Ludwig von Welden

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Ludwig Freiherr von Welden, lithograph by Josef Kriehuber
Welden monument on the Graz Schloßberg

Ludwig Freiherr von Welden (born June 10, 16, or 20, 1782 in Laupheim , Upper Swabia, † August 7, 1853 in Graz ) was an Austrian Feldzeugmeister and temporarily commander in chief of the army of the Austrian Empire in Hungary.

origin

Ludwig was a member of the noble von Welden family , who were given control of Laupheim after the Peasants' War in 1582. The Welden expanded Laupheim into their residence and made it possible for Jews to settle in Laupheim . His parents were the bailiff Carl von Welden († October 26, 1808) and his wife the Countess Judithe Marie von Künigl von Ehrenburg (* October 13, 1769).

Life

Ludwig von Welden first entered service in Württemberg in 1798 and took part in the 1799–1800 campaigns of the coalition wars against France. In 1802 he was transferred to Austrian service, was taken prisoner by the French in 1809, but was soon exchanged so that he could take part in the battle of Aspern as a major .

In 1812 he was staff officer in the headquarters of Prince Schwarzenberg . As a lieutenant colonel with the staff of the army in Italy , he distinguished himself several times in 1814, and after the capture of Mantua he was commissioned to return the French army, which had surrendered there, to southern France. In 1815 he served in the general staff of the army raised against Murat , became a colonel and in 1816 a brigadier of the engineer corps.

He then headed the topographical office for a while, took part in the campaign against Piedmont in 1821 as chief of the general staff and then directed the military description of the country. When measuring the Monte Rosa massif , he named eight peaks and drew the first map of the Monte Rosa massif. In 1822 he climbed the Ludwigshöhe for the first time as part of this surveying activity . He published the results in his monograph Der Monte Rosa (Vienna 1824).

He was promoted to major general on May 31, 1828 , and between October 1832 and May 1838 he was Austrian representative at the Central Military Commission of the German Confederation in Frankfurt am Main . Appointed field marshal lieutenant on February 29, 1836 , he was given divisional command in Graz in May 1838, and general command in Tyrol in 1843 . During the uprising of Lombardy in 1848, he was able to secure the connection between Radetzky and the hereditary lands and led the enclosure of Venice .

Assignments in Hungary and Vienna

In September 1848 he was appointed civil and military governor in Dalmatia and after the Vienna October Uprising in November 1848 transferred there in the same capacity. On November 27, 1848, he was awarded the Commander's Cross of the Maria Theresa Order for his achievements . At the beginning of 1849 he was appointed the owner of Infantry Regiment No. 20 and on March 13th, Feldzeugmeister. In April 1849, after Windischgrätz 's defeats, Emperor Franz Joseph I transferred him to the command of the army in Hungary. After the loss of the positions in front of Komorn and the capture of Oven (May 21) by the revolutionary Hungarians, Welden was replaced by Julius von Haynau by the emperor and returned to his post as governor of Vienna.

Until June 1851, Welden led a dictatorial regime in Vienna on behalf of the emperor, which interned thousands of townspeople in barracks and was supposed to ensure post-revolutionary peace with the help of a system of informers. He was aware that this was why he was hated by many and was just as hostile to the Viennese population.

Retired in 1851 because of his poor health, he died in Graz on August 7, 1853. A statue (by the sculptor Hanns Gasser ) was erected there to thank him for the creation of the park on Schloßberg in 1859 . Another achievement of Weldens was the foundation of a disability fund named after him.

family

He was married twice. His first wife was Countess Therese von Soppranza († 1839). After the death of his first wife, he married the baroness Maria von Aretin on April 8, 1833 (* March 14, 1812, † April 15, 1837). The marriage comes from the daughter Anna (* March 6, 1834 - December 8, 1918), who married Count Richard Belcredi (* February 12, 1823 - December 2, 1902) in 1854 .

Honors

In 1869 Weldengasse in Vienna- Favoriten was named after him.

The street on Grazer Schloßberg with the north driveway up to the clock tower is named after him, Weldenstrasse .

literature

Web links

Commons : Ludwig Welden von Hartmann  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bartonia. Proceedings of the Philadelphia Botanical Club, No. 11, 1929, p. 36.
  2. ↑ Gerhard Kurzmann, Wiltraud Resch: Monuments and fates. Austria-Medien-Service, 2002, ISBN 3-85333-089-4 , p. 182.
  3. ↑ L. von Alvensleben : Ancestral tables. First issue, Sauerländer, 1846, under 93.
  4. ↑ Ludwigshöhe. In: zermatt.ch. Retrieved November 24, 2015 .
  5. ^ Final research report Street names in Vienna since 1860 as political places of remembrance , Vienna 2013, p. 48 f.
personal data
SURNAME Welden, Ludwig von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Welden, Franz Ludwig Freiherr von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian Feldzeugmeister
DATE OF BIRTH June 1782
PLACE OF BIRTH Laupheim , Duchy of Württemberg
DATE OF DEATH August 7, 1853
Place of death Graz , Duchy of Styria , Austrian Empire