Guillaume de Lamboy

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Guillaume Baron de Lamboy , 17th century portrait
Guielelmus comes de Lamboy , Anselmus van Hulle: Les hommes illustres qui ont vécu dans le XVII. siecle, 1648

Guillaume de Lamboy (* around 1590 , probably in Flanders , † December 12, 1659 at Dimokur Castle in Bohemia ; also Count Wilhelm von Lamboy ) was an imperial military leader and general in the Thirty Years' War .

Live and act

Family ancestry and connections

Guillaume (Wilhelm) de Lamboy came from a southern Dutch family. He was the lord of the lands of Kortessem (municipality of the Flanders Province of Limburg ), Desseneer (probably a place near Kortessem), Wintershoven (today part of Kortessem) and Croonendaal (today Groenendaal, an approx. 80 hectare wooded area near Heemstede ), which today belong to Belgium . He belonged to the knighthood of the bishopric of Liège . In 1634 he was raised to the rank of baron , in 1649 he became an imperial count .

Guillaume de Lamboy was married to Sybilla von Boyneburg Bemmelburg, Freiin von Hohenberg († 1687), daughter of Johann von Bemmelburg zu Boyneburgk, on Erolzheim and Marktbissingen, governor of Innsbruck and Catharine Countess of Montfort. As Countess Lamboy, Sybilla is the founder of the Ursuline Convent in Prague in 1655. The alliance coat of arms Lamboy Boyneburg is located above the gate entrance to Kasteel Dessener not far from Maastricht / Belgium. In addition to four daughters, their son Johann de Lamboy († 1669) resulted from the marriage . This branch of the family died out in 1683. Guillaume de Lamboy's sister was the abbess Anna Catharina de Lamboy (* 1609, † 1675), who headed the Herkenrode Abbey in Hasselt (Belgium) .

Military career

He completed his military training in the Spanish Netherlands . He came to Germany when he moved to Bohemia under the Imperial General Bucquoy at the beginning of the Thirty Years War. In the Battle of Lützen on November 16, 1632, Lamboy commanded a cavalry regiment as a colonel , but was seriously wounded and taken prisoner by the Swedish . After an exchange of prisoners, Lamboy was recognized for his bravery in the Battle of Lützen by Emperor Ferdinand II . rewarded with an estate in Bohemia and honored with a handwriting.

Lamboy stayed in Wallenstein's army and was one of the signatories of the first Pilsen lapel on January 12, 1634 . On February 19, he also signed the Second Pilsener Revers, but shortly afterwards renounced Wallenstein and after his dismissal was appointed Quartermaster General and elevated to the status of Imperial Baron. After the battle of Nördlingen (September 6, 1634) he stayed with his troops in the area of ​​the upper Maingland and took Kulmbach and, after several months of siege, the fortress Coburg with a forged letter.

The siege of Hanau

Data of the siege of Hanau on a house wall in Hanauer Lamboystraße

The Hanau fortress was a strategically important point that was still occupied by the Swedish. It should be taken by imperial troops. The siege began in September 1635 under Colonel Götz and was continued with de Lamboy's arrival a little later as a strict blockade that lasted over a year. The headquarters of the imperial troops were on the south side of the Main in Steinheim Castle . In total, Hanau was enclosed by a belt of twenty entrenchments that were connected by trenches. In addition, a bridge was built over the Main and Kinzig . The Scottish General Ramsay in the Swedish service defended the city with his troops, but could not prevent the blockade ring from tightening.

The long period of blockade and the lack of food led to diseases and epidemics , which claimed a high number of victims among residents, refugees and members of the military. During the entire period negotiations were held between de Lamboy and Ramsay about the handover of the city. However, since de Lamboy demanded that Hanau be handed over to "mercy and disgrace", Ramsay refused to capitulate. The trapped troops received reinforcements on June 13, 1636 by a Hessian-Swedish army under the leadership of Landgrave Wilhelm V of Hessen-Kassel. Since the support by imperial troops promised by General Gallas did not arrive, Lamboy was no longer able to hold the enclosure and had to retreat across the Main.

Most of the entrenchments were stormed and taken by the Swedish-Hessian relief army. There was only significant resistance from the imperial family in the muddy hill south-east of the city , which was finally blown up in a hopeless location by the Constable from Buddingen. From this later developed the Hanau legend that after a failed siege, Lamboy blew himself up while sitting on powder kegs in the Lamboy forest (part of the Bulau ).

