中补充。尽管如此，通过Excel表格的筛选功能，您已可开展部分个性化查询。例如，犹太掷弹兵是否达到转入精英步兵部队的最低身高要求？（提示：并未达到！）若您对历史营养标准研究感兴趣，可将军人身高与其出生年份及出生地进行对比。在本人的其他研究项目中，曾计算过哈布斯堡军人的平均身高，结果显示，同期征召的犹太义务兵平均身高较非犹太战友矮数厘米。无论刻板印象如何，19世纪前后哈布斯堡君主国的绝大多数犹太民众都极为贫困，童年时期的营养不良状况，最终体现在成年后的身高上。 需强调的是，本数据库为累计更新型数据库。齐诺多（ZENODO）平台支持更新版本覆盖旧文件，同时保留统一的数字对象标识符（DOI）与元数据，此功能十分实用。随着研究推进，本人计划每半年发布一次数据库更新版本，不仅新增条目，还会对现有条目进行扩充与修正。例如，某军人截至1806年的服役记录，后续可能被补充至其退伍甚至更晚的时间节点。若您暂时未能找到目标对象，或需要更大规模的样本开展研究，可在数月后再次访问本页面。若您将本数据库用于学术研究（强烈推荐），请务必像引用其他文献一样在参考文献中注明本数据集！若您是博物馆工作人员，希望使用本数据集的资料用于展览展示，同样欢迎，但请注明本资源来源，以便其他受众了解。同时，若能为本数据库提供链接推广，本人将不胜感激。