Johann von Uslar

Johann von Uslar (* 1779 in Loccum , Electorate of Hanover , † April 1, 1866 in Valencia , Venezuela ) was a colonel, commander of Bolívar's guard renadiers, military governor and commanding general of the Republic of Venezuela. He was an ancestor of the Venezuelan writer Arturo Uslar Pietri .

Surname

In Venezuela as "Juan Uslar" (for example on the grave slab in the Pantéon Nacional in Caracas) - also called "Uzlar" in writings from the time - there are also differences in the German name. Since the local noble family von Uslar cannot identify him as a family member, the name “Johannes Uesseler” found by BENCOMO is quite likely.

Military career in Europe

When he was 14, his parents sent Johann von Uslar to Windsor at King's College for training. He finished this as sub-lieutenant of the Dragoons in 1802. In 1809 he became a lieutenant in the King's German Legion and took part in the Napoleonic Wars in Portugal and Spain . He stayed in Spain until 1813. After his return to England and a job as an orderly officer in the Brussels headquarters of the English, he was among the troops of Wellington on June 18, 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo . During the subsequent demobilization of the armed forces, he was honorably dismissed as Rittmeister or Major.

Arrival in Venezuela

In September 1818 he contacted Luis Lopéz Mendez, whom Simón Bolívar had sent to England to recruit mercenaries, and recruited volunteers for the Bolívar army in London and from November also in Hamburg . He is said to have shipped 300 men from Hamburg on two ships. On April 4, 1819 he arrived in Juan Griego on Isla Margarita off the Venezuelan coast and was subordinate to General Rafael Urdaneta with a detachment of 150 Hanoverian riflemen , whom Bolívar had commissioned with the integration of the mercenaries.

In mid-July he already took part in Urdaneta's landing venture with the subsequent capture of Barcelona (Eastern Venezuela). It was only because he and his German rifle detachment sided with Urdaneta when the British sacked the city that the latter was able to restore discipline among the troops. Urdaneta's campaign on Cumaná , which followed in August, had to be abandoned despite taking up an artillery position because the Spaniards were too superior.

In Spanish captivity

On the way back to Maturín from Uslar received the order to look after arriving mercenaries on Margarita again. On the way, when crossing the Bay of Cariaco, the cutter that was supposed to cross it was seized by a warship and taken prisoner by Uslar. He was tried in La Victoria and sentenced to death for not wanting to overflow. Because of his services to Napoleon in Spain, Pablo Morillo converted the sentence to forced labor in Valencia. Uslar was a chain convict in road construction for over a year until he was released as part of the Santa Ana Armistice and Bolívar's personal intervention.

After captivity

In the spring of 1821 from Uslar took over the battalion Vencedores de Boyaca (winner of Boyaca) with which he took part in the division of Ambrosio Plaza in the Second Battle of Carabobo . In the course of the restructuring of the Greater Colombian Army in August of the same year, Bolívar gave him the Guard Grenadiers. Until his withdrawal from the army in 1823 he participated in the thwarting of the campaign of Francisco Tomás Morales with José Antonio Paez at Naguanagua in August 1822 and, again with Paez, in the sieges of Puerto Cabellos . The reason for his resignation was his marriage to María de los Dolores Hernández in Valencia. Uslar's merit is mainly the training and discipline of the mercenary troops, especially the guardsmen, who were considered the most disciplined and qualified unit because he introduced English and Prussian regulations.

After the war

For his use in the war he was endowed with a hacienda in what is now the state of Carabobo and a colonel's pension. In 1832 he received honorary citizenship and three years later he was naturalized. He knew how to stay out of the numerous internal battles and revolts in Venezuela in the following years. In 1842 he supported the preparations for the solemn burial of Bolívar in Caracas and in 1845 he was a judge at the Supreme Military Court. In 1848 - and several times until 1856 - he took over the post of military governor in Valencia at the request of the government. For this he was promoted to brigadier general in 1852 and division general in 1854. For his lifetime achievement, at the age of 84, three years before his death, he became the commanding general of the Venezuelan army. Since 1942 he rests in the Pantéon Nacional in Caracas.

literature

• Günther Kahle: Bolivar and the Germans. Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin, 1980
• Hector Bencomo Barrios: Los heroes de Carabobo. Ed. de la Presidencia de la Republica; Caracas, Venezuela. 2004 ISBN 980-03-0338-3 ( PDF )
• Text based on the article by Hector Bencomo Barrios in the Diccionario de Historia de Venezuela short biography

Web links

• His work during the liberation war between 1819 and 1823 in Venezuela is outlined here ( table of contents ).