Levin August von Bennigsen

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Levin August von Bennigsen - Portrait of George Dawe (today in the Military Gallery (Военная галерея) of the Winter Palace )

Count Levin (Leontij Leontijewitsch) August Theophil von Bennigsen ( Russian Леонтий Леонтьевич Беннигсен ; * February 10, 1745 in Braunschweig , † December 3, 1826 in Banteln (Alfeld district) near Hildesheim ) was an officer from the Lower Saxon nobility of the Bennigsen family . He was initially in the service of the electoral Hanover and later became general of the cavalry of the Russian army .

Life

Levin August von Bennigsen was the son of the Brunswick Colonel Levin Friedrich von Bennigsen and his wife Henriette Marie von Rauchhaupt . On his mother's side, Bennigsen was the great-grandson of General Field Marshal Hans Adam von Schöning from the Electoral Saxony region . The future Hanoverian Prime Minister Alexander Levin von Bennigsen was his son. Bennigsen's great-grandsons Karl and Adolf , Prince of Auersperg , became Austrian Prime Ministers one after the other.

After only brief lessons by private tutors, Bennigsen came to Hanover at the age of ten in 1755 as a page at the court of the electoral Brunswick . Just four years later he was accepted as an ensign in the Hanoverian footguard . In 1762, at the Battle of Freiberg , the last armed conflict in the Seven Years' War , he was already a captain.

In the same year his father also died, and Bennigsen inherited the Banteln estate . He resigned from the army, but showed no commercial skills. In 1768 he married Friederike Amalie, a daughter of the Hanoverian ambassador at the court in Vienna Georg Friedrich von Steinberg . In 1772 Bennigsen had ruined himself and turned his legacy into bankruptcy . In vain he tried to get a job at the court of the Danish Queen Caroline Mathilde, who was exiled to Celle . Therefore, he accepted the offer of Tsarina Catherine II and joined the Russian army in 1773 as Prime Major of the Vyatkas Musketeer Regiment. Bennigsen remained in Russian service until 1815. His first wife had died shortly before, and Caroline Mathilde took Sophie (1769–1850), the older of the two daughters, in as a foster child.

In 1776 Bennigsen married Elisabeth Meyer for the second time. Since his second wife died just a few weeks after the wedding, Bennigsen married Amalie Oelgarde, a daughter of the Hanoverian minister August Wilhelm von Schwicheldt, in 1777 .

In the following year Bennigsen took part in the Russian campaigns against the Turks and Persians under the command of Field Marshal Count Pyotr Rumjanzew-Sadunaiski . In 1778 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel, which also resulted in a change to cavalry . After the capture of Ochakiv under General Potemkin , Bennigsen also distinguished himself and was promoted to colonel in 1790. In 1792 he led a flying corps in Lithuania to cover Belarus. In the Battle of Soly in 1794, the Polish army suffered a defeat in which Bennigsen played a key role. This earned him a promotion to major general.

For the sweep of an enemy battery near Vilnius in July 1792, Tsarina Catherine II personally awarded Bennigsen a very large estate in the Minsk governorate . In the war against Persia in 1796, he contributed significantly to the capture of Derbent . Despite the ten-year peace that followed, he was promoted to lieutenant general in 1798 and general of the cavalry in 1802.

Bennigsen was instrumental in the conspiracy against Paul I participated. As the initiator, he also contributed significantly to the success of the assassination attempt on March 23, 1801, although he was not present at the act himself. Paul's successor, Tsar Alexander I , made him Governor General of Lithuania . In November 1805 he came to the aid of Austria with the Northern Army , but hardly four weeks later received the order to retreat near Breslau , since the Peace of Pressburg had been concluded.

Since his wife Amalie Oelgarde had also died in the meantime, Bennigsen married Marie Leonarde von Andrzeykowicz following the celebrations of the peace negotiations. With her he had a son, Alexander, who was born in 1809.

In October 1806 Bennigsen advanced into Prussia with a strong auxiliary corps and asserted himself in the fighting at Pułtusk against the violent attack of the French army under Napoléon Bonaparte on December 26, 1806, which saved the Russian army from defeat. Tsar Alexander appointed him commander in chief of the army on January 1, 1807. As such, Bennigsen won a draw against the French between February 7th and 8th, 1807 in the battle of Preussisch Eylau , but suffered heavy losses. Due to wrong decisions Bennigsen suffered a decisive defeat in the Battle of Friedland , which then resulted in the Peace of Tilsit in 1807 .

Bennigsen said goodbye and retired to his estates near Vilnius for the next five years . In 1812 Bennigsen was appointed Chief of the General Staff at the request of General Field Marshal Kutuzov . Despite these tasks, Bennigsen took part in the Battle of Borodino on September 7, 1812 and defeated General Joachim Murat on October 18 in the Battle of Tarutino . Differences with General Field Marshal Kutuzov moved Bennigsen to leave for several months. But already at the beginning of 1813 Tsar Alexander I brought him back with the promotion to commander in chief of the reserve army, which had been set up in Poland . With this army Bennigsen occupied the Duchy of Warsaw in July of the same year . There he defeated General Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr on October 12 at the Battle of Dohna . He then led this army in forced marches to Leipzig , where four days later he was instrumental in the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig . His timely arrival on October 17th largely ensured the victory of the allies. Bennigsen personally took the surrender of the King of Saxony, Frederick Augustus I , contrary.

While in Leipzig, Bennigsen was raised to the rank of Russian count by Tsar Alexander I personally. Until the first Peace of Paris on May 30, 1814, Bennigsen a. a. Hamburg , Magdeburg , Torgau and Wittenberg . After the wars of freedom were over , Bennigsen was transferred to the high command of the Tsarist southern army in Bessarabia , and with this he secured the Russian-Turkish border.

After four years, Bennigsen retired in 1818 because he was no longer fit to serve as a result of various war injuries. He retired to Gut Banteln with his son Alexander, where he died on December 3, 1826 at the age of 81.

The picture of the famous son of the village still hangs in the village church of Banteln, a figure in uniform on the battlefield near Hamburg.

Works

  • Thoughts on some of the previous knowledge necessary for the officer of light cavalry . Riga 1794.
  • Mémoires . Charles-Lavauzelle, Paris 1907.

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Levin August von Bennigsen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

This article is based on a text in the public domain from Meyers Konversations-Lexikon , 4th edition from 1888 to 1890.

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supporting documents

  1. ^ Jürgen Huck: Sophie von Bennigsen (1769–1850) - Queen Caroline Mathilde's foster daughter In: Caroline Mathilde. From Copenhagen to Celle - The Short Life of a Queen . Edited by the Bomann Museum in Celle. Celle 2001, pp. 201-214; P. 202, 205
personal data
SURNAME Bennigsen, Levin August von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bennigsen, Levin August Theophil von; Беннигсен, Леонтий Леонтьевич (Russian); Bennigsen, Leontij Leontevič
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian general of German origin
DATE OF BIRTH February 10, 1745
PLACE OF BIRTH Braunschweig
DATE OF DEATH December 3, 1826
Place of death Banteln , Alfeld district, near Hildesheim