August Karl von und zu Egloffstein

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Portrait of August Karl von und zu Egloffstein, lithograph by Friedrich Wilhelm Graupenstein , around 1862, Jever Castle Museum

August Friedrich Karl Freiherr von und zu Egloffstein (born February 15, 1771 at Egloffstein Castle ; † September 15, 1834 in Kissingen ) was a Saxon-Weimar major general .

Life

origin

August Karl von und zu Egloffstein was a son of Baron Karl von Egloffstein (1736–1773) and Sophie, née von Thüna (1742–1807).

Military career

After the early death of his father, Egloffstein was entrusted to his uncle, the Prussian general August Wilhelm von Thüna in Berlin (1722–1787) for further education. He became a Junker in his uncle's regiment in 1784 , rose to secondary lieutenant after his uncle's death and took part in the campaigns against Poland in 1793/94 .

Duke Karl August von Sachsen-Weimar became aware of the young officer and asked him to be released from Prussian service, whereupon Egloffstein transferred as Prime Lieutenant and Adjutant on February 18, 1795 and was promoted to captain on December 18, 1796 . On September 15, 1804 he was promoted to chamberlain and on April 27, 1805 to major. During that time he traveled to Switzerland and France to further his education there. During the Fourth Coalition War , he initially fought on the Prussian side. The regiment came to Hohenlohe Corps under Hönning. He was wounded in the following battle near Jena and retreated with the rest of the corps until the Saxon duchies joined the Confederation of the Rhine on December 18, 1806 . Now the duchies had to provide 2,800 men for Napoleon's army. Egloffstein received the order to negotiate the equipment with the French Governor General Clarke.

On January 20, 1807, Egloffstein was promoted to Colonel and Brigadier . The Rheinbund regiment was transferred to Pomerania, where it was to take part in the siege of Kolberg. But half of the teams deserted on the way there. After the Peace of Tilsit the regiment was moved to Usedom and Wolin , where it was decimated by typhus and dysentery. Egloffstein also fell ill there. It was in Swinoujscie from August 20 to November 12, 1807 . Some of the luggage had already been destroyed in a fire in Tramm. Only on December 8, 1807 did the remaining ones reach Weimar again. The regiment was replenished in 1808. In March 1809 it gathered under General Royer in Würzburg . As part of the Fifth Coalition War, it moved via Ingolstadt and Regensburg to Passau. After the defeat of Austria, the regiment was transferred to Innsbruck at the end of July 1809 to fight the rebellious Tyroleans there. On August 4, 1809 there were battles with the Tyroleans in Mittenwald. Egloffstein was injured in the fighting, but part of the regiment under Colonel von Germar was trapped in Oberau and had to surrender on the evening of August 5th. In the end, the regiment had lost 40 officers and 946 men dead and prisoners. It was ordered to Vienna via Salzburg and supplemented. In Vienna it was patterned by Napoleon on September 23, 1809. On this occasion he awarded Colonel Egloffstein the Cross of the Legion of Honor and also gave the regiment two cannons. Now the regiment marched to Spain.

The regiment marched through France via Mannheim for two months before arriving in Barcelona on March 19, 1810 . It lost 600 men on a campaign to Manresa and in fighting in the Mont-Serrat gorges. Then it was used as a garrison in the Hostalrich fortress, where it was supplemented by the former prisoners from Tyrol. After two months, in June it accompanied a convoy to Barcelona under Marshal MacDonald. It was victorious in a battle at Cartateo. Then it was garrisoned near Girona, where many soldiers died of illnesses. When the regiment approached a supply convoy on September 18, it was trapped at Perginan. Under Egloffstein it was only able to defend the place with great difficulty. When the troops were finally relieved in Gerona on February 20, 1811, 20 officers and 201 NCOs and men were still alive. The troops came to Montpellier on April 18 , where Egloffstein sent the officers out to search for convalescents in the hospitals of southern France . He then rested for three weeks in Metz and reached Weimar on June 24, 1811. The regiment lost 27 officers and almost 2,000 men, of which 7 officers and 398 men were still in French hospitals. Of these, 8 officers and 578 men came from Sachsen-Weimar itself.

The regiment was then replenished for the 1812 Russian campaign . In February 1812 the regiment was transferred to Hamburg. There it formed the "Princiere" division under the command of General Saint-Cyr , together with troops from Schwarzburg, Anhalt, Lippe, Russia and Waldeck . The division was divided into two brigades and Egloffsteim was appointed brigade commander. In June the brigade was sent to Stralsund . There the neutral Swedish crew was captured and sent to France. The brigade then had to guard the Baltic coast and protect it against possible actions by the British. On September 10th, however, she was already transferred to Danzig and there, united with the 2nd Brigade, set off for Smolensk . But already in Königsberg they had to stop and stayed there from October 9th to November 9th, 1812. There they were part of a reserve corps. On November 9, 1812, she was set on march to Vilna, which was reached on November 26. From there they came to Mietnicki until December 3rd, when news of the collapse of the Grande Army reached them . On December 4, the division met Napoleon in Oschmiana. The cavalry then had to escort to Vilna, the Weimar carbine company was given to Marshal Ney as an escort. The rest of the troops were assigned to the Corps of General Gratien and came with the remnants of the Grande Army on December 8, 1812 to Vilna, where the starved troops attacked the city. On December 10th, the men moved on, Egloffstein and his men were appointed as the rearguard. When the Russian cavalry attacked, the entire second division was destroyed. The wagons got stuck and so all equipment including the war chest was burned. That day, 20 officers and 900 men of the regiment died. Egloffstein was lucky and came to Kowno with several hundred men on December 13, 1812 , from where it went on to Königsberg. Continuing attacks by Cossacks continued to Danzig . When Egloffstein moved there, the force still consisted of 23 officers and 350 men. The local commander, General Rapp , gave the colonel all the troops of the Rhine Confederation, so that he soon commanded 500 men. He fought with the troops in the ensuing 11-month siege of Danzig . He fought on March 5th in a failure on Stolzenberg and Schildlitz and on June 9th in the valley of Schildlitz and near Wonneberg. He was wounded in each case and made an officer of the Legion of Honor. When the Russians took Ohra on August 29 and the Johannisberg changed hands four times, the Rhine Confederation troops fought valiantly and Egloffstein was wounded again. On November 27, 1813, General Rapp had to surrender because the city ran out of food. Of the original 32,000 defenders, 14,000 were still alive. The Germans were released on December 14, 1813, but initially had to stay in Cassuben and Marienburger Werder. On January 30, 1814, they too started their way back. With Egloffstein, Colonel von Germar and the lieutenants von Steuben and von Schweinitz, along with 19 NCOs and commoners, reached their home.

