Georg Carl von Döbeln
Georg Carl von Döbeln (born April 29, 1758 in Stora Torpa (Segerstad parish), Skaraborg province (Västergötland landscape); † February 16, 1820 ) was a Swedish general who played an important role in the Russo-Swedish War 1808-1809 played. His direct opponent was very often the Russian officer Yakov Petrovich Kulnew .
Childhood and youth
Georg Carl von Döbeln was born in 1758 in Stora Torpa (Segerstad parish) in what was then the province of Skaraborg ( Västergötland region ). His father died early and his foster parents initially thought of a clerical career. However, when he became interested in the military, he was sent to the Naval Academy . But his parents were already thinking about his professional career and saying that he should become a lawyer. He studied law for two years, but failed to achieve any great success. At the age of 20 he joined the infantry regiment "Sprengtporten" as an officer candidate with the rank of ensign .
In France
Like many young men of his time, Chub was also very adventurous. In 1780 he decided to travel to the 13 colonies in America to take part in the freedom struggles. He set out for France to embark there, but stayed in Paris for over a year . Most recently he was employed there in the regiment of Count De La Marck and had a letter of recommendation from Benjamin Franklin in his pocket.
However, the regiment was not on its way to America, but was assigned to India at the last minute. The voyage to India lasted a year and was littered with danger, and diseases raged on the ship "l'Amitié" ( French for "friendship") . Outside Brest, the fleet was initially attacked by British ships and was forced to return to Brest to have a ship repaired. After that, however, the sea voyage could continue unharmed. Chub was injured in the leg in the Battle of Cuddalore in India, but kept silent about this injury, as he knew that the campaign would then have been over for him. Despite this wound, he did well in the fighting in India. The Battle of Cuddalore was the largest clash between European powers in India at the time.
In India, Chub encountered many different cultures, which he described in more detail in his diaries. In September 1783, Döbeln was promoted to captain and served General De La Marck during the six-month journey home.
Back at home
After his return, Döbeln was unable to find a decent job because he was with the Swedish King Gustav III during his first stay in Paris . fell out of favor. The king had asked Döbeln to support a rival in a duel against Döbeln's friend General De La Marck, but Döbeln refused. So Döbeln has now returned to France and served in the Strasbourg garrison for four years . Here he also made some interesting friendships. During a vacation at the Castle of Raismes in northern France, Döbeln performed some geometric measurements on maps of the area. As support he received “a small but nice man” who called himself “Bonaparte”. It was the future emperor Napoleon .
When the war with Russia (1788–1790) began, Döbeln returned to Sweden. In March 1789 he was a captain in the "Savolax" light infantry regiment under the direction of Colonel Curt von Stedingk . In the battle of Porrassalmi (Finland), in which the Swedes fought against a much larger Russian army , he was injured again. This time he got a pistol bullet in his head, and that was the reason why he wore a black silk ribbon around his forehead from then on: he wanted to hide the hideous wound. Because Chub was a very irascible man, people thought his strange behavior was a direct result of his head injury. After this incident, he was promoted to major .
During the peaceful time after the war with Russia, Chub also spent his time in more peaceful pursuits. After he had expanded his property, he was transferred to the "Nylands Brigade" in Finland .
Russo-Swedish War 1808–1809
Initial phase of the war
When the Russo-Swedish War from 1808 to 1809 , which was to make it a legend, broke out, Döbeln was in command of the rearguard of the Third Brigade and thus had the best prospects on the battlefields. In Ypperi near Pyhäjoki he bravely fought Kulnev , in Lappo he attacked the left flank of the enemy and overran it, in Kauhajoki he stormed a superior Russian army and forced them to retreat. And again legends tell of this man's irascibility and daring: after witnessing the Russian cruelty towards the civilian population, especially the peasants, in the region around Kauhajoki, Döbeln and his men carried out a great attack against the Russians in the ensuing battle . "This action was carried out like on the parade grounds," said one of the eyewitnesses. When the Russians were advancing to the first lines, Chub climbed a nearby rock and shouted at the Russians: “Go to hell, you lousy Russians! You will get your wages immediately! Here I stand and I'm supposed to fall Here you will see my monument! "
Another bizarre example of Georg Carl von Döbeln's temperament was shown in the battle of Ypperi near Pyhäjoki at the end of the first retreat. During this tough battle in the winter snow, Döbeln's adjutant Erling was shot. His blood splattered on chub, and his coat was also covered with blood stains. When asked later what in the world was on his coat, he said it was Erling's brain. "He lost his head when he rode next to me."
Döbeln celebrated his most legendary victory in the Battle of Jutas, about which the volume of poetry Fähnrich Stahl by Johan Ludvig Runeberg reports. The Russian general Kossatchoffskij tried to cut off the route of the main Swedish army in retreat, but Döbeln saved the situation by sending his regiment "Björneborg" directly onto the enemy. The main Swedish army, led by Carl Johan Adlercreutz, fought at the Battle of Oravais the next day, and if Chub in Jutas had not won it would have been a disaster for the main Swedish army. “From chub in jutas” has become a legend. Before this operation, Döbeln was sick in the town of Nykarleby when he received news of the deployment of Russian troops. Immediately he was back in the field and strengthened the morale of the poorly and poorly equipped troops. Then began a daring mission that immediately stirred up the enemy - on a battlefield that was not at all suitable for such a mission. Although the Battle of Jutas was only a minor event overall, it undoubtedly left Döbeln's mark on history.
