Claudius Florimund Mercy
Claudius Florimund Count Mercy (* 1666 in Longwy ( Lorraine ); died June 29, 1734 near Parma ) was Imperial Field Marshal , commanding general of the imperial province of Temescher Banat and President of the Banat Provincial Administration (1717-1734).
His parents were Lieutenant Field Marshal Baron Peter Ernst von Mercy (1641–1686) and Marie Christiane d'Allamont . His father was raised to the rank of count on September 23, 1686. In 1700 Claudius Florimund appears as lord of Fontoy , Looten and Schöndorf . Claudius Florimund's grandfather was the imperial and Bavarian general Franz von Mercy .
Life
Mercy joined the imperial army as a volunteer in 1682 , acquired an officer license ( lieutenant ) in the Battle of the Kahlenberg ( relief of Vienna , 1683 ) and fought the Turks with distinction in the subsequent campaigns in Hungary (1684–1690). He participated in the Spanish War of Succession from the beginning until the Peace of Rastatt in 1714. In 1701 he fought as a lieutenant colonel in Italy and fought back six enemy squadrons with 300 horsemen near Borgoforte ( province of Mantua ) , was captured several times, but was released again and again in the course of prisoner exchange.
He then owned and commanded a cuirassier regiment named after him on the Rhine and earned great fame in the battle of Friedlingen . In 1705 he, meanwhile promoted to major general, pushed the French back from their lines at Pfaffenhofen to the cannons of Strasbourg . In 1706 he provided Landau with the necessary supplies and in 1707 blew up the flying corps of the Marquis de Vivans near Orlenberg .
Raised field marshal lieutenant , he covered the Landau area. In the campaign of 1709 he led six regiments to Mantua , after his return crossed the Rhine and took a position near Neuchâtel on the Rhine . Beaten by Maréchal de Bourg near Rummersheim , he had to retreat to Rheinfelden , but covered the Black Forest and the forest cities . In the Turkish War (1716) he made a decisive contribution to the victory in the Battle of Peterwardein , covered the siege of Timisoara and also took part here with distinction in 1717.
On April 15, 1718, Count Mercy was appointed commanding general in the Banat according to an imperial decree, so that the military's claim to leadership in the camera administration was retained. Claudius Florimund Mercy was also appointed President of the Banat Provincial Administration. In this function he had the task of carrying out the Banat furnishing project.
During the war with Spain he had the supreme command in Sicily from April 1719 and fought with increasing success. He attacked the Marquis de Lede on June 20 at Francavilla , despite being wounded, he still managed to occupy Messina , after which he was replaced by Lieutenant Field Marshal Zum Junge .
As governor of Timisoara , from 1720 he was in charge of the settlement and cultivation of the southern Hungarian regions conquered by the Turks, including the Timisoara Banat . The immigrants from Swabia, Franconia, Palatinate, Rhineland and elsewhere, the Danube Swabians , were given land and granted them three years of tax exemption. A total of 100,000 people were settled, 30,000 Serb families settled in today's Vojvodina alone .
The fortification of the city walls of Timisoara and the straightening of the Bega are also attributable to Count Mercy . On April 23, 1723 the foundation stone of the new fortress walls was laid. The fortress construction continued uninterrupted and was not completed until 1765.
In 1727, the construction of the Bega Canal was under Mercy's leadership. Before the canalisation, the Bega offered rich food in a wild, unregulated course to the extensive marshland in the west. The drainage of the swamps seemed to Mercy a necessity for strategic, economic and not least sanitary reasons. The resulting drying up of the swamps gave rise to new, fertile farmland, the Banat Heath.
As Field Marshal General , Mercy took over command of Italy in 1733 . He fell on June 29, 1734 in the Battle of Parma during the attack on Crocetta near Parma , after a stroke, almost blind and deaf, at the age of 68. He was buried in the cathedral in Reggio .
progeny
Since Mercy had no children, his fiefdom and the title of count he had received in 1720 inherited his adopted son Antoine Mercy d'Argenteau, who died in 1767 as governor-general in Esseg , and his son, Florimund Mercy d'Argenteau , who was in the diplomatic service entered, under Peter III. and Catherine II held the post of ambassador in Russia , became envoy to Paris in 1786 and played an important role as Maria Theresa's confidante and advisor to Queen Marie Antoinette . Johann Andreas Graf von Hamilton (1734–1738) and Franz Anton Leopold Ponz Freiherr von Engelshofen (1740–1757) were important successors of Mercy as governor of the Temescher Banat .
Museum reception
The history of Prince Eugene of Savoy, whose general and confidante Mercy was, is comprehensively presented in the Vienna Museum of Military History . The only contemporary portrait of Claudius Florimund de Mercy is on display in this area of the collection (Room I of the museum).
See also
literature
- Mercy . In: Pierer's Universal Lexicon . Volume 11. Altenburg 1860, p. 146 f.
- Constantin von Wurzbach : Mercy, Florimund Claudius Graf von . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 17th part. Imperial-Royal Court and State Printing Office, Vienna 1867, pp. 386–391 ( digitized version ).
- Mercy . In: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon . Volume 13. Leipzig 1908, p. 628 f.
- Gerhard Seewann : Mercy, Claudius Florimund Graf . In: Biographical Lexicon on the History of Southeast Europe . Volume 3. Munich 1979, pp. 159-161
- Stephan Vajda : Felix Austria. A history of Austria. Ueberreuter, Vienna 1980, ISBN 3-8000-3168-X , p. 338 f.
- Anton Peter Petri : Biographical Lexicon of the Banat Germans. Th. Breit, Marquartstein 1992.
- Helmut Neuhaus : Mercy, Claudius Florimund Graf von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-428-00198-2 , p. 126 f. ( Digitized version ).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Pierre Napoléon Célestin Charles Auguste Kessel, Livre d'or de la noblesse Luxembourgeoise, ou, Recueil historique, chronologique, généalogique & biographique des familles nobles du Luxembourg ancien & moderne , p. 4, digitalized family tree Christiane d'Allamont
- ↑ LHAKo Order 1A No. 3312
- ^ Helmut Neuhaus : Mercy, Claudius Florimund Graf von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-428-00198-2 , p. 126 f. ( Digitized version ).
- ^ Johann Heinrich Schwicker: History of the Temeser Banat , LaVergne, TN USA, 2010
- ↑ Die Schwabenzüge , Birda.de, accessed September 2008
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Mercy, Claudius Florimund |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Mercy, Claudius Florimund Graf (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | imperial field marshal |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1666 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Longwy ( Lorraine ) |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 29, 1734 |
| Place of death | Parma |