Laval Nugent of Westmeath

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Portrait of Nugent after a lithograph by Josef Eduard Teltscher, 1826
Laval Count Nugent of Westmeath as Field Marshal

Laval Count Nugent von Westmeath (born November 3, 1777 in Ballynacor in Ireland ; † August 21, 1862 at Bosiljewo Castle near Karlstadt , Croatia ) was an Austrian field marshal of Irish descent.

Life

A necrology names the Imperial and Royal Feldzeugmeister Michael Anton Count Nugent von Westmeath as his father. Other sources cite Lieutenant Field Marshal and Maria Theresa Knight Jacob Robert Count Nugent of Westmeath as his father. In any case, he came from a branch of the family of the Irish Earls of Westmeath . He joined the Imperial Army’s engineering corps on November 1, 1793 as a cadet and was promoted to lieutenant on March 1, 1794 and captain on April 15, 1796 . In 1798 he served as an adjutant in the staff of the Quartermaster General in the Italian Army and, according to contemporary reports, worked bravely on several occasions in Turin (May 1799) and Varaggio (April 1800). Promoted to major on June 1, 1800 , he concluded a contract with the French Adjutant General Reille at the end of July on the demarcation line on the Po . On September 1, 1805 he was appointed lieutenant colonel , on June 17, 1807 the rank was raised to colonel , a position that was associated with command of the Count St. Julien Infantry Regiment No. 61.

At the beginning of the campaign of 1809 on February 16 in northern Italy he was appointed Chief of the General Staff of Archduke John's army and fought in the Battle of Sacile . Nugent was promoted to major general on May 24, 1813 and fought in the campaign of 1813 against the Viceroy of Italy, Eugène de Beauharnais . He recaptured Croatia , Istria and the Po area. A few days after taking Trieste, he embarked with a brigade for Ravenna and presented his vanguard against Ferrara and Malalbergo . His troops penetrated the coast to Rimini and took Forli and Cervia . By the end of 1813 he and his troops advanced via Lugo and Faenza to Bologna . After storming Cesenatico (January 8, 1814), he moved into Modena on February 8 , where he installed a provisional government in the name of Francis IV of Este .

On April 30, 1815, Count Nugent was promoted to Lieutenant Field Marshal and appointed owner of Infantry Regiment No. 30. In the following campaign he commanded the right wing of the Austrian army in Italy under FML Bianchi and occupied Rome on May 3, 1815 . Then he defeated the Neapolitans under Murat at Ceprano , again on May 17 at the Battle of San Germano and advanced on Naples . In 1816 he was raised to the rank of Roman prince by the Pope . In 1817 he entered the service of Ferdinand I , King of the Two Sicilies , as captain general , but returned to Austrian service in 1820 after the outbreak of the Monteforte uprising . In 1829 he was appointed commander of the Adriatic coast, improved the defense capabilities of the port of Trieste and reorganized the coastal defense of Istria . On September 18, 1838 he was promoted to Feldzeugmeister and the following year he was appointed Commanding General in Moravia and Silesia .

In the revolutionary year 1848 he was given command of one in Inner Austria forming reserve corps , with whom he Radetzky against the Piedmontese rushed to help. After falling ill, he set up a new auxiliary corps on the Styrian-Hungarian border in December 1848, with which he moved from Radkersburg to the southern theater of war in Hungary . His troops occupied Esseg on February 13, 1849 and besieged Peterwardein and were then placed under the command of Baron Jellačić . As early as mid-July 1849 he had formed a new reserve corps in the Pettau area and was advancing to Körmend . On August 5th his corps reached Fünfkirchen , where it was reinforced to 16,000 men. At the beginning of September, Count Nugent took over the command of the siege of Komorn , which led to the surrender of the Hungarian garrison on October 2nd under the command of Feldzeugmeister von Haynau .

For his achievements in the war against the Hungarian uprising , he was appointed field marshal on October 16, 1849 . Laval Graf Nugent von Westmeath died on August 21, 1862 at Bosiljewo Castle near Karlstadt. His body was transferred to the crypt "Heroes' Peace " (Croatian: Mir junaka ) on Trsat .

Museum reception

The Army History Museum in Vienna exhibits the honorary saber of the city of Fiume , which was awarded to Field Marshal Laval Count Nugent von Westmeath, at that time military commander of the coastal region, around 1833 . The hollow-ground blade shows in gold inlaid on the one hand the coat of arms of the Nugent family and on the other hand that of the city of Fiume with the inscription: "Urbs Flumen grata".

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Constantin von Wurzbach : Nugent-Westmeath, the counts, genealogy . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 20th part. Kaiserlich-Königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1869, pp. 428–430 ( digitized version ).
  2. ^ Army History Museum / Military History Institute (ed.): The Army History Museum in the Vienna Arsenal . Verlag Militaria , Vienna 2016, ISBN 978-3-902551-69-6 , p. 70


personal data
SURNAME Nugent of Westmeath, Laval
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Nugent of Westmeath, Laval Earl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian field marshal of Irish descent
DATE OF BIRTH November 3, 1777
PLACE OF BIRTH Ballynacor, Ireland
DATE OF DEATH August 21, 1862
Place of death Bosiljewo Castle near Karlstadt (Karlovac), Croatia