Louis of Blanc

Louis von Blanc (born March 12, 1832 in Potsdam , † January 9, 1903 in Weimar ) was a German naval officer , most recently an admiral .

Life

SMS Stosch

Blanc entered the 2nd Pomeranian Grenadier Regiment No. 9 of the Prussian Army as an avant-garde on January 1, 1850 . On February 20, 1862, Blanc was ordered to serve in the Navy "for the purpose of learning to serve at sea" . In March he was given leave of absence in order to gain further nautical knowledge with the Royal Navy . After his return at the end of May 1865, Blanc took part in training at the Naval Cadet Institute before he was accepted into the Prussian Navy as a lieutenant captain on September 14, 1865 . His patent was dated September 16, 1864, the day he was promoted to captain . In the following year, he was temporarily assigned the management of the gunboat Delphin .

In 1867 Blanc was first officer on the covered corvette Hertha , which began a journey through the Mediterranean to East Asia . He temporarily represented the commanding officer and led the ship in an aid and rescue operation for the French corvette Roland , which was stuck near Chios . For this he was awarded the Officer's Cross of the Legion of Honor.

In July 1871 he was given command of the covered corvette Nymphe . With her he left the home waters of the Baltic Sea on July 25, 1871 and ran via Rio de Janeiro , Cape Town and the Indian Ocean to Oceania , so Samoa , and into East Asian waters. During a visit to Siam in the spring of 1873, Blanc traveled to Bangkok to present the king with the insignia of the Order of the Black Eagle . During a visit to Japan in October 1873, Blanc prepared the establishment of a German military hospital for members of the war and merchant navy in Yokohama , which took place in 1878. Yokohama which came nymph on the journey home and completed under circumnavigation of Cape Horn , a circumnavigation . After a journey of 65,000 nautical miles and visits to 35 ports on different continents, Commodore Louis von Blanc entered the port of Kiel with SMS Nymphe on May 29, 1874 . It was thus the first circumnavigation of the world by a German Navy ship . When the trip was over, Blanc gave up command.

Then Blanc was head of department in the Admiralty until April 1878 . Promoted to sea captain on January 1, 1875 , he served in the meantime as chief of the staff of the training squadron in the summer of 1875 and as the commander of the ironclad Prussia in the summer of 1877. In April 1878 he became chief of the staff of the Admiralty and in the summer of 1878 again commanded the Prussia . He was considered a close confidante of the head of the Admiralty Albrecht von Stosch .

In April 1881, Blanc became the commandant of the covered corvette Stosch , and at the same time, as a commodore, was the first chief of the East Asian cruiser squadron . Because the combination of the functions of squadron commander and ship commander in one person proved to be inexpedient, Blanc gave up command of the Stosch on January 8, 1882 . In March 1883 he was promoted to Rear Admiral.

After returning to Germany, Blanc became 2nd Admiral of the Naval Station of the Baltic Sea in October 1883 and Chief of the 1st Marine Inspection in October 1884 . He held this position until May 1887 and was also head of the training squadron in the summer of 1885. Blanc was promoted to Vice Admiral in May 1887 chief of the naval station of the Baltic Sea. Blanc saw the appointment of the sea captain Karl Eduard Heusner as head of the Admiralty as a dismissal and he asked for his departure. On January 20, 1889, he was put up for disposition with subsequent recognition of his character as admiral .

literature

• Dermot Bradley (eds.), Hans H. Hildebrand, Ernest Henriot: Germany's Admirals 1849-1945. The military careers of naval, engineering, medical, weapons and administrative officers with admiral rank. Volume 1: A-G. Biblio Publishing House. Osnabrück 1988. ISBN 3-7648-1499-3 . Pp. 116-117.
• Hans H. Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 5. 1st edition. Herford 1982. ISBN 3-7822-0236-8 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hans H. Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 2. 1st edition. Herford 1980. ISBN 3-7822-0210-4 . P. 30.
2. ↑ Hans H. Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 3. 1st edition. Herford 1981. ISBN 3-7822-0211-2 . P. 69.
3. ↑ Hans H. Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 5. 1st edition. Herford 1982. ISBN 3-7822-0236-8 . P. 26.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Hans H. Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 1. 2nd revised edition. Herford 1983. ISBN 3-7822-0284-8 . P. 35.