[Freiherr]. Austrian soldier, born on the 1st of January 1711, of a military family. Educated by the Jesuits at Oedenburg, he entered the Imperial army in 1728 but resigned in disgrace three years later. He then married and lived on his estates for some years. Upon the death of his wife in 1737 he offered to raise an irregular corps of “Pandours” for service against the Turks, but this offer was refused and he then entered the Russian army. But after serving against the Turks for a short time as captain and major of cavalry he was accused of bad conduct, brutality and disobedience and condemned to death, the sentence being commuted by Field Marschal Münnich to degradation and imprisonment. After a time he returned to Austria, where his father was governor of a small fortress, but there too he came into conflict with everyone and actually “took sanctuary” in a convent in Vienna. But Prince Charles of Lorraine, interesting himself in this strange man, obtained for him an amnesty and a commission in a corps of irregulars. In this command, besides his usual truculence and robber manners, he displayed conspicuous personal bravery, and in spite of the general dislike into which his vices brought him his services were so valuable that he was promoted lieutenant-colonel (1743) and colonel (1744). But at the battle of Soor he and his irregulars plundered when they should have been fighting and Trenck was accused (probably falsely) of having allowed the king of Prussia himself to escape. After a time he was brought before a court-martial in Vienna, which convicted him of having sold and withdrawn commissions to his officers without the queen’s leave, punished his men without heed to the military code, and drawn pay and allowance for fictitious men. Much was allowed to an irregular officer in all these respects, but Trenck had far outrun the admitted limits, and above all his brutalities and robberies had made him detested throughout Austria and Silesia. A death sentence followed, but the composition of the court-martial and its proceedings were thought to have been such as from the first forbade a fair trial, and the sentence was commuted by the queen into one of cashiering and imprisonment. The rest of his life was spent in mild captivity in the fortress of Spielberg, where he died on the 4th of October 1749.
