Johann von Mayr  Johann von Mayr (1 May 1716 in Vienna–5 January 1759 in Plauen) and was also the head of a Prussian "Freibataillon" ("F 2") that, during the Seven Years' War, formed part of the advanced guard of Frederick the Great's Prussian Army. He was the prototype of adventurer and mercenary. Johann von Mayr was a natural son of Count von Stella, a royal Spanish councilor in Vienna. His mother was from the bourgeois class and married the owner of a billiard parlor named Mayr soon after. He was enrolled in a school organized by Jesuits, where they developed his natural talent for music. Eventually his propensity for trouble and his debauchery led the city of Vienna to expel him, and, in, 1732, he traveled to Hungary. There, he supported himself through his violin, and his music so intrigued the commandant of Temesvar, the General von Engelshofen, that he took Mayr in. At about twenty years of age, at last he decided to become a soldier and entered the officially into the Duke of Lorraine's regiment, in which he ultimately became a sergeant. The life of soldiers – at no time a restrained one – also led him to excesses in the enjoyment, drinking and love, which at last followed a serious life-threatening illness. There he fell into a melancholy during which he stabbed himself with a bread-knife. In the then war of Austria with the Turks M. fought several battles and received several wounds from 1736 to 1739. After the death of the Emperor Charles VI, during the War of Austrian Succession, he also fought in the Battle of Mollwitz, and then at the Siege of Prague, after which he was taken prisoner by the French on 26 November 1741. Mayr bought himself out the French captivity and returned to the imperial service. General-Field Marshal Friedrich Heinrich von Seckendorff took him into his entourage as lieutenant and adjutant, as Mayr proved to be useful and skilled. He remained in this service, until trouble with his colonel, the Claude Louis, Comte de Saint-Germain, caused him to leave. He wanted to go into Prussian service, but his patron, General Seckendorff, advised him to go to Saxony instead, and gave him recommendations to Dresden, where Mayr went in 1744. The Saxon court gave him a commission, and 1745 he fought in the Battle of Kesselsdorf as a dragoon.