Johann Daniel von Menzel

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Johann Daniel von Menzel
Menzel on horseback
Johann Daniel von Menzel with death on his neck

Johann Daniel von Menzel (* thirtieth September 1698 in Leipzig , † 25. June 1744 in Stockstadt am Rhein ) was a Baron and Hussars - General of the Imperial Army .

Live and act

Origin and changing positions

Bourgeois origin, he was born as the son of the field sergeant or barber Johann Men (t) zel and his wife Dorothea Elisabeth born. Liebreich, the daughter of a musician. Against the will of his father, who wanted to let him study and therefore brought him back, Johann Daniel Menzel entered Russian military service in 1711 on the occasion of Tsar Peter I's visit to Leipzig .

After he had started his studies, he later joined the Electoral Saxon army and then the Swedish army. Finally he transferred to the Polish-Lithuanian Crown Army , became a captain and the Polish-Saxon King August II raised him to the nobility . When his sponsor, General Jacob Heinrich von Flemming, died in 1728 , Menzel went to Russia as a major .

He fought 1733-1735 in the War of the Polish Succession , as well as under Field Marshal Burkhard Christoph von Münnich in 1736 against the Crimean Tatars and in 1737, during the Russo-Austrian Turkish War , in the assault on Ochakiv . In 1738 he was sent to the court of Nadir Shah in Persia , where he also proved to be a skilled diplomat.

Hungarian officer

1739 Johann Daniel Menzel left the Russian army and was awarded in 1741, in the War of Austrian Succession , as royal Hungarian lieutenant colonel , the command over the Pandur - Free Corps of temporarily disgraced Franz von der Trenck , with which it was continual disputes after his return. Under the command of General Johann Leopold Bärenklau zu Schönreith , Menzel played a decisive role in purifying Austria completely from Bavaria and the French in 1742 and, spreading panic everywhere, pushed his wild hordes as far as Munich, which he occupied. That is why he was promoted to colonel that year and was raised to the rank of baron .

Together with Freiherr von der Trenck, Johann Daniel von Menzel, in August 1743, pushed the Pandours deep into Alsace , where he announced to the fearful population in distributed proclamations the imminent liberation from the “unbearable French yoke” and of their loyalty to the Germans Reich appealed. Menzel made sustained efforts to preserve male discipline as much as possible among the undisciplined Pandours. For the slightest misconduct, he let the delinquents, according to his favorite expression, "canonically punish" and did not shy away from intervening himself.

In 1743 Menzel also set up his own black uniformed hussar regiment, which was taken over by Johann Baptist Bartholotti von Partenfeld after his death and was then called the "Bartolotti Hussar Regiment" . The unit was later partly in the Austro-Hungarian Hussar Regiment No. 8 and partly in the Hussar Regiment No. 4 . Through his wild and daring ventures, the baron became a legendary figure of his era and was nicknamed "Husarenmenzel" .

Rhine map section with annotation: “e. He is on this island. Obr. Mentzel was shot "

In 1744 Johann Daniel von Menzel, meanwhile promoted to Lieutenant General, stood with his troops, which also included 400 Pandurs, near Stockstadt am Rhein . General Barenklau's headquarters were here. From the so-called Mulberry Island, in front of the Kühkopf peninsula , where the Rhine was the narrowest, a bridge was to be built to the western bank. On June 25, Menzel was at Bärenklau's council of war, with Duke Karl Alexander of Lorraine and Landgrave Ludwig VIII of Hesse-Darmstadt also present. Then he drove to the Rhine Island and wanted to examine the river depth. In a tipsy mood, he ventured out of cover and began to provoke the enemy on the other side by shouting. He was badly wounded by a French sniper and died the same day with much prayer and constant exclaims: “O Lord Jesus! Take off " .

Johann Daniel von Menzel was buried in the church of Gernsheim . His wife, Therese Gabriele geb. Edle von Regenthal, who was in Bürstadt at the time of her husband's death , had a magnificent tomb erected for him in Gernsheim.

While still alive, a biography of him and his adventurous life appeared in 1743; there is a multitude of different portraits.

literature

Engraved biography, 1743

Web links

Commons : Johann Daniel von Menzel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Neue Deutsche Biographie , Volume 17, p. 106, Verlag Duncker & Humblot, 1994; (Detail scan)
  2. ↑ Website on the Pandur Corps under Trenck and Menzel ( Memento of the original from January 27, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kuk-wehrmacht.de
  3. ^ Wilhelm Edler von Janko :  Bärenklau zu Schönreith, Johann Leopold Freiherr von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, p. 59.
  4. ↑ Johann Christoph von Aretin : News on Bavarian history, from sources that have not yet been used , Munich, 1810, pp. 151–153; (Digital scan)
  5. ^ Ernst Heinrich Kneschke : New general German Adels-Lexicon , Volume 7, p. 400, Leipzig, 1867; (Digital scan on the nobles of Regenthal)
  6. ^ Kurtz composed historical news for the sake of the new European events , Volume 17, 1744, p. 545; (Digital scan)
  7. ↑ Friedrich Karl Gottlob Hirsching : Historical-literary manual of famous and memorable persons who died in the 18th century , 5th volume, 1st part, p. 252, Leipzig, 1800; (Digital scan)
personal data
SURNAME Menzel, Johann Daniel von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Menzl, Johann Daniel von; Hussar menzel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Baron, Hungarian hussar general
DATE OF BIRTH September 30, 1698
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH June 25, 1744
Place of death Stockstadt on the Rhine