Charles by François
Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Christoph von François (born May 27, 1785 in Niemegk , † February 9, 1855 in Potsdam ) was a Prussian lieutenant general .
Life
origin
The family fled France after the edict of Nantes was repealed and settled in Electoral Saxony. His parents were the Saxon captain and lord of Niemegk Karl August de François (1736-1801), imperial nobility Vienna on March 21, 1774, and his wife Louise, née von Brück (1747-1791). She was a descendant of the Saxon Chancellor Christian Brück . His brother Friedrich von François (1772–1818) was initially a Saxon, from 1815 Prussian officer and commander of a Landwehr battalion in Herzberg.
Military background
At the age of eleven, François became a cadet at the Electoral Saxon Knight Academy in Dresden . There were strict school rules that didn't appeal to him. He fled and hid with one of his brothers. After a long wait, his escape was considered a farewell. He applied for admission to the Prussian Army and at the end of January 1803 was employed as an ensign in the infantry regiment "von Wartensleben" in Erfurt .
After the lost battles against Napoleon , Prussia lost half of its territory after the Tilsit Peace Treaty of July 9, 1807 and the Prussian army had to be halved. Many young officers had to leave the army. Karl applied to the Württemberg Army . He was accepted as a first lieutenant in the Jägergarde on horseback in Esslingen . Because of a quarrel with a superior captain , he was sentenced to death on July 31, 1808 for insubordination, but in the face of the firing squad he was pardoned and sentenced to prison in Hohenasperg . In October 1808 he managed to escape and he was able to break through via Alsace , Switzerland and Bavaria to his brother’s estate in Saxony. There he met Ferdinand von Schill on April 30, 1809 , who was on his way from Berlin to Wittenberg . François immediately joined the Schill Freikorps as an officer . After it was destroyed by Napoleonic troops, he was taken prisoner by the French and taken to the Kolberg fortress . He was released from captivity because he was born in Saxony. The Kingdom of Saxony had joined the Rhine Confederation in 1806 and was thus an ally of France.
In 1812 he entered Russian service and was employed in the Sumzian Hussar Regiment. There François was involved in the wars of liberation against Napoleon. In May 1813 he was transferred to the General Staff and promoted to Rittmeister in mid-September 1813. He reached France during the Wars of Liberation and was involved in the Battle of Paris . On the march back of the Russian army through Prussia, he took his leave there and joined the Prussian army as a major in 1815 . Here he rose to lieutenant general. He spent his retirement in Potsdam , where he died on February 9, 1855.
family
Karl von François married Betty von Vangerow (1799–1844), a daughter of the bank director Johann Friedrich von Vangerow, in 1817. The couple had two sons and five daughters. Including General Bruno von François and Clotilde (* 1830), who made a name for herself as a writer and also published her father's memoirs. His niece Louise (1817-1893) was also a successful writer. World War I general Hermann von François and Curt von François , the founders of Windhoek, were his grandsons.
literature
- Kurt von Priesdorff : Soldier leadership . Volume 5, Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt Hamburg, undated [Hamburg], undated [1938], DNB 367632802 , pp. 383-387, no. 1609.
- Siegfried Dalitz: The Chronicle of the City of Niemegk. Volume 6, 2005.
- Clotilde von Schwartzkoppen: Karl von François. A German soldier's life. Hildebrand-Verlag, Leipzig, 1873
- Hans Pörnbacher (ed.), Karl von François: The memoirs of Karl von François from the time of the wars of liberation (1808–1814). Kösel, Munich 1965.
- Leopold von Zedlitz-Neukirch , New Prussian Adelslexicon , Volume 5, pp. 160f.
- Genealogical handbook of noble houses. 2006, Volume 26, Part 140, pp. 74ff.
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | François, Karl von |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | François, Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Christoph von (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Prussian lieutenant general |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 27, 1785 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Niemegk |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 9, 1855 |
| Place of death | Potsdam |