Friedrich Karl von Langenau

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Karl Friedrich Gustav von Langenau, lithograph by Josef Kriehuber , 1840

Friedrich Karl Gustav August Freiherr von Langenau (born November 7, 1782 in Dresden , † July 4, 1840 in Graz ) was an Imperial and Royal Real Privy Councilor and Chamberlain , Lieutenant Field Marshal , Commanding General in Illyria , Inner Austria and Tyrol , Owner of the Line Infantry Regiment No. 49 and Theresa Knights . He was also a diplomat and military writer .

Coat of arms of the Barons of Langenau 1827

Origin and family

Friedrich came from a noble family from Silesia and was the son of Gottlob Bernhard von Langenau (* March 7, 1737 - June 10, 1794), lieutenant general and inspector of the infantry and fortress construction, who with Friederike Alexandrine (1759-1804), Daughter of the Prussian lieutenant colonel and resident commander of the Order of St. John on Lagow Friedrich Wilhelm von Pannwitz (1719–1790), was married. His brother Wilhelm Eduard Georg (* October 14, 1787; † December 26, 1860) entered the military career and was retired on October 8, 1859 with the title of field marshal lieutenant ad honores. The general was married to Sarah von Sturtz († 1851). From this marriage went two daughters Marie Alexandrine (* October 30, 1811), married in 1840 to the Privy Councilor and Feldzeugmeister (February 19, 1864) Karl Freiherr von Mertens (* July 25, 1803; † March 25, 1874) and Carolina ( * October 23, 1813), lady of honor of the Theresa Order and son Ferdinand (1818–1881). The latter was an Austrian envoy extraordinary and ministre plénipotentiaire and general of the cavalry .

biography

Battle of Wetzlar

In Saxony

Langenau joined the Electoral Saxon army as an ensign in 1795 at the age of 13, in which he took part in the campaign against France in 1796 and fought in the battle of Wetzlar . He then fought in the ranks of the Saxon army in the Rhine campaigns, in the Prussian-French campaign of 1807 and 1808 and in that of 1809 in Austria, where he advanced to lieutenant colonel and adjutant wing of the king. In 1810 he was colonel of the infantry and sous-chief of the general staff and on January 1, 1811 he held the high post of major general and adjutant general of King Friedrich August I. In the campaign against Russia in 1812, he acted in the capacity of chief of the general staff of the Saxon Army in the 7th Corps of the French Army under Jean-Louis Graf Reynier , to which it was assigned. For his work during the campaign, Langenau was awarded the Commander's Cross of the Military Order of St. Henry on February 10, 1813 .

After the return of the Saxon corps from Russia and Poland, he tried to initiate negotiations with Austria on behalf of the king. In order to conduct the negotiations between Saxony and Austria , Langenau went to Vienna , where he had already reached an agreement between the states mentioned, as a turning point in Saxon politics, since King Friedrich August I did not dare to turn away from Napoleon , destroyed everything again. On this occasion the general asked for his departure from the Saxon military service, which the king granted him (May 14, 1813).

In Austria

Battle of Dresden 1813

Langenau was accepted into the Austrian military as major general on June 2, 1813 and acted as quartermaster general - which corresponded to the position of head of the operations chancellery - under Field Marshal Karl Philipp zu Schwarzenberg and his chief of staff, Field Marshal Lieutenant Josef Wenzel Radetzky von Radetz . In this capacity he worked significantly on the drafts for the campaigns of 1813/14. In the battle of Dresden on August 26th, 1813, the field artillery director, Major General Johann Wenzel von Frierenberger was seriously wounded at the beginning of the battle, which threatened to prevent the batteries from being properly installed. Langenau now voluntarily offered to take control of the gun for the duration of the entire fight. After his request was accepted, he proceeded to execute it. Placing himself at the head of the batteries, he led his men into their position under the strong fire of the enemy, which was so cleverly chosen that the enemy gun was completely dismantled by his artillery in two redoubts and the attack and conquest of the enemy entrenchments the Austrian storm columns was made possible immediately.

Leipzig after the Battle of Nations in 1813

In the same way he excelled in the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig , where the field artillery director Field Marshal Lieutenant Anton Freiherr von Reisner alone was not able to supervise and direct the placement of the guns on such an extensive battlefield. Langenau took over the line-up for the column of the center and the left wing, and when he saw that the individual batteries were suffering too much from the enemy fire, he combined three and four of them at his own discretion and achieved such a great effect with them, that the enemy guns were immediately silenced. On the last day of the battle (October 18, 1813) it was he who, during a self-propelled reconnaissance of the enemy position before dawn, made the discovery that the French army had completely withdrawn from the position in front of Wachau, which had not been noticed before was. By immediately reporting this to Feldzeugmeister Count Colloredo and Field Marshal Lieutenant Count Hardegg, who commanded the avant-garde, the latter immediately initiated the pursuit of the enemy, and this early order gained a decisive advantage for the Austrian army. He was decorated with the Commander's Cross of the Leopold Order and the Russian Order of St. Anna I Class on the battlefield of Leipzig .

