Gomes Freire de Andrade

Gomes Freire de Andrade

Gomes Freire de Andrade [ ˈgoməʃ ˈfrɐi̯rə djɐnˈdraðə ] (born January 27, 1757 in Vienna ; † October 18, 1817 in the Forte de São Julião da Barra , Oeiras / Portugal ) was a Portuguese general .

Life

De Andrade was the son of the Portuguese ambassador to the Austrian court, Ambrósio Pereira Freire de Andrade (* 1700 - 14 November 1770) and the Bohemian Countess Marie Anna Elisabeth von Schaffgotsch (* 9 October 1738 - 27 November 1787). A befitting upbringing and his military career shaped his life. During his time in Vienna he was a knight of the Order of Christ .

At the age of 24 he was sent to Portugal in February 1781. From 1782 he was a cadet in the Peniche infantry regiment . In the same year he was promoted to ensign in the same regiment, and in 1787 he was transferred to the Royal Portuguese Fleet as a lieutenant at sea , where he took part in the Spanish bombing of Algiers with an aid group . In 1788 he was promoted to major , received permission to serve in the army of Tsarina Catherine II , and set out for Russia . After successful participation and brilliant missions (Danube plain, Crimea, siege of Otschaków) during the battles in the Russo-Austrian Turkish War (1787-92) under the command of Field Marshal Potjomkins , he was rewarded by Tsarina Catherine II with promotion to colonel in 1790 and received from presented her with the "sword of honor" as an award. At first he was forgotten when the medals were awarded. Only after protest and with the requested testimony by Colonel Markoff was he also granted the award. The promotion was confirmed in his absence in Lisbon .

Freire de Andrade was very popular in the aristocratic circles of Saint Petersburg. Meanwhile, differences of opinion with Potjomkin led to the withdrawal from the Russian army. On his return to Portugal, de Andrade was appointed colonel in the Regiment des Marquês das Minas , which was about to go on an expedition to Catalonia to assist Spain during the campaign against the French Republic . On this expedition, which arrived in Roussillon on November 11, 1793 , u. a. the Duke of Northumberland , the Prince of Montmorency-Luxembourg , the Count of Chalons and Count Liautaud attended. Despite brilliant stage victories, the Spanish-Portuguese army was ultimately unable to assert itself against the French troops, who received steady supplies, which led to their defeat in April 1794. In 1795 he was promoted to Marshal , in 1801 he took part in the so-called Orange War , in which Portugal was confronted with France and now Spain (which had changed sides after the separate peace in Basel in 1795) and was partly occupied for reparations and territorial cessions (Territories in northern Brazil and the area of Olivença (Spanish: Olivenza )), as well as the termination of its traditional alliance with England.

In 1807 de Andrade was promoted to lieutenant general. Working with the French and Spanish occupiers, he was promoted to second in command in the Portuguese army, which was restructured according to French regulations and went to France, where it was incorporated into the French army under the title Légion Portugaise and garrisoned in Grenoble . During his service in France, Freire de Andrade found himself underemployed and under-challenged, so that the task of governor of Dresden , assigned to him by Napoléon Bonaparte during the liberation wars in 1813 , remained the only significant command he held at that time. In the same year he returned to Paris, where he saw the re-establishment of the French monarchy. In 1815 he went back to Lisbon.

Freire de Andrade has u. a. promoted and helped establish the development of Freemasonry in the Kingdom of Portugal , to which he belonged with the rank of Grand Master , as one of its pioneers. As a leader, he took part in a liberal and nationalist conspiracy against the absolutist monarchy of John VI. and the military dictatorship of Beresford . De Andrade was arrested as a traitor and hanged together with eleven co-conspirators in the Forte de São Julião da Barra , which served as a political prison during this time . His body was cremated and the ashes poured into the Tagus . This brutal approach by the British commander-in-chief of the Portuguese army and de facto regent William Carr Beresford led to considerable unrest in Portugal and intensified the anti- British mood in the country, which ultimately led to the liberal revolution and the overthrow of Beresford. Gomes Freire de Andrade was, if you will, the first great martyr of the Liberal Movement in Portugal.

De Andrade's role in the history of Portugal

Timetable

• 1793–1795 alliance with Spain against revolutionary France
• 1796 Spain turns to France's side
• 1801 invasion of the Spaniards. Transfer of the city of Olivença to Spain in the Treaty of Bajadoz
• 1807–1811 Occupation of Portugal by the French general and adjutant to Napoléon Bonaparte Jean Andoche Junot , the French revolutionary general General Field Marshal Nicolas Jean-de-Dieu Soult and the military leader André Masséna . The royal family fled to Brazil.
• 1810 Wellington's victory over the French in the Battle of Buçaco .
• 1816–1826 Dom Joao VI ( John VI ) is crowned King of Brazil and Portugal after the death of Maria I and remains that way until his death in 1826.
• 1817 Liberal conspiracy under Gomes Freire de Andrade, ending with his execution.

Historical classification

Gomes Freire de Andrade was involved in the liberal revolution and the struggle between absolutists and constitutionalists , at a time when the call for a constitution was particularly loud in the Portuguese army. The country had no constitution at the time, so it was still governed in an absolutist way. In this respect, ideas brought to Portugal by Napoleon's revolutionary troops fell on fertile ground among the poorly paid army personnel. The absence of the royal family, as well as the presence of foreign commanders and incidents in Spain, added to additional unrest in the country. The British general and Portuguese marshal William Carr Beresford , who was the actual ruler of Portugal from 1811 to 1821, cracked down on his opponents, suppressed their demands with great relentlessness and had a number of them executed, including the liberal Gomes Freire de Andrade.

literature

• Raul Brandão: Vida e Morte de Gomes Freire de Andrade (Life and Death of Gomes Freire de Andrade) ,
  4th ed. Lisbon, Alfa (“Testemunhos Contemporâneos”, 14 ') 1990.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Gomes Freire de Andrade at arqnet.pt (Portuguese)
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Andrade, Gomes Freire near Portugal Dicionário histórico arqnet.pt. (Portuguese)
3. ^ ^{A b} Winfried Kreutzer : History of Portugal , Reclam non-fiction book, 2013 Philipp Reclam jun. GmbH & Co. KG, Stuttgart, ISBN 978-3-15-960394-0