Landsturm

German-speaking countries used the word Landsturm to refer to third-class infantry or militias.

Contents

Austria

Prussia

1813

King Frederick William III of Prussia established the Prussian Landsturm as irregular military forces on 21 April 1813 by royal edict – the decree appeared in the preussische Gesetzesammlung (German: Prussian Code of Law) (pp. 79–89). The 1813 edict called for resistance "by any means" against the Napoleonic invasion. As a model and an explicit example, it took the Spanish Reglamento de Partidas y Cuadrillas of 28 December 1808 and the decree of 17 April 1809, known as Corso Terrestre, during the Peninsula War against Napoleonic troops (ref. the introduction, §8, §52).

According to this edict, all Prussian citizens were obliged to oppose the invasion by the enemy using any weapons available, like axes, pitchforks, scythes or shotguns (§43). All Prussians were further encouraged to not obey orders by the enemy, but rather to make themselves a nuisance to the Napoleonic troops however possible. This was a clear departure from ordinary jus in bello (Latin for Law of War), which commanded the civilian population to obey the orders of the occupying power, and the police forces to assist the occupying power in crushing any uprising. It did not qualify as an insurgency, but simply as criminal activity. The Landsturm edict explicitly stated that it was preferable to risk the danger brought about by the furies of an armed population rather than to let the enemy have control over the situation. Légitime défense "justified the use of all means" (§7), including chaos.

The edict was modified less than three months later on 17 July 1813 and was purified of its subversive content relative to the laws of war. The war then took place according to the standard rules of conventional warfare. Carl Schmitt qualified it as the "Magna Carta of the partisan". Despite its not being put to practice, fascist jurists considered it in a 1962 lecture in Francoist Spain to be the "official document of the legitimation of the partisan of national defense" and as the "philosophical discovery of the partisan." [1]

Switzerland

References

  1. ^ Carl Schmitt, 1963. Theorie des Partisanen. Zwischenbemerkung zum Begriff des Politischen, Chapter I, Section 2

See also