Balthasar de Vincenz

Balthasar de Vincenz, probably 1835

Balthasar Gioseph de Vincenz (born June 26, 1789 in Siat , Switzerland, † April 14, 1858 in Disentis ) was a Surselvan soldier in the service of Spain at the time of the Napoleonic Wars . He spent over 30 years on the Iberian Peninsula and gained the rank of lieutenant colonel . After his return home he wrote about his activities the Meum Scret , of which several copies were made and which enriched his native language Rumantsch with numerous expressions from Spanish .

Life and family

Balthasar de Vincenz's father Mathias Antoni died when Balthasar was only six years old. The father had served in the French army, most recently as a captain . The son grew up as the youngest of six children as a half-orphan with his mother Maria Ursula, née Vincenz. He was not given any schooling due to financial and material shortages. But he learned to read and write in the church, which he often attended. The bond with his parish is also shown by a donation of two oil paintings that he made during a home leave in 1816/1817. They can still be seen today in the village churches of St. Luzius von Siat and St. Zeno in Ladir .

There is evidence that Balthasar went to his brother Geli in Tarasp in 1800 and served him in the regiment there. Even at a young age he was able to gain experience in the field of soldier life. There is evidence that he went to Spain at the age of 16 to fight for foreign generals.

Balthasar was engaged once and married three times. During a home leave in 1816, the year without a summer , became engaged he was with Maria Elisabeth de Caprez, daughter of Colonel Louis de Caprez. He had to make the trip back to Spain to his troops without them because Maria was too weak in health to endure the grueling journey; the engagement was broken. In 1821 Balthasar married Maria Nesa Camenisch from Ladir, who was 15 years his junior. The sons Emanuel and Felix emerged from this marriage, but Maria Nesa died in 1827 at the age of 23. The following year he married Maria Magdalena Huonder († 1854) from Disentis, with whom he had seven children: Josefina, Christina, Carl, Franz, Carolina and Felix. The son Felix from his first marriage had died in the meantime. The youngest daughter Josefina got the name of the firstborn, who died in childhood. Balthasar also survived his second wife, and he probably married a third time, because documents from 1890 on wages and pension funds name a woman Henriette von Vincenz, widow of BG de Vincenz, as a petitioner.

Siat, Castle Hill 2011

In 1817 Balthasar de Vincenz was awarded the title of nobility Freiherr von Freyberg , which later passed on to his descendants. This title, which was verifiably also recognized in Spain, as evidenced by a document from 1820, is based on the family whose material remains with the Friberg Castle in Siat still exist today.

After the end of his service, Balthasar de Vincenz settled in Disentis. He was financially secure and was able to support projects such as the construction of the Oberländerstrasse , which benefited the general public.

In Spain

Military career

Swiss Regiment Reding No. 3, Historical Leisure Group in Málaga, 2008

To escape poverty in Graubünden , Balthasar de Vincenz went to Spain via Lucerne in 1805 at the age of 16 to work as a soldier. There he joined the Swiss Regiment No. 5 under Colonel Georg Traxler, established in 1743 as a Distinguido in Cartagena , for whom he had already served with his brother Geli. In this regiment, however, promotion was not possible for him, so that, with the support of Traxler, he was able to recruit more recruits after an eight-month home leave with Geli in Graubünden. With this great success, apparently supported by immense motivation, Balthasar drew attention to himself within the troupe. Colonel Nazar von Reding , later Governor of Mallorca , brought the promising young talent to his Swiss Regiment No. 3, which was only set up in 1793, in 1806 . This was followed by four months as a cadet and then promoted to lieutenant .

This rapid career is all the more remarkable when you consider that Balthasar had no school education and in 1806 only started the journey into the distance with his mother tongue, Rumantsch.

In the rank of lieutenant, Balthasar de Vincenz moved to the Loja Infantry Regiment in 1808 , where he was promoted to lieutenant and stayed for three years. In 1811 he was captain and joined the cavalry regiment of Cantabria . A year later he was promoted to Sergeant Major by General Javier Castaños and assigned to the Hussar Regiment .

