Helmstätt, Johann Emeran Emerich von
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Helmstätt, Johann Emeran Emerich von
Franconian General-Feldwachtmeister (1706-17??), Feldmarschall-Lieutenant (17??-1720)
born ?
Died 17 April 1720, Kitzingen, Franconia
Description
Details about Helmstätt’s family connections are still to be researched. We can only give an outline of Helmstätt's military career.
Helmstätt is mentioned in 1675 as a lieutenant, and in 1688/1689 as a captain with the Franconian regiment Hedesdorff with the Würzburg contingent, where he was promoted major around 1690. In 1693 he was made lieutenant-colonel in the same regiment. Maybe in the last months of 1701, latest in 1702 Helmstätt was promoted colonel.
Helmstätt obtained the regiment Schnebelin after the death of its proprietor in 1705 and was promoted major-general one year later. The appropriate pay, as so often, he only got in 1708.
On September 20, 1713, Helmstätt was in command of regiment Jaxtheim in the last action of the Franconians during the War of Spanish Succession. The regiment (929 men and 74 grenadiers) had to move to a post on the Roßkopf near Freiburg im Breisgau and was attacked by a superior French detachment. Being abandoned by some Austrian battalions and outflanked, it had to retreat in a hurry and lost 99 men killed or captured, 28 wounded and 53 "stripped" (the French deprived the prisoners of their clothes, rendering them unfit for action). Five officers were made prisoners and two were killed.
Helmstätt died in 1720 in Kitzingen near Würzburg. His regiment was given to Hermann Friedrich Count Hohenzollern-Hechingen. Two other Helmstätt are known to have been in Würzburg service, Georg Adam Christoph, mentioned as a lieutenant only in 1697 and Philipp Anton, ensign in 1739.
References
Documents from the Bavaria state archives Nuremberg and Bamberg.
Helmes, Hermann: Übersicht zur Geschichte der fränkischen Kreistruppen 1664-1714. München 1905.
Acknowledgement
Klaus Roider for the initial version of this article
