Johann Karl von Thüngen

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Hans Karl von Thüngen around 1700
Bust in the Munich Hall of Fame

Johann Karl "Hans" von Thüngen (* February 5, 1648 , † October 8, 1709 ) was the owner of an infantry regiment and from 1696 to 1698 imperial field marshal . He received the Order of the Black Eagle and was raised to the rank of imperial count .

Origin and marriage

Johann Karl von Thüngen came from the old Franconian noble family von Thüngen . It is named after the Lower Franconian town of Thüngen . Other family members also achieved high dignities, such as Neidhardt von Thüngen (1545–1599) as Prince-Bishop of Bamberg and Konrad von Thüngen, Prince-Bishop of Würzburg (1519–1540). Johann Karl son of Wolff Albrecht von Thüngen and his second wife Helena von Ebersberg called Weyers.

He was married to Maria Johanna Faust von Stromberg (* July 14, 1663; † November 3, 1739), the daughter of Franz Ernst Faust von Stromberg, Privy Councilor of the High Princely Würzburg and Oberamtmann zu Haßfurt, and his wife Maria Susanna Kottwitz von Aulenbach . The marriage between Johann Karl and Maria Johanna, entered into in 1678, remained childless. Johann Karl's brother, Johann Friedrich Freiherr von Thüngen, had two daughters and a son, Hans Carl Freiherr von Thüngen, who died unmarried in 1723 as the last of this line.

Military career

Von Thüngen was initially a soldier in the service of Duke Charles V of Lorraine . His regiment was left to the Spanish. von Thüngen became an ensign and later a sergeant-major . During the Dutch War in 1673 he was given command of a troop division. Shortly thereafter, Johann Karl became lieutenant colonel and commander in Besançon . In May 1674, however, Besançon was handed over to the French. As adjutant to the Lorraine prince of Vaudemont , he fought in the battle of Seneffe . Shortly afterwards he left the arms service and went to his property.

A few years later he joined the Franconian district troops as first lieutenant and in 1676 acquired command of the Prince-Bishop's Army in Würzburg . In the same year he was given command of a regiment , which he led in two campaigns against France . In 1683 he became general wagon master from Bamberg and Würzburg .

During the Great Turkish War , he commanded the troops of the Frankish Reichskreis as general sergeant . In October 1684 he was appointed sergeant general of the Imperial Army . With this promotion he was allowed to strengthen his regiment to 2,500 men with the approval of the Kaiser. In 1685 he was present at the siege and storming of Neuhäusl and in 1686 of Ofen .

In 1688 he was made Lieutenant General Field Marshal. In 1689 he was in the service of Bonn and Kurmainz . In 1689 he lost his right eye during the siege of Bonn due to a stone that a grenade had split from a fortress wall. From that time on Thüngen wore a black eye patch. In 1690 the Elector of Mainz Anselm Franz von Ingelheim appointed him General Feldzeugmeister and Supreme Commander for the troops and fortresses , especially for the Mainz fortress . In January 1690 he was appointed kurmainzischen appointed Feldzeugmeister. In 1692 he led the infantry of the Imperial Army and was appointed Imperial Feldzeugmeister.

In 1696 the emperor promoted him to field marshal general . In the same year when he was in the camp of Margrave Ludwig , he was captured by the French, but was released after four weeks in return for the payment of 5000 guilders. In 1698 Johann Karl was in command of the Philippsburg Fortress . When the War of the Spanish Succession began, in 1702 he led the attack on Landau Fortress from the northwest side. In 1703 he was in command in Philippsburg, then moved to Stollhofen and took over the supreme command and defense of the Bühl-Stollhofen lines for the sick Ludwig Wilhelm von Baden on the Upper Rhine . In March 1704 he was appointed Reichsfeldzeugmeister and commanded the troops on the Upper Rhine and in Swabia and was authorized to negotiate the exchange of the 800 Prussians who were captured in the battle of Höchstädt in September 1703 and were housed in Ulm . However, the talks were unsuccessful.

In 1704 Johann Karl led the imperial army to victory on Schellenberg near Donauwörth and was wounded in this attack. When the imperial army withdrew from Ulm at the end of August, Thüngen took over the siege until the surrender . After the victory over Landau, Trier and Trarbach , he was given command of the postings on the Rhine and Neckar . Shortly afterwards he received the Order of the Black Eagle from King Friedrich I of Prussia . In 1705 Johann Karl led the imperial army of Lauterburg and then led the siege of Haguenau in September . In 1707 he was in Philippsburg as a commandant and, despite his poor condition due to gout , took over the army command from Elector Georg Ludwig of Hanover . 1708 he became Emperor Joseph I in the imperial counts charged. Johann Karl died on October 8, 1709 in the camp near Speyer .

He is buried in the Evangelical Church of Freudental , which also houses his epitaph .

Memorial plaque in the Hall of Fame in Munich

Anecdotal

Thüngen had lost the right eye in combat operations. Once, sent by the emperor to a German princely court, he was received and welcomed by a general who was to escort him to the court. Coincidentally, the welcoming general also had only one eye, since at his court either no one knew about the general's disability or no one paid attention to it. Sensitive about this, the field marshal replied to the general that he hoped that he had not been chosen deliberately for the welcome because of the same handicap.

Hall of Fame in Munich

In his honor , a bust was erected in the Hall of Fame in Munich , left wing wall, in 1853 by the Bavarian King Ludwig I. The bust was destroyed in 1944. In 1997 the Bavarian Council of Ministers decided to erect the bust of Thüngen.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Duncker, Carl von, "Thüngen, Johann Karl Graf von (since 1708)" in: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie 38 (1894), pp. 218–220
  2. ↑ The Thüngen family connects Bad Brückenau and Bad Ems in: MAIN POST November 24, 2019
  3. ^ The dampened Chur-Bavarian war flame , Freiburg 1705 , p.59
  4. ↑ Thüngen's grave inscription
  5. ^ Johann Georg Krünitz, Heinrich Gustav Flörke, Friedrich Jakob Floerke, Johann Wilhelm David Korth, Oeconomische Encyclopädie , Volume 74 (1798), p. 629 ([digitized])
  6. ↑ State Parliament paper 1997

literature

Web links

Commons : Johann Karl von Thüngen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Thüngen, Johann Karl von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thüngen, Hans von (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Owner of an infantry regiment and Imperial General Field Marshal (1696–1698)
DATE OF BIRTH February 5, 1648
DATE OF DEATH October 8, 1709
Place of death Speyer