Gottfried Ernst von Wuttgenau

The imperial baron Gottfried Ernst von Wuttgenau (also: Wutginau , born August 31, 1674 in Pühlau, Kr Oels , † December 23, 1736 in Raab ) was an imperial and royal general field master as well as a major general in Hessen-Kassel .

origin

His grandfather Christof Wuttky had been ennobled in 1678 by Emperor Leopold I and given the name "von Wutginau". His parents were Gottfried Ernst von Wuttgenau, personal physician to the Duke of Oels , (note: the personal physician was Christian Wutge von Wuthgenau, 1644–1736, see Vetter) and his wife, born von Burchsthal. (Barbara Sophie Burgstaller from Preßburg) His brother Johann Leonhard became a Prussian colonel , his sister Johanne Christiane married Joachim von Bludowsky († 1720) in 1707.

Life

At the age of 18, Wuttgenau attended the University of Jena , studied Latin, French and Italian, mathematics, war architecture and war fireworks. He was housed in the house of the mathematician Erhard Weigel and helped with his mathematical and mechanical works. In 1697 Wuttgenau got into a dispute with some officers on the Drackendorf estate and was seriously injured, his boy Wolf von Werther was killed. He then left Jena and looked around some of the royal courts. He stayed for a few years with Count Balthasar Erdmann von Promnitz in Sorau and went on trips with his son Erdmann II , both of whom stayed longer in Paris and Turin . After returning, Promnitz married Princess Marie von Sachsen-Weißenfels, a daughter of Duke Johann Adolf I von Sachsen-Weißenfels . Wuttgenau became chamberlain to the duke. In 1705 he got into an argument with a baron von Kittlitz and was injured in the hand in the following duel , which made longer treatment necessary.

War of the Spanish Succession

In 1706 he decided to join the Hessian army, which the Hereditary Prince Friedrich von Hessen-Kassel gathered. In the War of the Spanish Succession , Friedrich led the army of 10,600 men across the Alps to join the imperial army in Italy. In the campaign Wuttgenau was able to distinguish himself several times. So he managed to capture a French sentry and bring it to the imperial camp. Prince Friedrich appointed him his adjutant general at this time .

At the siege of Toulon in 1707 he was quartermaster general. The siege failed and the Hessians went back over the Alps. At the beginning of 1708 Wuttgenau was appointed "Führer" of Prince George of Hesse and accompanied Prince Friedrich with a new army to Italy. At the end of April 1708, Prince George and his leader joined the army under Prince Eugen and Marlborough in the Netherlands. During the siege of Lille , Wuttgenau noticed an unoccupied redoubt , which he quickly occupied with an officer and four men. The French noticed their mistake and sent 300 men to drive the Hessians out again. In the afternoon the Redoute was occupied again by the Hessians, who lost 200 men in the storm due to the resistance of the French.

In the course of time, Prince Georg was made a colonel and received his own regiment. Wuttgenau was assigned to him as a lieutenant colonel. On September 11, 1709, the regiment led an attack on the left flank of the French at the Battle of Malplaquet and was thrown back. Wuttgenau succeeded in reassembling the regiment and letting it advance again in order to participate in victory.

The campaign of 1710 was marked by various sieges and Wuttgenau was able to distinguish himself as an engineer and in the field. During the siege of Bouchain in 1711 he managed to build a 680 paces long bridge over the Scheldt that night ; so a horn factory could be conquered. At Quesnoy he led the storm on July 4, 1712 on a strategically important redoubt. After conquering them, the fortress would have to surrender. In November of that year the troops returned to their winter quarters across the Rhine.

