Joseph Cornelius O'Rourke

Joseph Cornelius, portrait by George Dawe

Joseph Cornelius ( Russian Иосиф Корнилович Орурк , Граф О'Рурк; * 1772 , † March 10, 1849 in Wsielub in the province of Grodno ) was a highly decorated Russian cavalry leader during the coalition wars , whose ancestors came from Ireland to the general of the Cavalry was appointed.

Life

He came from the old Irish noble family O'Rourke . His father moved to Dorpat in the Russian Empire around 1750 during the reign of Empress Elisabeth Petrovna and achieved the rank of major general in Russian military service . The mother was a born Countess Stewart.

As a boy he was enrolled in the 1st Cavalry Guard Regiment and later accepted as an ensign in the Izmailovsk Life Guard Regiment. In 1790 he was promoted to captain . In the association of the Pskov Dragoons Regiment he took part in the Russo-Swedish War of 1788-90 and in late 1794 fought the rebels in Poland. He moved in 1797 into the hussars of Pavlograd and was in the following year for Major appointed. He took part in the Italian campaign under Suvorov in 1799 and was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1800 . He then took part at the head of two squadrons of Pavlograd and Mariupol Hussars in the wars of the third and fourth coalitions against Napoleon . In the campaign of 1805 he distinguished himself in the battle of Schöngrabern (Hollabrunn). On January 12, 1806 received the order of St. George 4th class, took part in the Battle of Preussisch Eylau and was promoted to colonel on March 23, 1806 .

On April 28, 1807 he was appointed chief of the 6th Volynski lancers regiment, in whose formation he played the leading role. Fought with this regiment, which had been promoted to major general on July 22, 1810 , against the Turks. He took part in the battles of Turtukai and Varvarin, as well as in the storming of Kalafat and Bani. On November 28, 1810 he was awarded the Order of St. George 3rd Class. Hostilities against the Porte ceased when negotiations on the Peace of Bucharest began. On February 4, 1811 he became the commander of the 20th Cavalry Brigade of the 6th Cavalry Division and received the golden saber with the inscription "For Bravery" with diamonds.

With the beginning of the Patriotic War he was called to Belarus in June 1812 , where he took over the avant-garde of the 1st Western Army. After Napoleon's expulsion from Moscow , his cavalry took part in the pursuit of the French. On November 12th he received orders with his cavalry to reach the Berezina near Borissov and to disturb the French crossing the river until the army under General Chichagov had arrived. Appointed leader of the cavalry of the 3rd Western Army on November 17, he was given command of 62 cavalry squadrons with which he pursued the French via Molodechno , Vilna and Kovno into the Principality of Warsaw and captured 180 abandoned cannons from the French. When the Russian troops advanced across the border from Germany at the beginning of 1813, he was again entrusted with a strong vanguard with which he operated between the towns of Crossen on the Oder and Dresden . In the campaign of 1813 he fought under General Wittgenstein on the Oder , where he enclosed the Magdeburg fortress with his cavalry . After a series of successful actions against the French troops, he blocked the French garrison in Merseburg with 5,000 Prussians .

He then acted for some time with an independent cavalry division and was assigned to the Northern Army under Bernadotte in July , with whom he took part in several major battles. His independent attacks in the fighting from October 5th to 7th near Leipzig were approved by the Tsar. He then took part in the Battle of Leipzig in mid-October 1813 and led a cavalry attack. After the battle, his cavalry pursued the French to Kassel , his successes brought him promotion to lieutenant general . At the end of December 1813 he was appointed commander of a separate division, which consisted of the 18th infantry division, Wolynsk Uhlans, Finnish dragoons and four Cossack regiments, which initially operated near the Wesel fortress and then blocked this fortress.

At the beginning of January 1814 Graf was appointed commander of the cavalry of the allied Northern Army. On January 12th he crossed the Rhine with the regiments entrusted to him, and three weeks later, on February 2nd, he took part in the storming of the city of Serot? as well as other military operations.

While operating with Marshal Blücher's army , Graf took part in the Battle of Craonne and Laon (March 9th and 10th). After that his cavalry operated together with the corps of the Prussian General York and added the French at the village of Amles? a defeat, bringing in 41 cannons and more than 2,500 prisoners. For this success, Graf was awarded the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky. As a result, he took part in the battles in Saint-Dizier on March 14 , his cavalry pursued the French to Bar-sur-Aube and took part in the capture of Paris . In August 1814 he was appointed chief of the 2nd Hussar Division. At the time of Napoleon's deposition, Graf was in the suite of Tsar Alexander and only returned to active divisional command at the end of the Congress of Vienna .

In the second campaign to France in the spring of 1815, his cavalry operated in front of the city of Verdun . After the war he commanded the Lithuanian Uhlan Division and from April 22, 1819 the 1st Hussar Division. He finished active service on July 13, 1819 and at the end of that year settled at his country estate near Novogrodek in the Minsk province , where he lived the life of a peaceful landowner for twelve years. During the Polish uprising of 1830–31 he was entrusted with the organization of the reserves which he set up in the Nowogrodek district. For this commitment he received the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky with diamonds. He spent the rest of his life on his estate in Wsielub, was promoted to honorary cavalry general on April 16, 1841, and died in March 1849.

literature

• Отечественная война 1812 года: Биографический словарь. - М .: Росвоенцентр; Кучково поле; Росспэн, 2011, p. 221 ISBN 978-5-9950-0171-3
• Использованы материалы книги: Залесский К.А. Наполеоновские войны 1799-1815. Биографический энциклопедический словарь, Москва, 2003
• Словарь русских генералов, участников боевых действий против армии Наполеона Бонапаралов, Ронапарарта "в 1812—1815 Туд. Михалкова, Moscow 1996. - Тome VII. - p. 501 - online

Web links

• Biography on www.brdn.ru
• Biography on hrono.ru