Now the war against Napoleon began. There were already two battalions of infantry, a group of volunteer hunters on foot and on horseback on the way to III. German Army Corps. Egloffstein was able to catch up with them in Kassel and was given command of a Thuringian-Anhalt Brigade. In addition to the Weimar people, four battalions from Gotha, Schwarzburg and Anhalt were brought together there. Under the command of Karl August von Sachsen-Weimar, the corps was moved to the Netherlands to tie up General Maison's troops. First, Egloffstein and his brigade covered the area between the sieges of Valenciennes and Conde. Later he was garrisoned with the brigade in Tournai . After the defeat of the Prussians and of Lieutenant General Thielemann near Courdray on March 31, 1814, they had to move back to Oudenarde. General Maison was able to take 13,000 men against Tournai, where Egloffstein holed up with around 2,000 men. Despite three heavy attacks he managed to hold the city until reinforcements arrived and the French withdrew to Lille. For this he received the Order of St. George IV Class from the Tsar and in 1818 the Order of St. Anna II Class with diamonds. He received the Gold Medal of Honor from the city of Torunai. Shortly afterwards the war ended with the Peace of Paris and the abdication of Emperor Napoleon. The corps returned to Weimar in June 1814.

When Napoleon returned in March 1815, Egloffstein marched with his brigade to Neuwied, where he joined the army of General Kleist von Nollendorf on April 18 . Shortly thereafter the colonel was promoted to major general. The brigade then fought during the storming of Boullion, the taking of Mezieres and Montmedy, and the nightly storming of Medybas. On July 23rd (July 29th?) The brigade succeeded in capturing a French eagle and a flag near Charleville , which were sent to Weimar as trophies. Egloffstein was then appointed commander of the city. After the Second Peace of Paris , the brigade was dismissed on November 1, 1815 by Lieutenant General von Hacke and released home.

On January 30, 1816, Egloffstein was one of the first recipients of the Grand Cross of the House Order of the White Falcon . In 1818 a new defense order based on the Prussian model came into force and Egloffstein was appointed inspector general of the troops. In 1825 the Grand Duke sent him to Saint Petersburg to represent the Grand Duchy for the coronation of Tsar Nicholas I. There he received the Grand Cross of the Order of Saint Anne from the Tsar and returned to Weimar in April 1826. In January 1829 he represented the Grand Duchy in Berlin when Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar became engaged to Prince Wilhelm .

In Weimar Egloffstein became a member of the Masonic Lodge Anna Amalia zu den drei Rosen . He died in 1834 while taking a spa stay in Kissingen.

family

In 1808 Egloffstein married Isabelle Waldner von Freundstein (1785–1869), the daughter of Baron Gottfried Waldner von Freundstein (1757–1818) and his wife Friederike von Stein zu Nordheim and Ostheim (1767–1797) in Weimar . Isabel's younger sister was Diana Rabe von Pappenheim (1788–1844), lover of the Westphalian King Jérôme Bonaparte (1784–1860) and mother of Jenny von Gustedt .

The marriage resulted in two sons and two daughters:

  • August (1812–1887), Saxon Grand Ducal Chamberlain, Major General and Chief Stable Master
  • Leonhard (1815–1900), Prussian major general

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://zs.thulb.uni-jena.de/rsc/viewer/jportal_derivate_00226358/Weimarisches-Wochenblatt_1816_0045.tif Weimarisches Wochenblatt. Number II of February 6, 1816.
  2. ↑ Goethe and royal art ( Memento of the original from June 1, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the website of the Kunstmuseum Hamburg; www.kunstmuseum-hamburg.de (accessed on May 1, 2016) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / kunstmuseum-hamburg.de
  3. ↑ Gothaisches Genealogisches Taschenbuch der Freiherrlichen Häuser. Justus Perthes, Gotha 1900, p. 158f.
personal data
SURNAME Egloffstein, August Karl von und zu
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Egloffstein, August Friedrich Karl Freiherr from and to
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Saxon-Weimar major general
DATE OF BIRTH February 15, 1771
PLACE OF BIRTH Egloffstein Castle
DATE OF DEATH September 15, 1834
Place of death Kissingen