Hofmeister to Prince Georg

Prince Georg entered Prussian service in 1713. Wuttgenau, promoted to colonel, followed him as stable master and steward. On January 11, 1714, the prince became the Prussian general wagon master. Both fought in the Pomeranian campaign at the siege of Stralsund . In 1716, Prince George began a grand tour . He went to the court in Versailles for seven months , while Wuttgenau was trained by the military theorist Jean-Charles de Folard . After seven months Wuttgenau and the prince traveled to Toulon to visit the sites of the siege; in October they reached the court in Turin. They then went to Rome for four weeks and from there to Venice for three weeks . On the way back, Georg fell seriously ill in Augsburg, but was able to recover, so the two of them returned to the court in Kassel on February 14, 1717

Turkish war

After his return, Wuttgenau received an order from the Landgrave to prepare Prince Maximilian's regiment for war. By the end of March he was ready and in May it moved away. On July 10, 1717, the siege army reached Belgrade . There Wuttgenau received the order on July 13 to build dams and bridges over the swamps in order to secure the connection between the main army and the detachment near Semlin. The supply routes were attacked again and again, and so he was seriously injured by a bullet on the morning of July 19 while creating a redoubt. This entered his head under his chin and went out through his left ear. He survived and was ready to go again after a few weeks. A backup Turkish army had since trapped the besiegers, but the explosion of the powder magazine in the city weakened the fortress. So on August 16, 1717, Prince Eugene decided to storm the fortress. Wuttgenau marched at the head of seven battalions and five grenadier companies about 800 paces ahead of the army, repelled three attacks by the Turks and captured 17 cannons and five mortars in the main Turkish bulwark.

After the Peace of Passarowitz in 1718 he was ordered to Sicily . On October 5th he came to Pavia , where he stayed until January 7th, 1719. On March 22nd he met the imperial army near Naples and crossed over to Sicily. In the battle of Francavilla the army suffered a defeat with heavy losses. During the following siege of Messina , Wuttgenau distinguished himself as a builder. On September 11th, a bullet hit him there and got stuck in his upper arm. The fortress had to surrender on October 18th due to a lack of powder.

In February 1720 the army advanced against Palermo . Together with Colonel Wilhelm von Neipperg , Wuttgenau led the first attack. On April 29, the Spaniards had to withdraw from some factories. On May 2, both colonels stormed other Spanish works, but the fighting ended with the Palermo Convention and the Spanish evacuated Sicily. For Wuttgenau, a long dispute with the court in Vienna ensued; the money due for his regiment was not paid until 1723.

Envoy to Russia

In the meantime, the Hessian Hereditary Prince Friedrich had been elected King of Sweden. His father, Landgrave Karl , planned to establish him as the successor to Tsar Peter . Wuttgenau, who had been promoted to major general, was sent as an envoy to the Russian court in St. Petersburg at the beginning of February 1724 . But it was only after the coronation of Tsar Katharina's wife on May 18, 1824, that he was officially received as envoy on the occasion of the Tsar's birthday on June 11.

Wuttgenau quickly noticed that he was in a difficult position. Because actually Karl Friedrich von Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf should have become king of Sweden according to inheritance law , but he was an alcoholic. In November 1724, however, the Holstein-Gottorp ambassador Henning Friedrich von Bassewitz succeeded in concluding a contract on the marriage between Anna Petrovna , daughter of Peter I , and Karl Friedrich; however, the couple had to renounce the throne of the tsar for themselves and their descendants.

Wuttgenau offered soldiers for the war against the Turks. The brother of the Swedish king, Georg von Hessen-Kassel, was proposed by the French, but he steadfastly refused to convert to the Orthodox faith.

On November 22nd, 1724, Frederick of Sweden wrote to his father, the Landgrave, to leave Wuttgenau as an envoy in St. Petersburg. The landgrave saw no progress and wanted to call Wuttgenau on February 20, 1725. But since Tsar Peter died unexpectedly on February 8th, he stayed for the time being and forwarded the Landgrave's letter of libel. The new Tsarina Catherine I received him on May 16, 1725 for a farewell audience and only on June 22 did he leave St. Petersburg. Thanks to Katharina's favor, the Gottorper got their chance. On his return trip, Wuttgenau visited the theologian August Hermann Francke in Halle for a few days , with whom he corresponded in letters for many years. He returned to Kassel, where he found no real challenge, and so he gave up the service in Kassel in 1727.

In imperial service

Prince Eugene brought Wuttgenau into imperial service. There he was appointed sergeant general on June 28, 1727 . In 1730 family matters took him to Dresden , where he met the Saxon Elector and Polish King Augustus the Strong . In preparation for the Zeithain pleasure camp , he built a bridge over the Elbe for the prince. But he turned down the offer to enter Saxon service.