During the war, the soldiers nicknamed Döbeln “Das Schwarze Band” - the reasons are understandable. After the Battle of Lappo Döbeln was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of the Sword , after Jutas he was appointed Major General. He was then stationed as commander in the Åland Islands. There he was attacked by Russian troops, but was able to organize an orderly retreat to mainland Sweden. When Kulnew's troops landed along the coast near Grisslehamn on the Swedish mainland, Chub and his men were the only opponents between Kulnew and Stockholm .
Final phase of the war
Chub was an active part of the campaign in northern Sweden, at the end of which he said goodbye to the Finnish part of the army. The words he spoke ended Finland's 700 year old affiliation with Sweden. The October days of 1809 were cold and windy; On one side stood the recently arrived grenadiers in shimmering uniforms and with new equipment, then came the other Swedish soldiers and finally the Finnish veterans, wrapped in rags and with insufficient equipment. It was a pitiful sight. It was Döbeln who spoke to these men, said goodbye and thanked the Finnish nation.
Döbeln's farewell to the Finnish soldiers on October 8, 1809 was described in glorious words by many Swedish and Finnish historians.
He then commanded the Swedish troops stationed on the Norwegian border. He managed to persuade the Norwegian commander to retreat to Norway without shedding blood. In 1809 he was also made a baron . In 1811 he became the commander of the newly established "Norra skånska infantry regiment", in which he preferred to hire veterans from his campaigns in Finland.
Napoleonic Wars
During the war in Germany in 1813, Döbeln commanded Swedish troops in Mecklenburg . From here he supported Hamburg , which was threatened by the French. British troops were sent to Hamburg to help the city fight the French; but these troops were too weak and came too late. The hands of the Swedes were tied because Crown Prince Bernadotte had not yet arrived and had given the Swedish troops in northern Germany, commanded by Adlercreutz , strict orders not to attack the enemy if the chances of victory were not 3: 1. Adlercreutz couldn't decide whether or not to take the support of Hamburg into his own hands. Döbeln, however, immediately sent Brigadier General Boije to Hamburg with Swedish reinforcements. After Bernadotte had finally arrived and was welcomed by the people of Stralsund as “the savior of Germany” , Adlercreutz was replaced by Stedingk . Chub did not stop his march to Hamburg, although Bernadotte wanted the men to stop where they were. Chub sat in his office for an hour with Bernadotte's orders in hand before he sent him to Boije. When the courier arrived, Boije's men had already advanced to the outskirts, where they successfully repelled a French attack.
Döbeln had promised to support Hamburg, and he always went his own way, whether good or bad. He was always a man of his word - to the extreme. Chub once visited a group of women who were in the process of discussing a subject he did not want to hear. He said to them that if they did not stop talking about this topic, he would leave this group now and only come back when 10 years had passed. The ladies continued their amusing discussion, ignoring his remark. He got up and left the ladies - and as he had said, he came back 10 years later.
His action in Hamburg was viewed as a disobedience to order, and Döbeln was sentenced to death. However, Bernadotte himself overturned the conviction and instead arranged for Döbelns to be imprisoned in Vaxholm prison. Döbeln wrote a letter from prison to a relative in which he expressed his wish to serve in the Swedish or another of the Allied armies until the end of the war, after which he would voluntarily return to prison. This letter touched Bernadotte so much that it overturned the condemnation entirely. After this incident, the relationship between the two was good. In 1815 Döbeln received a fiefdom in Pomerania , which at that time belonged to Sweden, and in 1816 was appointed permanent spokesman in the council of war.
Death and legend
Georg Carl von Döbeln died in 1820 at the age of 62. He was an ambivalent character with a quick temper, angry temper, but he could also be gentle and sentimental. His soldiers and superiors admired his courage and innovation in the face of the enemy.
He spent his later years as a retiree, withdrawn and under very tight circumstances, at Lilla Trädgårdsgatan in Stockholm. His motto as a Freiherr was: "Ara, skyldighet, wilja" (translated: "Honor, duty, will"). This also became the motto of the “Norra skånska” regiment and also adorns Carl von Döbeln's tombstone in St. John's Cemetery in central Stockholm.
In the poem Döbeln vid Jutas ( "chub at Jutas") from Ensign steel has Runeberg Georg Carl set a literary monument of chub.
family
Döbeln was married to Kristina Karoline Ullström, from whom he later divorced. With her he had a son named Napoleon (1802-1847), who later became a captain in the Swedish army . Since he died unmarried, the baron family of the von Döbeln died out.
literature
- Bengt Kummel: Georg Carl von Döbeln. 1758-1820. Liv och känsla. Scriptum, Vasa 1998, ISBN 951-8902-70-4 .
- Bengt Kummel: Georg Carl von Döbeln 1758–1820. En biografi. Themis, Stockholm 2009, ISBN 978-91-976787-5-9 .
- Döbeln, Georg Carl von . In: Herman Hofberg, Frithiof Heurlin, Viktor Millqvist, Olof Rubenson (eds.): Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon . 2nd Edition. tape 1 : A-K . Albert Bonniers Verlag, Stockholm 1906, p. 261-263 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Döbeln, Georg Carl von |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swedish major general |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 29, 1758 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Stora Torpa (Segerstad parish), Skaraborg province (Västergötland region) |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 16, 1820 |