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History of the Bosniak Lancer Corps
In what was, until recently, Yugoslavia there was a republic, now a state, called Bosnia which occupies the same place as a medieval state of that name. Its inhabitants of the Muslim faith are called Bosniaks. They were originally Christians who converted to Islam after Bosnia came under Turkish rule, at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century. In feudal Turkey, anyone who owned land had the obligation of military service in case of war, so Bosniaks were found in all Turkish armies of that time.
In 1740, the War of the Austrian Succession began. Prussian King Frederick wanted to annex the rich province of Silesia, but Austria opposed this, which was deemed sufficient cause for war. In the early part of the war, known as the First Silesian War, Saxony was on the side of Prussia, but decided to switch allegiance. In preparation for a possible continuation of the war, military emissaries were sent to the Ukraine in 1744 to recruit men for the Saxon cavalry. The response of the Cossacks was disappointing, but Saxony managed to lure from the Turkish army about 100 Bosniaks – light horsemen armed with lances, who were guarding the Turkish border in the Ukraine. The Bosniaks left for Dresden.
On their arrival, Prussian emissaries in Saxony offered the Bosniaks more, so they marched off again, from Saxony to Prussia. In 1745, Frederick founded a regular Bosniaken Korps, one troop in strength, which became part of the 5th Hussars, also known as the Black Hussars (Totenkopf), their symbol being a death’s head.
Hostilities continued as the Second Silesian War, and ended in 1748, but the Bosniaks remained in service. In the same area, and for similar reasons, another war soon started. In 1756, Prussia occupied Saxony, triggering the Seven Years War. The magnitude of operations and insufficient Prussian human resources forced Frederick to recruit soldiers outside his borders.Light horsemen from the east – Poles, Lithuanians, Tartars and Muslims – were incorporated into the Bosniak units, which, by 1760, had grown to 10 squadrons. That same year, the Bosniaks became a regular light cavalry regiment, number 9 on the army list.
After the end of the war in 1763 the regiment was disbanded, only one squadron being kept for ceremonial purposes.
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