Another military path

In the same year, 1636, Lamboy took part in Gallas' campaign in France. Sent ahead with the cavalry, he joined the army of Charles of Lorraine in Burgundy . There they lifted the siege of Dole by Henri II. De Bourbon-Condé in August and advanced as far as Dijon . There, Duke Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar stood in their way, from whom they withdrew to unite with the rest of Gallas' army. A new offensive from October 20, 1636 was to be unsuccessful and had to be broken off with high losses. In the next few years Lamboy fought in the Netherlands and achieved brilliant victories in June 1640 during the siege of Arras and on July 6, 1641 in the battle of La Marfée near Sedans . In La Marfée support Lamboy the rebellious French nobleman Frederic Maurice de La Tour d'Auvergne , Duke of Bouillon , and Louis, Count of Soissons . The allies defeated the army of the French crown under Gaspard III. de Coligny , Lamboy then turned west, where he captured Donchery . However, the approach of another French army forced him to retreat north and to unite with the army of the Cardinal Infante. Recalled from Flanders to the Lower Rhine, in January 1642 he lost the reputation he had acquired in previous years in the battle on the Kempen Heide near St. Tönis (near Krefeld ), in which his troops were led by the newly formed army Jean Baptiste Budes de Guébriant were defeated, while Lamboy was captured again. This time it was only triggered after more than a year and was again in Spanish military service from 1643.

Supreme command in Westphalia

It was not until 1645 that Lamboy returned temporarily to the German theater of war to recruit 8,000 men, whom he supplied as reinforcements to Piccolimini's army in the Spanish Netherlands. On November 15, 1645, Lamboy was awarded the title of Imperial Field Marshal , but it was not until May 1647 that he was also given command of imperial troops. As Melander's successor , Lamboy became the commander of the armed forces in the Westphalian Empire and was thus responsible for the defense of Westphalia and Kurköln against Swedish and Hessian troops. Lamboy and his army invaded East Friesland in August 1647 to divert Königsmarck's troops who were threatening Paderborn . Königsmarck actually followed Lamboy, who returned to the Ems , where the two armies faced each other near Rheine for almost two months. When Königsmarck ran out of provisions, he withdrew on October 30th to recapture the places in East Friesland that had been won by the imperial family. Lamboy, on the other hand, turned south to winter in the neutral Duchy of Jülich . Once there, he conquered Düren, which was occupied by Hesse .

Next year Lamboy wanted his troops the Bishopric of Hildesheim occupy, on the way there he met at Lippstadt on the Hessian commander John of Geyso he to the nearby, heavily fortified on March 1, 1648 Geseke repelled. Geseke was besieged by the imperial for several weeks until a small Hessian army under Ernst von Hessen-Kassel came for relief. Geyso was able to escape from Geseke with his cavalry on this occasion, while Ernst von Hessen-Kassel was captured by Lamboy's troops. When another assault on Geseke could be repelled, Lamboy lifted the siege and withdrew to the Rhine. On June 14, 1648, Lamboy met Johann von Geyso and his Hessian army again near Grevenbroich . In the Battle of Wevelinghoven , one of the last field battles of the Thirty Years' War, Lamboy's troops were defeated after five hours of fighting, despite their initial success. Lamboy's infantry was almost completely wiped out, while he was able to escape to Zons with the remains of the cavalry himself. In a short time Lamboy re-established an army, which now had to act defensively against a numerically superior enemy. He couldn't prevent Geyso from recapturing the city of Düren in September. However, before the Peace of Westphalia was proclaimed, Lamboy succeeded in releasing the besieged Paderborn by making sham movements in the direction of Kassel , and in addition to bringing provisions and fresh troops into the city.

The last few years

Wilhelm von Lamboy, the Emperor Ferdinand III. He was raised to the status of hereditary Austrian count in 1649 , and after the Peace of Westphalia he and his family returned to his Bohemian estates.

Until his death, Lamboy was a fierce fighter for the Counter-Reformation and, with the help of Jesuits and Dragoons , managed to get his Protestant subjects to convert to the Catholic faith again .

Others

On the occasion of the liberation of Hanau on June 13, 1636 by the Hessian-Swedish troops, the Lamboy Festival is celebrated every year in Hanau (usually on the second weekend in June). It is one of the oldest folk festivals in Germany.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rudolf von Buttlar-Elberberg: Studbook of the Knighthood of Althessia, containing the family tables of the families of the Knights of Althessia residing in the former Electorate of Hesse . Borner, Wolfhagen 1888; therein the part "von Boyneburgk", panel I.
  2. ↑ Katrin Keller, Alessandro Catalano (ed.): The diaries and diaries of Cardinal Ernst Adalbert von Harrach (1598–1667) , Vol. 4: Diarium 1655–1667 & diary 1637–1641 . Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Vienna 2010, ISBN 3-205-79008-1 .
  3. ^ Eckhard Meise : The Thirty Years War and Hanau. In: Effects of founding a city. Published by the Magistrate of the City of Hanau, Walloon-Dutch Congregation, Hanauer Geschichtsverein 1844 eV, Hanau 1997, p. 115; the same: Bernhard Hundeshagen - no monument protection in Hanau in the early 19th century. In: New Magazine for Hanau History 2006, p. 24.
  4. ^ A b Hermann Hallwich :  Lamboy, Wilhelm Graf von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1883, pp. 557-564.
personal data
SURNAME Lamboy, Guillaume de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lamboy, Wilhelm Graf von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Army commander and general
DATE OF BIRTH around 1590
DATE OF DEATH December 12, 1659
Place of death Dimokur