Balthasar von Simunich

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Balthasar von Simunich 1857

Balthasar Freiherr von Simunich ( Croatian : Baltazar Šimunić ; born April 25, 1785 in Novigrad Podravski , Bjelovar-Križevci County , Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia ; † July 8, 1861 in Weinhaus ) was an Imperial and Royal Lieutenant Field Marshal and Knight of Theresa .

Origin and family

Balthasar came from an old Croatian noble family. He was the son of a kk officer. The general married Franziska Edlen von Mitis on February 16, 1813 (* October 6, 1792, † August 21, 1874). This marriage gave birth to four children, two sons and two daughters. One of the sons was a first lieutenant with the Bavarian Dragons and died as such of cholera in 1835 . The second, Eugen, also became an Austrian officer and fell in 1849. Of the general's two daughters, Franziska Xaveria (born November 26, 1813) had been with the Imperial and Royal Treasurer and Finance Councilor Nikolaus Freiherr von Tinti († March 13, 1851) 1869 in Vienna ) and Sophie (born May 9, 1821) married to Anton Freiherrn von Lanfrey on May 3, 1842.

The only male successor of the family was his nephew Karl (born October 23, 1834 in Czernowitz ), kuk major in the infantry regiment Archduke Karl Salvator No. 77, son of Matthew († 1846), colonel and commander of the 2nd Banal Border Regiment. The baron class of his uncle with an imperial diploma, dd. Vienna on October 21, 1858.

biography

Years of development

Battle of Caldiero 1806
Battle of Dresden 1813

Simunich on December 16, 1800 St. at Warasdiner Georger Border Infantry Regiment. 6 was as a cadet leaving advantage and transferred his request, in August 1801 the regiment Vukassovich no. 48, where he on October 1, 1805 for excellent usability and use for Lieutenant was promoted. During the Napoleonic Wars he was able to distinguish himself several times, including in 1806 in the Battle of Caldiero , when he independently commanded half a company in violent skirmish battles .

At the beginning of 1809 the regiment received the order to march to Galicia, where it was healed in the 7th Army Corps under Archduke Ferdinand. When the regiment advanced further into Warsaw in April, Simunich at Rashin / Raszin , on April 19 , distinguished himself by bravery and practical help in the management of the regiment in such a way that he was promoted to lieutenant in addition to the rank tour on the battlefield has been. In the following skirmishes, at Praga on April 25th, at Grochow, during the storming of the bridgehead at Thorn on May 15th, then at Jedlinsko and Zarnowize, he excelled through prudence and bravery.

In the campaign against Russia in 1812 , his regiment was assigned to an auxiliary corps in which he fought the Battle of Podubnie on August 12. In the battle of Dresden on August 26, 1813, when a battalion directed at a certain point took the wrong direction and was suddenly threatened by enemy superior cavalry, he showed great presence of mind by immediately taking over the command of the battalion and them held despite a serious wound until he had brought it to the designated place. In relation to Field Marshal Lieutenant Bianchi, the officer was promoted to lieutenant captain in infantry regiment No. 49, at that time Baron Kerpen, because of his distinction in front of the enemy, but was immediately promoted by the court war council to real captain in the Serbian free corps at that time. He then went to Timişoara to join his corps and after it was dissolved at the beginning of September 1814, he was assigned to the St. George Border Regiment in the same capacity. When the latter received marching orders to Italy and Naples in May 1815, S. stayed behind as a superfluous captain with the regimental staff to manage and administer all the regiment's treasuries and business, and used this time to become fully familiar with the basic military and legal organization of the military border do. On January 1, 1819, he was appointed military officer to the General Command in Agram , which he held for thirteen years without interruption under three commanding generals, Baron Radivojevich, Count Lilienberg and Baron Radochovich.

In the meantime he advanced to major in the 2nd Banat Border Regiment on January 21, 1828 and joined the 5th Warasdiner Kreuzer Grenz-Regiment in mid-May 1829 in the same capacity. On July 24th, 1829 he was raised together with his brother Matthäus to the herbländisch-Austrian nobility with "Edler von". With his translation to Grand Duke Constantin Infantry Regiment No. 18 on November 21, 1831, he was also appointed lieutenant colonel , where he also became colonel on April 17, 1834 . On June 17th of that year he was appointed commander of the Archduke Karl Ferdinand No. 51 infantry regiment. In 1833 he was awarded the Imperial Russian Order of St. Anne, 2nd class , by Tsar Nicholas I.

As a general

Bust of General Balthasar von Simunich, Heldenberg Memorial

On October 12, 1840, Simunich advanced to major general . He was assigned as a brigadier in Agram , from May 1844 as such in Vienna and on May 17, 1844 by Emperor Ferdinand I also raised to the Hungarian nobility, after he had been appointed court panelist in Agram County on May 30, 1842. In 1846, Tsar Nicholas I decorated him with the Imperial Russian Order of Saint Stanislaus, 1st class .

