Friedrich Ludwig Eberhard von Esebeck

Funerary inscription with coat of arms

Grave in the Zweibrücken main cemetery, next to it the mother's smaller tombstone

The tombstone is crowned with a helmet and a cross of the Legion of Honor

Baron Friedrich Ludwig Eberhard von Esebeck (born July 30, 1769 in Zweibrücken , † March 23, 1852 ibid) was an Austrian and French officer .

Life

ancestry

He came from the old north German noble family von Esebeck and was the son of the French maréchal de camp Eberhard von Esebeck (1740-1817) and his wife Catharina, née Girtanner von Luxburg († 1833). Uncle Johann Friedrich Ludwig Jordan von Esebeck (1741–1798) and grandfather Johann Asmus von Esebeck (1711–1770) were ministers of the Palatinate and Zweibrücken.

Military career

In 1783, at the age of 14, Esebeck entered the army service in his native Palatinate-Zweibrücken . In 1789 he already held the rank of major here . In the wake of the French Revolution, the French occupied the area and Esebeck fled, as did the state government.

The young officer switched to the Austrian army and participated in the coalition wars against France. In 1793 he fought near Weißenburg and Mannheim , in 1796 in the battle of Montenotte and in 1805 as a hussar cavalry master near Austerlitz . In 1809 Esebeck advanced as a major to chief of staff of the 2nd Army Corps. During the Fifth Coalition War he took part in the battles of Eggmühl , Aspern and Wagram .

In 1811 Napoleon decreed that all foreigners had to resign from service in the Austrian army. Friedrich von Esebeck was incorporated into the French army in 1812 and nationalized as a Frenchman in 1814, as his homeland was now part of France. He fought in the Italian theater of war in 1813 . King Louis XVIII appointed Esebeck in 1818, with the rank of lieutenant colonel , commander of the Pfalzburg fortress . In 1821 he asked for his departure, which was granted to him.

Friedrich von Esebeck retired to his home in Zweibrücken, which in the meantime belonged to the Kingdom of Bavaria . In 1818 he married the young Englishwoman Maria Anna Atwell-Smith (* 1800). The marriage resulted in the son Friedrich von Esebeck (* 1820), Bavarian Rittmeister and Marie von Esebeck (* 1818) married to the Bavarian district judge Max Loe in Landau .

Esebeck died in Zweibrücken in 1852 and was buried in the main cemetery, where his classical tombstone has been preserved. He was an officer of the French Legion of Honor and a knight of the French Order of Louis . His gravestone is crowned with a French cavalry helmet and the cross of the Legion of Honor.

literature

• Friedrich August Schmidt: New necrology of the Germans. 30th year, 1st part, pp. 206–207. Weimar 1854. (digital scan)
• Johann Friedrich von Cotta: General newspaper Munich. Supplement to No. 92 of April 1, 1852. P. 1470 of the year. (Digital scan of obituary)
• Ernst Heinrich Kneschke: New general German nobility lexicon. Volume 3, Leipzig 1861. p. 159. (digital scan)