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A Reichskrieg ("Imperial War", Plural Reichskriege) was a war fought by the Holy Roman Empire as a whole against a common enemy. After the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, a Reichskrieg was a formal state of war that could only be declared by the Imperial Diet.
There were two kinds of Reichskrieg with two different legal bases. The first was a , a military action of the empire against one of its own (Reichstände). This could only be done after one of the empire's two supreme courts, the Imperial Chamber Court or the Imperial Aulic Council, had found the offending estate to be in breach of the peace, and the estate was too powerful to be subdued by the Imperial Circle to which it belonged. The second kind of Reichskrieg was that against another sovereign state that had violated the empire's rights or frontiers. After 1519, the emperors were bound to get the support of the Imperial Electors prior to declaring war on another state. From 1648, they required the approval of the diet for both kinds of war.
The only state against which a formal Reichskrieg was ever declared was France. The diet declared war on France in 1689, 1702, 1734, 1793 and 1799. The declaration created a state of war, but it was still necessary for the emperor by a series of orders to begin the decentralised process of forming the Reichsarmee (Army of the Holy Roman Empire) out of the Circle troops. What each estate owed in both money and men was determined by the Imperial Military Constitution. Following the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss (1803), the six imperial cities that remained were pledged to perpetual neutrality even during a Reichskrieg.
The 1495 diet also declared an Eternal Peace and instituted a supreme court, the Imperial Chamber Court. These acts outlawed private warfare and , and created a binding judicial mechanism for dispute resolution. This had the effect of making civil wars a matter of breaching the imperial peace ( Reichsfriedensbruch) to be resolved by the courts. It was illegal for any Imperial Estate to assist another that was breaching the peace. Following court rulings, the emperor could issue an "advocates' mandate" ( mandatum advocatorium) that identified estates in breach of the peace as "enemies of the empire" ( Reichsfeinde) and required other estates to act to bring the enemy to heel. Thus, after a judicial process, the empire could make war on one of its own members that was in breach of the peace.
Charles V in his Wahlkapitulation (electoral capitulation) of 1519 agreed not to declare war without the consent of the electors. This represented a loosening of the restriction imposed in 1495.
Owing to the impossibility of peace, the right of the emperor to demand assistance in the war against the Ottomans was unquestioned. In the 1520s the Imperial Diet asserted its right to debate the level of the "Turkish aid" ( TĂĽrkenhilfe), but not its requirement. Since the state of war did not require approval by the Imperial Diet, there was also no question of the emperor's right to demand assistance from those imperial states, like Bohemia and Italy, that did not participate in the diet. During the active phases of the long war, bells would be rung in churches throughout the empire at noon to remind subjects to pray for the success of the imperial armies, a practice known as the "Turkish bells" ( TĂĽrkenglocken).
The Diet voted to raise troops from the Imperial states for the Turkish war five times before the Peace of Zsitvatorok ended the Long Turkish War in 1606. An army of the Empire was thus in the field, often outside of the empire's borders, in 1532, 1542, 1552, 1566–67 and 1593–1606. During the last war, the troops of the Empire also undertook garrison duty on the Croatian Military Frontier.
In 1544, the Diet of Speyer declared France to be an "enemy of the empire" ( Reichsfeind) on account of its alliance with the Ottomans. This permitted the emperor to make war against France on behalf of the empire, but it was an unusual step and one not repeated for over a century.
A permanent peace was finally agreed in the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699), although there were subsequent wars against the Ottomans in 1716–18, 1736–39 and 1787–91. The Turkish bells were rung in 1716–18 and 1736–39, but the idea was rejected in 1787–91 as out of step with the Enlightenment.
The Treaty of Osnabrück of 1648 restricted the right of the emperor to make war in the empire's name—either against external foes or internal violators of the peace—without permission from the Imperial Diet. The first war waged in the empire's name after 1648 was the war against the Ottomans in 1663–64.
It is commonly said that the Emperor Leopold I obtained a declaration of Reichskrieg (or Reichskriegserklärung) against France in 1674 during the Franco-Dutch War, In fact, Leopold had expelled the French ambassador to the Empire from Regensburg in March 1674 and informed the diet that he considered France an enemy of the Empire. Taking advantage of the general anti-French mood, he secured the diet's sanction of imperial aid to the Electoral Palatinate and other territories threatened by the French on 31 March. In April and May, the emperor issued further decrees implementing the diet's grant of aid. His decision not to call for a Reichskrieg forced him to lean heavily on the militarised princes and thus further increased their standing and influence in the Empire. Although the diet, at the suggestion of the French king, Louis XIV, considered sending its own representative to the peace conference at Nijmegen in 1675–76, this was vetoed by Leopold, who asserted that since it was not a Reichskrieg he retained full authority to negotiate on the empire's behalf. This set a precedent that was upheld even in future Reichskriege in 1697 and 1714: the emperor could negotiate peace without the diet. The negotiated treaty, however, had still to be ratified by the diet.
In 1681, the Imperial Diet approved a triple quota of Imperial Circle troops ( Kreistruppen) for the relief of Vienna, but as it was a war against the Turks no declaration of Reichskrieg was necessary. In the same year, in response to military flaws exposed during the Dutch War, the diet passed a law on military organization that formed the basis of the Imperial Military Constitution until the end of the empire.
The declaration of war of 1689 was revolutionary. The precedent of 1544 had not been forgotten, and the war with the Ottomans was raging in the east. The declaration of war on France sought to build morale and rally support by equating the Christian French to the Muslims Turks.
In 1705, the Emperor Joseph I pressured the diet to extend the Reichskrieg to include the wars ongoing in Italy and Hungary, but the diet refused. In November 1705, the electors minus Cologne and Bavaria voted to outlaw those two and the emperor transmitted the declaration of the imperial ban to the diet.
Finally, on 9 April 1734, the Imperial Diet declared war against France. Ultimately, while 36,338 troops were raised for the Reichsarmee by September 1735, various states provided 54,302 troops to the Austrian army through simple bilateral agreements alone. In 1735, Russian Empire intervened on the side of the empire. A preliminary peace was signed in Vienna on 3 October that year, but the final peace treaty was not signed until 1738.
Throughout 1793, as Prussia's commitment to the war weakened, the increasingly defensive Reichskrieg rose in popularity. In January 1794, with the war going badly for the Empire, discussions were held behind the scenes to try to strengthen the emperor's war-making powers, but no agreement could be reached and in the end no proposal was tabled in the Imperial Diet.
On 13 September 1756, the Emperor Francis I issued an advocate's mandate ( mandata avocatoria) releasing imperial subjects from their oaths to the King in Prussia, Frederick II, and ordering them not to assist him in his illegal war. On 14 September, Francis requested the Imperial Diet sanction a Reichsexekution to restore peace to the empire. This was debated on 20 September without resolution. On 9 October, Francis increased his demands, asking for the Reichsarmee to be mobilised and for the intervention of the two guarantors of the Peace of Westphalia (France and Sweden).
On 17 January 1757, a Reichskrieg was declared against Prussia. A triple quota was called up for a Reichs-Exekutions-Armee. The representatives of the Prussian king were removed from imperial institutions, Reichspost to Prussian territory was suspended and travel into and out of it was banned, although not trade (even in war materiel, which was only classed as contraband in 1760).
In February 1763, the Imperial Diet formally declared the Reichskrieg over and the Treaty of Hubertusburg restored the status quo ante bellum.
The War of the Bavarian Succession that broke out between Austria and Prussia in 1778 saw barely any fighting, and was diplomatically resolved before any Reichsexekution was sought by the emperor.
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