Swiss regiments in Spain

regiment	Year of installation	Advertising circle	Commander
Nο. 1	1734	Solothurn Freiburg Aargau	1804–1831 Luis de Wimpfen
			1831-1835 Agustin Cusa
Nο. 2	1742	Lucerne St. Gallen Thurgau	1805–1808 Karl von Reding
Nο. 3	1743	Schwyz Uri Ticino Graubünden Glarus Appenzell	1788–1806 Theodor von Reding
			1806–1809 Nazar von Reding
			1809-1818 Antonio Kayser
			1819–1827 Iuan Waltipuhl
			1827–1835 Ignaz Ulrich
Nο. 4th			1897–1809 Domingo von Bettschart
			1809-1810 Francisco Gil Zay
			1810–1815, 1826–1835 Roman Hediger
			1827–1835 Felix E. Christians
Nο. 5	1793	Unterwalden Luzern Rheinau	1804–1810 Georg Traxler
			1808–1810 Felix E. Christians
Nο. 6th	1796	Valais	1802–1805 Joseph-Hyacinthe-Elie de Courten
			1806–1808 Charles de Preux
Missing commanders undetectable.

The importance of the Swiss troops in Spain in the war against Napoleon should not be underestimated. With the victory at the Battle of Bailén in July 1808, they proved that the French commander-in-chief could be defeated. In those years the employer was King Ferdinand VII , who led the Spanish War of Independence against Napoleon. In 1809 he was involved in the battles of Mora and Consuegra, in the suppression of the Aranjuez uprising and the battles in Almonacid and Ocaña, and the following year in the Battle of Villarcayo.

In 1812 the Swiss regiments were disbanded for the first time under General Luis de Lacy y Gautier . Many soldiers stayed or returned to Spain because they were very popular for their efficiency. Some of them received high honors and ranks, but not their outstanding wages , because Spain was completely impoverished by the wars. With a reduced number of troops, three regiments were rebuilt as police corps to fight against smuggling and as a medical force during the epidemic in Barcelona and the Balearic Islands .

Attempts by Lieutenant General Ludwig von Wimpfen (Luis de Wimpfen) to counteract a final dissolution were unsuccessful in 1822. Two years later, during the French invasion of Spain by the Duc d'Angoulême , troops were again deployed in the same formation as before, which again only lasted a few years, until 1835. After 30 years and 4 months of service under the Spanish flag, Balthasar de Vincenz finally returned to Switzerland.

Colonization plans

After the exhausting fighting since 1808, Vincenz applied for a year of home leave in 1816, which was even granted to him with full wages. Albert Maag-Socin writes in his The Swiss Regiments in Spanish Service : "The regiments have led a rather leisurely life since the end of the War of the Spanish Succession."

In Siat he made a great impression on the locals as a financially well-resourced officer. The young Bündner Oberlanders believed that each of them could find happiness in Spain with a career in the military like Vincenz. In fact, in 1817 he brought many young, combat-ready Swiss to Spain and he tried to set up his own Graubünden regiment with the authorities, but they rejected his request. The recruits should be added to existing regiments. The young men were marked by hunger in their homeland and otherwise poorly prepared for the tasks ahead.

In fact, only a few were accepted into the military. Many continued to struggle with hunger and with looking for accommodation and work. Even Vincenz could not help them much, since he had advised them not to leave too quickly. After all, he found a hearing for his colonization plans from the Spanish ambassador to Switzerland, Pasqual de Vallejo , and from Lieutenant General Ludwig von Wimpfen. Vincenz drew up letters of recommendation to various institutions and consulted the economic associations of friends of the country (Sociedades económicas de amigos del país), which increasingly emerged in the second half of the century, some - especially in Andalusia - much earlier. Its aim was to spread new ideas and scientific and technical knowledge of the Enlightenment in order to bring about a social improvement. These societies were modeled on similar organizations in Ireland and Switzerland.

