Johann Heinrich Böhm (officer)

Johann Heinrich Böhm , also called João Henrique Böhm, de Bohm or Bohm (born June 20, 1708 in Bremen , † December 22, 1783 in Rio de Janeiro ), was a German officer , Portuguese major general and, as lieutenant general, founder of the Brazilian army as well Commander in chief of all troops in Brazil.

biography

In Prussia, Schaumburg-Lippe and Bremen

Born in Bremen, Böhm entered the Prussian military service in 1730 . In 1750 he left Prussia as a lieutenant and served in the troops of Count Wilhelm von Schaumburg-Lippe . In 1753 he became captain ( captain ) of the infantry regiment . In 1754 he was promoted to major . In 1756 the count appointed him as a lieutenant colonel and vice-commandant of the Bückeburg fortress .

In 1758, his hometown of Bremen appointed him as a colonel to command the city and the Bremen battalion . He held this office until 1762 and again from 1763 to 1765.

In Portugal

In 1762 Count von Lippe succeeded in getting Böhm (now also known as de Bohm) to accompany him as adjutant general to Portugal in order to reform the local army. Xenophobia caused him to return to Bremen in 1763. From 1765 to 1767, at the request of the Portuguese king, he was called back to Portugal as major general , where he continued to carry out the army reforms.

In Brasil

On June 22, 1767, the Portuguese king appointed him lieutenant general and gave him command of all troops and branches of service in the colony of Brazil, which was constantly threatened by Spanish troops. The First Minister of Portugal, Marquês de Pombal, commissioned Böhm to set up a military organization in Brazil in order to be able to carry out the defense without help from the mother country . During his inventory in Brazil, he found:

“The disorder, the mess, the low discipline in the regiments, the ignorance, the indolence and the bad will of the officers in the army cannot be understood. ... Yes, here in the colony the conditions were even worse than in the mother country. "

A Prussian army reform , following the pattern of Count von Lippe as in Portugal, was necessary. The Swedish brigadier Jakob Funck, who had also been in Prussian service, supported the reforms as inspector general of the artillery . The terrible, iron discipline now practiced , however, should bring about success in the coming wars. The reforms laid the foundations for a Brazilian army.

War in the Rio Grande do Sul

In 1774 relations between Portugal and Spain in South America intensified . Böhm was appointed commander in chief of all armed forces in the south - based in São José do Norte in the Rio Grande do Norte . He commanded a force of only 6,717 men. However, his troops were able to achieve a victory over the Spanish troops. Since then he has been considered the liberator of the Rio Grande do Sul . His troops subsequently conquered Uruguay . A colonization of almost deserted areas he sought was only achieved in 1824 with the German colony of São Leopoldo (Colonia Alemã de São Leopoldo). In 1777 the peace treaty of San Ildefonso was signed between Spain and Portugal , after which Uruguay remained with Spain and the Rio Grande do Sul with Brazil was secured.

He was unable to achieve a return to Europe that he sought after the death of his wife Agnes Judith Sibylla von Dinklage and after the end of the war. After an accident in 1782 he died in 1783. The military reforms and the military victory strengthened the self-confidence in Brazil and were also the first basis of the independence movement through which Brazil achieved sovereignty in 1822/25 .

literature

• Hans Joachim Bock:  Böhm, Johann Heinrich von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 382 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Karl Heinrich Oberacker: Johann Heinrich Böhm, the founder of the Brazilian army . In: Bremisches Jahrbuch , Volume 45, p. 204 f; Schünemannverlag, Bremen 1957.
• Johann Heinrich Böhm (1708–1783), the glorious, somewhat unusual life of an almost forgotten Bremen citizen son , in: Zeitschrift für Niederdeutsche Familienkunde , 1993, p. 385.