Akanthus, great stuff on von Trenck! He was quite a bad boy, and his troops became pretty terrible with their depredations as they went a bit overboard with 'foraging'. The pandour units were disbanded, and von Trenck ended up imprisoned and died in 1749.
To add to this macabre story, his mummified remains remain on view in a monastery in Brno.
The frightening reputation of these notorious forces became both feared and and at the same time admired by other armies who favored their light fast moving tactics and skills in guerilla warfare and skirmishing, and added similar units as auxiliaries to their standing armies later in the 18th c.
The hubris charged words VIVAT PANDUR became popular on many sword and other blades, much in the same manner as Bowie knives inscribed with 'Remember the Alamo'. In R.D.C. Evans book "The Plug Bayonet", there are a number of plug bayonets with this inscription.
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