Joseph Lothar von Königsegg-Rothenfels

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Joseph Lothar von Königsegg-Rothenfels

Joseph Lothar Dominik Graf von Königsegg-Rothenfels (also Lothar Joseph ; born May 17, 1673 in Vienna , † December 8, 1751 in Vienna) was an imperial diplomat and field marshal . From 1736 to 1738 he was President of the Austrian Court War Council .

Life

Early time

Lothar was one of the younger sons of Count Leopold Wilhelm von Königsegg-Rothenfels from his first marriage to Maria Polyxena, Countess Scherffenberg . His parents therefore planned for him a spiritual career and sent him to the Jesuit school in Besançon . Later, at the age of 16, Lothar became canon in Salzburg and Passau . Then he was supposed to finish his education as papal chamberlain in Rome . However, since Lothar was not fulfilled by the spiritual profession, he left Rome and joined the imperial army, which was currently in Hungary at war against the Turks .

Military career

From 1691 to 1699 he served in the Cuirassier - Regiment "Hohenzollern" in the war against the Turks. He then made the campaigns of the Spanish War of Succession (1701-1714) in Italy under the command of Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663-1736). On October 5, 1702 he was made a colonel and on January 12, 1703 received his own infantry regiment . On January 13, 1705 he was promoted to general field sergeant and a short time later he was appointed field marshal lieutenant (April 11, 1708). During the war he continued to serve in Italy, where he distinguished himself in the Battle of Turin (1706) and subsequently remained in command of the Mantua fortress . At the end of the war, Count Lothar played an important role in the diplomatic negotiations for a peace treaty.

In 1716 he married Mademoiselle Marie-Thérèse de Lannoy (* December 19, 1692 - June 6, 1750) in Brussels , she was the daughter of the Belgian François-Hyacinthe de Lannoy, 4th Count of la Motterie and the Anne-Françoise de Gavre; but this marriage had remained childless.

Königsegg remained from 1714 to 1717 as the commander of the Austrian troops in the newly acquired Austrian Netherlands . On May 13, 1716 he was promoted to Feldzeugmeister . Diplomatic missions in Paris , Dresden and Warsaw followed between 1718 and 1722 . From 1722 Königsegg led the command in Transylvania , where he was appointed field marshal on October 16, 1723 . This activity was only brief because shortly afterwards he was again entrusted with diplomatic missions in The Hague and Madrid . From 1728 Königsegg was Vice President of the Austrian Court War Council .

In the War of the Polish Succession

During the War of the Polish Succession (1733-1735 / 38), he took over command in northern Italy in July 1734 as the successor to the late General Mercy . At first he operated defensively against the French and Spanish coalitions and passed a vanguard battle at Gardella in early September 1734. Since the imperial army already lacked sufficient supplies, Königsegg decided to evacuate its camp and attack the enemy. During this operation, Friedrich Ludwig led a corps of 10,000 men against the town of San Benedetto, where King Karl Emanuel had his headquarters. In the battle of Quistello and Bondanello on September 15, he was able to surprise the Franco-Sardinian army and conquer the entire field camp of the enemy. The French-Sardinian army withdrew to strengthen itself and defeated the Imperial on September 19, 1734 decisively in the battle of Guastalla . The following year the imperial family withdrew to Tyrol , and Königsegg laid down the supreme command there.

Court War Council

After the death of Prince Eugene of Savoy, he became President of the Court War Council in 1736. In the following Russo-Austrian Turkish War (1735-1739), Königsegg himself led the supreme command in 1737. However, since the war went badly for Austria, he had to resign from all military offices the following year. He received the office of chief steward of the Empress Elisabeth Christine , while his political power was limited to the office of conference minister. Thus Königsegg was quite good "escaped" because some leading Austrian military was using because of failure in the war against the Turks imprisonment were punished. After Maria Theresa came to power in 1740, the Count was appointed Colonel Land and Housekeeper . In this function he participated primarily diplomatically in the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748). He worked out campaign plans and in 1743 led the negotiations for the withdrawal of the French army from Prague . In 1744 he was briefly in command of Vienna before he took over the supreme command in the Austrian Netherlands. In the battle of Fontenoy (May 11, 1745) Königsegg commanded an Austrian corps. After being wounded in the process, the count returned to Vienna, where he only held the office of conference minister. He died there on December 8, 1751, childless at the age of 78, and was buried in the Franciscan Church of St. Jerome .

literature

Web links

  • Portraits in the Early Modern Digital Portrait Index
predecessor Office successor
Johann Christoph Pentenriedter Habsburg ambassador to France
1717–1719 		Marcus de Fonseca ( GT )
Adam Erdody Habsburg envoy in Saxony - Poland
1719–1724 		Franz Karl Wratislaw von Mitrowitz
Aloys Thomas Raimund von Harrach (until 1700) Habsburg envoy to Spain
1725–1730 		Johann Stolte Johann Philipp Stoltius
Eugene of Savoy President of the Court War Council
1736–1738 		Johann Philipp Harrach
personal data
SURNAME Königsegg-Rothenfels, Joseph Lothar von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Königsegg-Rothenfels, Joseph Lothar Dominik Graf von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian field marshal
DATE OF BIRTH May 17, 1673
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH December 8, 1751
Place of death Vienna