In the last battle near Hochheim on November 9th and 10th, 1813, he again voluntarily took over the function of field artillery director after the commanding general had ordered the use of 13 batteries against an entrenched position of the enemy. In doing so he achieved such a successful set-up that the enemy fire was silenced in a short time and the infantry, when they began the storm, hardly encountered any resistance. His presence of mind also prevented a collision of the third and fourth army corps, which were penetrating the city from two different points, which without proper guidance in the chaos of the battle was almost inevitable, as he dismounted from his horse and walked through the palisades with the foremost skirmishers of the third army corps von Hochheim urged and thwarted any possible disorder with his intervention.

Congress of Vienna 1815

After generals such as Radetzky, Bianchi , Schwarzenberg, Hardegg and Gyulay had given him written acknowledgments for his heroic behavior in the previous battles, he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Maria Theresa Order in 1815 according to the unanimous decision of the chapter of the order (88th to 144th centuries) . Doctorate in the years 1813–1816). That year, he was quartermaster-general of the Austrian army on the Upper Rhine, was then in 1816 to the Brigadier in Linz appointed and entrusted by Field Marshal Prince Schwarzenberg with the drafting of the official campaign history during the period from 1813 to 1815, but was soon in the Military Commission of the Congress of Vienna appointed , where he was also available to State Chancellor Prince Metternich and his advisor Friedrich Gentz on diplomatic missions, especially with regard to the Saxon question. From then on he had a deep friendship with Genz.

The Palais Thurn und Taxis in Frankfurt, seat of the Bundestag from 1818

At Metternich's suggestion, he was appointed to Frankfurt am Main in November 1818 as Austrian plenipotentiary and chairman of the Central Military Commission of the German Federal Assembly , where he worked until 1829. He drafted the military constitutional plan of the German Confederation and worked out the basics for building the federal fortresses. According to a rumor, the author is said to have written about the critical account of the conditions at the Bundestag, which appeared in newspapers in May 1822 (“Langenausche Note”), but which in reality came from the Württemberg Bundestag envoy, Karl August von Wangenheim . After further promotions and honors, such as the appointment in 1824 as owner of infantry regiment No. 49 and in 1825 as imperial chamberlain, Langenau advanced to field marshal lieutenant on November 27, 1827 and was elevated to the status of hereditary-Austrian baron on December 6, 1827. In 1829 he took over a division in Ofen , where Archduke Ferdinand d'Este met him, to whom he was assigned in the capacity of Adlatus when the Archduke went to Galicia as Governor General in 1832 and who was to succeed him in office three years later. In 1833 he was appointed to the Real Privy Council. In 1839 he was transferred to Graz as the commanding general of Illyria, Tyrol and Inner Austria, where he died unexpectedly just under a year later. The officer left behind an extensive collection of files, campaign journals and manuscripts.

The baron was buried in the St. Peter cemetery in Graz, where the local garrison had a grave monument placed for him.

Awards

Memorial to Infantry Regiment No. 49

The general was decorated many times, including:

Works

  • The war of 1813 historically illuminated. Rehm Publishing House, Vienna 1814.
  • The German war in 1813 after Austria's accession. 1st part: 1814. (anonymous; the authorship of Ls appears based on the information in the library catalog of the Vienna War Archives).
  • See the German people, that was your Bundestag: (Frankfurt 1823). Verlag Wienbrack, Leipzig 1848.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Silesian Curiosities First Presentation, Darinnen the handsome ... by Johannes Sinapius
  2. ^ NDB Friedrich von Langenau
  3. ^ Antonio Schmidt-Brentano: The kk or kuk generality 1816-1918. Austrian State Archives, Vienna 2007, p. 100.
  4. ^ Antonio Schmidt-Brentano: Imperial and Imperial Generals (1618-1815). Austrian State Archives / A. Schmidt-Brentano, Vienna 2006, p. 118.
  5. ↑ a b c German biography
  6. ↑ Gothaisches genealogical pocket book of baronial houses for the year 1871. Volume 21, Verlag Justus Perthes , Gotha 1871, p. 374.
  7. ↑ Royal Saxon Court and State Calendar to the year 1811. Verlag der Weidmannische Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1810, p. 272.
  8. ↑ The Royal Saxon Military St. Heinrichs Order 1736–1918. An honor sheet of the Saxon Army. Wilhelm and Bertha von Baensch Foundation, Dresden 1937, p. 47.
  9. ^ A b Antonio Schmidt-Brentano: Imperial and imperial generals (1618-1815). Austrian State Archives, Vienna 2006, p. 54.
  10. ↑ a b Constantin von Wurzbach : Biographical Lexicon of the Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 14th part, KK Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1865, p. 101 ff.
  11. ↑ Jaromir Hirtenfeld : The military Maria Theresa order and its members. Verlag der Buchhandlung für Militärliteratur Karl Prohaska, Vienna 1857, p. 1182.
  12. ↑ MTO
  13. ↑ Conversations Lexicon of the Present. In four volumes: K to O. Volume 3, Verlag FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1840, p. 226.
  14. ^ A b Napoleon Series
  15. ^ Gerhard Kurzmann, Wiltraud Resch: Monuments and fates - the St. Peter city cemetery in Graz. Verlag Austria-Medien-Service, Graz 2002, pp. 18, 101.
  16. ^ Lemberger Zeitung. No. 80, July 17, 1840, p. 1.
personal data
SURNAME Langenau, Friedrich Karl von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Langenau, Friedrich Karl Gustav August Freiherr von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Saxon major general, Austrian field marshal lieutenant as well as diplomat and military writer
DATE OF BIRTH November 7, 1782
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH 4th July 1840
Place of death Graz