ABSTRACT
On 29 October 1685, the Elector had issued the Edict of Potsdam, which encouraged Huguenots to settle in his territories. Its terms promised, among other things, to cover the cost of establishing Huguenot communities in his dominions. The establishment of Huguenot families in Brandenburg began before the Revocation, though it was only after 1685 that five Huguenot agents were charged with the mission of resettling French refugee families. The vast majority of Huguenot officers, therefore, once more departed from Berlin, armed with commissions from the Elector for companies in different parts of the realm. During the last decades of the seventeenth century the Brandenburg army did not fundamentally differ from the mercenary armies of other states, in terms of its framework and organisational structure. The officers were predominantly recruited from the nobility of Brandenburg-Prussia, but also nobles from France, Sweden, Poland and other German states periodically served in the army of the electorate.
