Karl von Zeisberg

Karl von Zeisberg, lithograph by Josef Kriehuber , 1851

Karl Ritter von Zeisberg (* 1789 in Breslau ; † June 29, 1863 in Bad Steinerhof , near Kapfenberg , Styria ) was an Imperial Austrian Lieutenant Field Marshal and Knight of the Maria Theresa Order .

Life

Military career

On January 17, 1807, he joined the Uhlan Regiment No. 3 as a cadet and was promoted to ensign in the Archduke Karl's infantry regiment on May 23, 1809 . Wounded on the left foot in the Battle of Wagram , he resigned from military service on June 25, 1810. As early as June 16, 1811 he returned to the 7th Jäger Battalion as a cadet and distinguished himself during the campaign of 1812 in the auxiliary corps of Prince von Schwarzenberg in Volhynia . His service in the battle of Gorodeczno earned him the silver medal of bravery . On September 27, he was cut off by the Russians on the right bank of the Turia near Kovel in the formation of the barrier guard of the division of Field Marshal Lieutenant Bersina von Siegenthal . With a few hunters he fought his way to the rescue bridge, threw himself into the river all by himself and reached freedom on the other bank. After that, he was in the avant-garde of the Fröhlich Brigade and was promoted to sub-lieutenant on November 12th . In the 1813 campaign , Zeisberg fought in the 7th Jäger Battalion and was wounded near Altenburg and in the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig . On December 31, 1813 he was promoted to first lieutenant , fought in the spring of 1814 at Troyes and in all other battles of the division of the FML Prince of Liechtenstein .

After participating in the campaign of 1815, he was transferred to the staff of the Quartermaster General on July 24, 1815 and proved himself in the military description of Hungary and Bohemia. On February 20, 1818 he was promoted to captain and in 1823 transferred to the Kaiser Hussars, a little later he switched to the light cavalry regiment of King of Wurttemberg . In 1827 he was assigned to the garrison on the military border in Bohemia , where he was assigned to the 4th Jäger Battalion from February 1829. In November 1830 he was promoted to major and served as director of the military country description department in Croatia until 1831 . On March 1, 1831 he was appointed Chief of Staff of the II Corps in Italy. Promoted to lieutenant colonel on January 1, 1836 , he was appointed director of the operational department of the General Staff in Hungary on May 1, 1837. On 24 January 1840 he became a colonel in the General Staff Corps promoted and took over in 1843 in Vienna , the head of the Department of Statistics on the staff of the Quartermaster General. On August 13, 1847 he was promoted to major general and took over the leadership of the fortress brigade in Zara in Dalmatia .

Role in the revolution of 1848/49

Knight's Cross of the Military Maria Theresa Order

During the Vienna October Revolution , Major General Zeisberg was appointed Chief of the General Staff of the 1st Corps under the Ban of Croatia . On October 28th he was commissioned by Prince Windischgrätz to coordinate the imperial attacks on the St. Marx line. With volunteers from the 5th Jäger Battalion and some companies from the Ogulin Border Regiment, he stormed this line despite the most violent defensive fire and penetrated along the Wiener Neustädter Canal into the suburbs of Erdberg , Rennweg and Landstrasse . When the imperial troops on the left wing near Mannswörth had to retreat on October 30th during the battle of Schwechat , Zeisberg launched the decisive counterattack at around 2 p.m., which destroyed the Hungarian center. He remained as Chief of Staff of the I. Corps and was involved in the battle at Mor on December 29th . In the following campaign of 1849 he was in command of a brigade of the II Reserve Corps under Count Nugent and was promoted to Lieutenant Field Marshal on July 22, 1849 . For his achievements against the Hungarian uprising, he was previously awarded the Commander's Cross of the Order of Leopold and on July 29, 1849 with the Knight's Cross of the Order of Maria Theresa, and shortly afterwards with the Order of St. Anna 1st Class. On November 1, 1849, Zeisberg received command of a division at the commanding general in Transylvania (XII. Corps) and was finally retired on January 13, 1852. Zeisberg died at the age of 74 in 1863 in the Styrian spruce needle spa Steinerhof near Kapfenberg .

literature

• Constantin von Wurzbach : Zeisberg, Karl Ritter von . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 59th part. Imperial and Royal Court and State Printing Office, Vienna 1890, p. 289 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Karl von Zeisberg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Portrait collection of the ÖNB