He was now sent by the emperor to Italy to take over a corps of 15,000 men from the imperial army under Mercy . In 1730 he also became the commandant of Piacenza . In 1731, however, the imperial family vacated the occupied duchies of Parma and Modena and in the spring of 1733 Wuttgenau was completely recalled. The War of the Polish Succession was looming and the imperial army was to move into a camp near Opole under August's command , but August moved it to Glogau . The war then broke out in Italy and on the Rhine. Prince Eugene appointed Wuttgenau to command the imperial fortress Philippsburg . The order of the emperor of October 28, 1733 instructed him to defend the fortress, where he was promoted to field marshal lieutenant; In addition, in 1734 he became chief of Infantry Regiment No. 3 .

War of the Polish Succession

→ Main article : Siege of Philippsburg (1734)

When Wuttgenau arrived in Philippsburg, he found the fortress in a sorry state. The crew of 4,000 men was far too small and most of them were barely trained recruits . So he set about getting the fortress ready for defense.

When the French Marshal Berwick brought in an army of 100,000 men and began the siege on May 23, 1734, Wuttgenau only had 15,000 men available, as many princes could not or would not fulfill their duties. He managed to hold the fortress until July 21st. Since there was no prospect of relief, he ultimately capitulated with all honors. The crew could pull off with waving flags and sounding game, each soldier with 20 rounds and each of the advancing six guns with six rounds. The defenders lost 257 dead, 509 wounded and 159 prisoners, but the French lost 6,000 men, including Marshal Berwick, whose head was torn off by a cannonball.

Wuttgenau went to Mainz . There the elector's personal physician cut the ball from his arm that he had been carrying since Messina. On July 31, he reported on the defense of Philippsburg to the Imperial Assembly in Regensburg . He received great praise from the congregation and a reward of 5000 thalers. Prince Eugene and the Kaiser also praised the defender of Philippsburg.

In January 1735 the emperor sent him to Mantua to protect this most important fortress in northern Italy. In May 1735 he was appointed General Feldzeugmeister and repaired the fortress. He did not come to a siege, however, as a peace treaty had been agreed beforehand.

death

The emperor tried to compensate for his losses in Italy in a war against the Turks . He appointed Wuttgenau general director of all imperial and imperial fortresses. Wuttgenau toured the fortresses in Hungary in autumn . He fell ill on November 30th near Stuhlweissenburg , traveled to Raab and visited a doctor there. When the news of the illness reached the emperor, he sent his personal physician Garelli; Wuttgenau's wife also traveled to Raab. All medical help was in vain and Wuttgenau died on December 23, 1736 in Raab. He was buried on December 26, 1736 in the local Protestant church.

family

He married Sophie Florentine von Buttlar , daughter of the Hessian Lieutenant General Gottfried Ernst von Buttlar (* 1660) on September 16, 1729 on his estate in Bielau . A son and a daughter died young. The couple had at least one surviving son, Gottfried Ernst (* 1732).

literature

• Carl von Stamford:  Wuttgenau, Gottfried Ernst Reichsfreiherr von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 44, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1898, pp. 372-376.
• Scholarly news of Silesia. 1739, p. 181ff.
• Wutgenau, Gottfried Ernst, Freyherr von. In: Johann Heinrich Zedler : Large complete universal lexicon of all sciences and arts . Volume 60, Leipzig 1749, column 508-518.
• The vedette. In: Military magazine. Volume 3, pp. 335ff.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ He probably came from the area around Lemberg in today's Ukraine ( [1] ).
2. ^ August von Doerr: The nobility of the Bohemian crown lands. P. 163.
3. ^ Leopold von Zedlitz-Neukirch : New Prussian Adels Lexicon. Volume 4, p. 359.
4. ↑ His brother Johann Leonhard had a daughter named Charlotte Wilhelmine, married von Koschembar. With her death in 1812 the line became extinct, cf. Thorner Presse. September 20, 1884, (pdf)
5. ↑ The Silesian Nobility. Volume 2, pp. 314f.
6. ^ Contributions to the history of the Imperial and Royal Austrian Génie-Corps, p.59