In the history of the Holy Roman Empire, the term Imperial Army may refer to:
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The Siege and Battle of Vienna took place at Kahlenberg Mountain near Vienna on 12 September 1683 after the city had been besieged by the Ottoman Empire for two months. The battle was fought by the Holy Roman Empire (led by the Habsburg monarchy) and the PolishâLithuanian Commonwealth, both under the command of Polish King John III Sobieski, against the Ottomans and their vassal and tributary states. The battle marked the first time the Commonwealth and the Holy Roman Empire had cooperated militarily against the Ottomans. The defeat was a turning point for Ottoman expansion into Europe, after which they would gain no further ground. In the ensuing war that lasted until 1699, the Ottomans would cede most of Ottoman Hungary to Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor.
The battle was won by the combined forces of the Holy Roman Empire and the PolishâLithuanian Commonwealth, the latter represented only by the forces of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland (the march of the Lithuanian army was delayed, and they reached Vienna after it had been relieved). The Viennese garrison was led by Feldzeugmeister of the Holy Roman Imperial Army Ernst RĂŒdiger Graf von Starhemberg, an Austrian subject of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I. The overall command was held by the senior leader, the King of Poland, John III Sobieski, who led the relief forces.
The Sack of Rome, then part of the Papal States, followed the capture of Rome on 6 May 1527 by the mutinous troops of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, during the War of the League of Cognac. Charles V only intended to threaten military action to make Pope Clement VII come to his terms. However, most of the Imperial army (14,000 Germans, including Lutherans, 6,000 Spaniards and some Italians) were largely unpaid. Despite being ordered not to storm Rome, they broke into the scarcely defended city and began looting, killing, and holding citizens for ransom without any restraint. Clement VII took refuge in Castel Sant'Angelo after the Swiss Guard were annihilated in a delaying rear guard action; he remained there until a ransom was paid to the pillagers.
Benvenuto Cellini, eyewitness to the events, described the sack in his works. It was not until February 1528 that the spread of a plague and the approach of the League forces under Marshal of France Odet de Foix forced the army to withdraw towards Naples from the city. Rome's population had dropped from 55,000 to 10,000 due to the atrocities, famine, an outbreak of plague, and flight from the city. The subsequent loss of the League army during the Siege of Naples secured a victory in the War of the League of Cognac for Charles V. The Emperor denied responsibility for the sack and came to terms again with Clement VII. On the other hand, the Sack of Rome further exacerbated religious hatred and antagonism between Catholics and Lutherans.
The Landsknechte (singular: Landsknecht, pronounced [ËlantsknÉçt]), also rendered as Landsknechts or Lansquenets, were German mercenaries used in pike and shot formations during the early modern period. Consisting predominantly of pikemen and supporting foot soldiers, their front line was formed by Doppelsöldner ("double-pay men") renowned for their use of ZweihĂ€nder and arquebus. They formed the bulk of the Holy Roman Empire's Imperial Army from the late 15th century to the early 17th century, fighting in the Habsburg-Valois wars, the Habsburg-Ottoman wars, and the European wars of religion.
Although prone to mutiny if unpaid and divided within their ranks between Catholics and Lutherans, the Landsknechte were well-armed and experienced warriors, recruitable in large numbers throughout Germany and Austria by the Holy Roman Emperor. This guaranteed both quantity and quality to the Imperial military for a century and a half. At their peak during the reign of Charles V of Habsburg, and under the leadership of notable captains such as Georg von Frundsberg and Nicholas of Salm, the Imperial Landsknechts obtained important successes such as the capture of the French King Francis I at the Battle of Pavia in 1525 and the resistance against the Ottoman Turks led by Suleiman the Magnificent at the Siege of Vienna in 1529, while also being responsible for the Sack of Rome in 1527.
Maurice de Saxe (28 October 1696 â 20 November 1750), was a prominent soldier, general and military theorist in the first half of the 18th century. The illegitimate son of Augustus II the Strong, he initially served in the Army of the Holy Roman Empire, then the Imperial Army, before entering French service.
The Battle of Pavia, fought on the morning of 24 February 1525, was the decisive engagement of the Italian War of 1521â1526 between the Kingdom of France and the Habsburg Empire of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor as well as ruler of Spain, Austria, the Low Countries, and the Two Sicilies.
The French army was led by King Francis I of France, who laid siege to the city of Pavia (then part of the Duchy of Milan within the Holy Roman Empire) in October 1524 with 26,200 troops. The French infantry consisted of 6,000 French foot soldiers and 17,000 foreign mercenaries: 8,000 Swiss, 5,000 Germans, and 4,000 Italians (Black Bands). The French cavalry consisted of 2,000 gendarmes and 1,200 lances fournies. Charles V, intending to break the siege, sent a relief force of 22,300 troops to Pavia (where the Imperial garrison stationed consisted of 5,000 Germans and 1,000 Spaniards) under the command of the Fleming Charles de Lannoy, Imperial lieutenant and viceroy of Naples, and of the French renegade and captain-general Charles III, Duke of Bourbon. Other major Imperial commanders were the Italian condottiero Fernando d'Avalos, the German military leader Georg Frundsberg, and the Spanish captain Antonio de Leyva, who was in charge of the Imperial garrison inside Pavia. The Habsburg infantry consisted of 12,000 Germans (Landsknechte), 5,000 Spaniards, and 3,000 Italians. Within the infantry, Imperial arquebusiers formed a part of the Spanish colunellas and of the German doppelsöldners. The Imperial cavalry consisted of 1,500 knights and 800 lances.
The Palatinate campaign (30 August 1620 â 27 August 1623), also known as the Spanish conquest of the Palatinate or the Palatinate phase of the Thirty Years' War was a campaign conducted by the Imperial army of the Holy Roman Empire against the Protestant Union in the Lower Palatinate, during the Thirty Years' War.