Vincenz's efforts culminated in an 18-point plan describing the exact structure of the colony. The focus of the work should be agriculture. But all undertakings were in vain; the king rejected them because they could not be financed. The plight of the Bündner continued and Vincenz asked the Spaniards for donations because it was not the fault of the immigrants, but the famine in their homeland that had driven them here. There was also another problem: the mountain farmers did not tolerate the summer heat well and many were not willing to start at the bottom when they were abroad after leaving a functioning farm in Switzerland. A new plan to found a trading company only reached the Graubünden occasionally, as many were already on their way back to their homeland. Although the lofty plans had to be judged as a failure, some immigrants had been able to find good jobs and stayed. There was a lot of criticism of this company in Graubünden. For example, Father Placidus a Spescha wrote about the outcome:

“The dispatch, ordered by Mr. Hauptman Vinzens von Sät to Spain, has failed completely. He was a bouncer and a babbler who had moved many families and other special people to it and then left them in the lurch and misery. Most of them returned home, some to France and several of them are miserable in Spain. He moved his mother and sister to a monastery; now they are said to have been transferred to a very small house there for lack of money to cover their food ”

- Friedrich Pieth and Karl Hager : Pater Placidus a Spescha. His life and his writings , Bümplitz 1913, p. 176

The begging journey of Father Ildefons Decurtins

Another project was also unsuccessful: the begging trip of the Benedictine monk Ildefons Decurtins.

Benefits received

source	Valleys
His royal majesty	150
HRH, brother of the king	100
The Cardinal of Borbón	10
His Excellency, General Wimphen	8th
The Abbot of Valladolid	5
Total amount	273

The idea for this begging trip came up during a visit by Vincenz to Prince Abbot Anselm Huonder (1751–1826) on the eve of the Placidus Festival . On July 10, 1816, he was invited to dinner in the monastery, which had been badly damaged when French troops passed through in 1799 and which was still in great need of renovation. However, there was no money. Huonder came up with the plan to provide Patre Ildefons with the necessary papers and send him to Spain to collect donations for the reconstruction. Vincenz tried to dissuade Abbot Anselm from this venture because Spain would be in bad shape after the War of Independence. He offered to go back to Spain alone for the time being and make inquiries, but Anselm did not want to wait for that. After the winter, Anselm provided Ildefons with 16 doubloons and a small horse worth five doubloons, and the two men started together for Spain on March 18.

Although Vincenz actually had to go to his regiment in Salamanca , he initially accompanied Ildefons to Madrid, where he found accommodation in the Benedictine monastery of St. Martin. Obtaining a “begging permit” was an almost hopeless endeavor, because only the king could issue it himself, and in fact the efforts were in vain. The little income Ildefons achieved during his trip amounted to 273 thalers . If you subtract the cost of the trip including other expenses, there was hardly anything left that went to the construction of the monastery in Disentis. As a Solomonic , Vincenz remarked in his justification Meum Scret that Ildefons' ride to Spain could be viewed as an educational trip.

From 1820 to 1833, Father Ildefons was chaplain in Segnas .

Meum Scret

The manuscript Meum Scret is the transcription in Rhaeto-Romanic Balthasar de Vincenz ' made during his lifetime as a retrospective justification of his life's work. The subtitle says Speziesfacti ne proces verbal de las aventures de verzaconds Grischuns en Spangnia , i.e. a report or protocol of the adventures of some Grisons in Spain . It is written in the third person and was probably written between 1835 and 1837. This shows the closeness to Spanish, which cannot be explained by geographical contact, but solely by the author's biography. The latter has found its way into scientific, Rhaeto-Romanic linguistic research and thus has an independent relevance.

The main purpose of this document should have been to explain why both complex projects, the attempts at colonization and the begging trip, were unsuccessful. Ursin Lutz writes in his monograph Das Meum Scret by Balthasar Gioseph de Vincenz (1789–1858) : Most Surselver and the Benedictine Father [...] may have said little good things about their sponsor. In any case, Vincenz felt compelled, probably after his definitive return in 1835, to present his view of things. The obvious successes that he had as a militarist and that also benefited the Grisons with various grants in his home country are in stark contrast to these two projects. In this book, Vincenz tries to manifest his charity idea when he writes in the dedication: Questa ei ina ovreta screta cun nigina autra fin che per ilg bien de tuts nos chars patriots , i.e. this is a little work, written for no other purpose than for The good of all of our dear fellow citizens.

