Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Trenck/Franz, Baron von der Trenck

1. Franz, Baron von der Trenck (1711-1749), was born at Reggio, Calabria, where his father was lieutenant-colonel in the Austrian service. After his rough early training in the camp, he made himself so unendurable at the college of Vienna that he was speedily removed, and entered in 1727 as ensign in the Palfy regiment, from which, however, after a brief but riotous course of duelling, gambling, and love-making, he received a new dismissal. He returned to his father, and, on the outbreak of war between the Russians and Turks, raised a corps of 300 men at his own expense and joined the Russian army on the Hungarian frontier. His brilliant exploits won him the favour of his commander, but a breach of orders, followed by an assault on his colonel, brought him under sentence of death, from which a daring feat of arms alone saved him. A sentence of exile to Siberia, incurred soon after by a second affray with a superior officer, was commuted to imprisonment at Kieff and expulsion from the country. His term of imprisonment having expired, he retired to his estate, where he armed and drilled his vassals, and in a series of encounters compelled the Slavonian brigands to seek refuge in Turkish territory. From these marauders he recruited in 1740 the formidable body of pandours with which he joined the levies in aid of Maria Theresa. Repulsing the French near Linz, he penetrated into Bavaria, took Deckendorf and Reichenhall, and destroyed Cham, the conduct of his troops being marked not less by atrocity than by desperate courage. Recalled to Vienna to render account for the cruelties practised, he refused to defend himself, and, being set at liberty, rejoined his men, opened in 1743 a passage across the Rhine for the army, and became as much the terror of Alsace as he had been of Bavaria. On the retreat of the army to Bohemia he covered the rear and took several towns, but had his right foot crushed by a cannon-ball. Maria Theresa sent him a surgeon, and, having made a species of triumphal entry into Vienna, he resumed his command. But in September 1745, after having boldly penetrated with his pandours to the tent of Frederick II., he suffered the king to escape him while his followers were stopping to plunder, and he was thereupon accused of having been bribed by that monarch to release him. He was condemned on inquiry to pay an indemnity for peremptory dismissal to the officers accusing him, but he refused to acknowledge the sentence, and, raising new troops, added to the list of his exploits. His conduct leading to a renewal of the inquiry, he laid hands on the president of the court-martial and was thrown into prison, but was enabled to escape by the baroness Lestock, with whom he fled to Holland. He was brought back to Vienna, and condemned to perpetual imprisonment in the Spielberg, where, finding escape impossible, he poisoned himself, October 1749, at the age of 38.

See his autobiography—Merkwürdiges Leben und Thaten des Freiherrn Franz von der Trenck, Vienna, 1770; also, Franz von der Trenck, by E. F. Hübner, with preface by Schubart, 3 vols., 1788.