Knight's Cross of the Military Maria Theresa Order

After his promotion to field marshal lieutenant on February 4, 1848, he worked as a general in Tarnau . His army corps took part in street fighting and storming the barricades from June 12 to 17, 1848, during the defeat of the Whitsun uprising in Prague . Then Simunich took part during the Hungarian uprising , here especially in the armed conflict around Tyrnau . On December 14, 1848, Simunich attacked the enemy pass position above Jablonitz, took the pass, then pursued the enemy via Nadasd to Seplitz, and finally pushed them back to Tyrnau. Here the decisive battle broke out on the 16th of the month. After the rebellious Hungarians had received significant reinforcements from Pressburg , they holed up near the city. Simunich attacked the enemy on December 16, 1848 at 4 p.m. and defeated them within two hours. He captured five cannons, numerous weapons, a flag, 43 horses and took 766 prisoners. For the successful outcome of the Battle of Tyrnau achieved under his leadership, he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Military Maria Theresa Order in his 153rd doctorate on June 29, 1849.

The general continued to take part in the fighting in Hungary as corps commander. After the handover of the small fortress Leopoldstadt at the beginning of February 1849, Field Marshal Alfred Fürst von Windisch-Graetz ordered him to advance along the Waag towards Komorn in order to create a closer demerger of this fortress. In the First Battle of Komorn on April 26, 1849, the Hungarians opened strong cannon fire from their entrenchments at three o'clock in the morning and had gained significant ground gains by daybreak. But the Austrian associations were able to stop the attack. Simunich's division took the vineyards on the Sandberg with a bayonet. In May 1849 he was posted to Vienna as a division general. After all, the officer acted as the fortress commander in Komorn from October 1849. Here, for reasons of hygiene, he ensured that the moats were drained and provided financial support to the population that was impoverished by the war. Therefore, on the occasion of his 50th anniversary in service on December 16, 1850, the magistrate of the royal free city made him an honorary citizen and presented him with a valuable saber as a gift.

As a result of the statutes of the order, Emperor Franz Joseph I elevated him to the status of hereditary-Austrian baron with a diploma on January 28, 1850. The baron retired on March 7, 1853.

The general was not only an honorary citizen of Komorn, but also of the royal free city of Tyrnau. A bust was erected in his honor at the Heldenberg Memorial .

coat of arms

Coat of arms of the Barons of Simunich

1850: In red a tinned wall rising from the foot end, running through the shield, built of natural ashlar stones with a tower rising in the middle, slightly wider at the bottom, which has three battlements, three closed windows and an open gate and one halfway raised silver portcullis is provided. Above the tower gate there are one opening on each side, then three openings in the wall on both sides of the tower. On the battlements of the tower, on its rear paws, stands a silver, double-tailed lion with a knocked-out red tongue, which with its right front paw swings a shiny sword on a golden vessel to prank. On the main edge of the shield rests the baronial crown and on top of it an open, gold-crowned tournament helmet placed in the visor. Five ostrich feathers soar from the crown of the helmet, the middle one and the two outer ones red and the other two silver. The helmet covers are covered with silver on both sides in red.

Fonts

  • Instructions for the thorough moral and service training of the recruit as soon as possible, according to the Imperial and Royal Service Regulations. Vienna 1847.
  • About the knowledge of the three weapons and their use. Vienna 1849.
  • Memoir of the kk Feldmarschall-Lieutenant Balthasar Freih. from Simunich. Publishing house Ludwig Mayer, Vienna 1861.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Constantin von Wurzbach: Biographical Lexicon of the Kaiserthums Oesterreich. 34th part, KK Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1877, p. 350 f.
  2. ↑ Gothaisches genealogical pocket book of the baronial houses for the year. Volume 29, Justus Perthes Verlag, Gotha 1879, p. 793.
  3. ^ Johann Svoboda: The pupils of the Wiener Neustädter Military Academy from the establishment of the institution to our day. Volume 2, KK Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1894, p. 227.
  4. ↑ a b Joseph Strack: The generals of the Austrian army: after kk field files and other printed sources. Publisher by Joseph Keck and Son, Vienna 1850, p. 461 ff.
  5. ↑ a b Jaromir Hirtenfeld: The military Maria Theresa order and its members. 2nd volume, kk Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1857, pp. 1647 ff.
  6. ↑ a b c Antonio Schmidt-Brentano: The kk or kuk generals 1816-1918. Austrian State Archives, Vienna 2007, p. 173.
  7. ^ Wiener Zeitung. No. 221, August 12, 1848, p. 1.
  8. ↑ Tyrnau
  9. ↑ Tyrnau
  10. ↑ MTO
  11. ↑ Komorn
  12. ↑ Komorn
  13. ↑ ÖBL
  14. ↑ Military schematism of the Austrian Empire. KK Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna, March – April 1858, p. 124.
  15. ↑ Schematism for the imperial and royal army and for the imperial and royal navy. KK Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna, December 1859, p. 71.
personal data
SURNAME Simunich, Balthasar von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Šimunić, Baltazar; Simunich, Balthasar Freiherr von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian general
DATE OF BIRTH April 25, 1785
PLACE OF BIRTH Novigrad Podravski , Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia
DATE OF DEATH July 8, 1861
Place of death wine House