This text follows the tradition of other secular and religious travelogues that have existed in Sulavian language since the beginning of the 18th century, such as the Cudisch dil viadi a Jerusalem ("Book about the Jerusalem trip ") by the pastor and later abbot of Disentis, Jacob Bundi or Viadi che iau, Gion Casper Collenberg , vai faig il on 1765 en l'Isla de Fronscha (“Trip that I, Gion Casper Collenberg, made in 1765 to the Île de France ”). The Collenberg brothers did a lot of business in Lyon and Paris and were considered generous benefactors to religious institutions. In the Graubünden State Archives there are 160 as yet unpublished and previously unexplored letters from the king's daughter Louise , for whom they have done various business.

While the aforementioned and many other Graubünden travelogues show predominantly autobiographical traits, Balthasar de Vincenz tried to adopt the authorial point of view in order to make his report appear as objective as possible. It was supposed to restore his reputation.

Vincenz did not appear as the author and tried to preserve his anonymity. Comparisons of scriptures attest to his authorship; the richness of detail in the descriptions leaves no room for doubt. It can be assumed that Vincenz was confronted with massive accusations immediately after his return in 1835. An immediate start of his writing activity is considered likely. The year 1837 is glued into the back cover mirror together with his lithograph, so that the completion of the work can be dated to this year. It is not known to what extent the attempt to rehabilitate oneself was successful.

The Meum Scret manuscript has been in the Graubünden State Archives in Chur since 2008 . The book block with the dimensions 20.7 × 15.2 cm is bound in half leather with leather corners, has a red trim and comprises 171 numbered pages plus six pages of an introduction (unpaginated). Vincenz used iron gall ink on paper with ridges, ridges, and watermarks .

Archival material

Graubünden State Archives : Private manuscripts in German / Italian / Latin, addendum, p. 256: Estate of Balthasar Joseph de Vincenz (1789–1858) von Siat, Colonel in Spanish service; Vincenz Varia

• Marcus Defuns: The von Vincenz family with special emphasis on the Disentis line. 1990.
• Rudolf v. Hess-Castelberg: Memories of the Vincenz family with special consideration 1. the line of the imperial barons of Vinc. zu Hohen Friedenberg, 2nd of the line of the royal. Spanish Lieutenant Colonel Balthasar Joseph von Vincenz, knight. 1883.
• Biografia sur della veta de signur Capitani Emanuel de Vincenz-de Castelberg, Mustér.
• Genealogical Vincenz, also from Schlans and Trun.

• Biography of Colonel Balthasar Joseph de Vincenz, approx. 1855, in Romance language; in addition modern German translation (reproduced).
• Remarcablas Anectodas de legier per curiositat. (Partial copy of B / N 1180/8)

• Colonel Vincens Baron v. Friberg, contemporary print.
• Marcus Defuns: Josef Balthasar de Vincenz, sias stentas e ses plans per colonisar Grischuns en Spagna. 1817, Sep. Igl Ischi, vol. 50/1964.
• Meum Scret. Species facti ne Process Verbal de las Aventuras de Verzaconds Grischuns en Spagna. 1818 (manuscript).
• Balthasar Joseph de Vincenz, personal correspondence, particularly from his service, 1806–1842.
• Collection of 25 moral stories in Romance language, written by Balthasar de Vincenz.
• Files concerning Balthasar de Vincenz from the Archivio general militar Segovia (1813–1836; photocopies, registers).
• Testament of Balthasar Joseph de Vincenz, 1838, 1854.

literature

• Ursin Lutz : The Meum Scret of Balthasar Gioseph de Vincenz (1789-1858) . Swiss Academies Reports 15, Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences, 2020, ISSN  2297-1793

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x} Ursin Lutz: Das Meum Scret des Balthasar Gioseph de Vincenz (1789–1858) , 2020
2. ^ Albert Maag-Socin : History of the Swiss troops in the war of Napoleon I. In Spain and Portugal (1807-1814). Volume 1, E. Kuhn 1893, p. 17.
3. ↑ Gloría A. Franco Rubio: Hacia una re-construcción de la sociabilidadilustrada: las Sociedades de Amigos del País gaditanas. Cuadernos de Historia Moderna Anejos, Madrid 2002, ISBN 84-95215-37-3 , pp. 182-183. ( https://web.archive.org , span.)
4. ↑ Ufficials e funcziunaris dalla Pleiv see Gions Mustér , Disentis Catholic parish. (Raetorom.)
5. ↑ Signature B / N 1180/8
6. ↑ B / N 1180 / 1-12