Peter from Lacy

Peter from Lacy

Peter Graf von Lacy , or Pyotr Petrovich Lacy ( Russian Пётр Петрович Ласси ) or Peadar de Lasa ( Irish ), (* 30th October 1678 in Killeedy ; † April 19 ^jul. / 30th April  1751 ^greg. In Riga ) was above Rumyantsev and Suvorov one of the most successful field marshals in the Russian service . During his military career, which lasted more than half a century, he was involved in 31 campaigns , 18 field battles and 18 sieges .

Peter de Lacy was married to Martha von Funcke auf Lösern ( Latvian Liezēre ) (1685–1759). The couple had five daughters and two sons. Her son Franz Moritz Graf von Lacy (born October 21, 1725 in Saint Petersburg , † November 24, 1801 in Vienna ) was one of the most successful commanders in the service of Austria .

Early career in Western Europe

Peter Lacy was born on 29 September 1678 in Killeedy in the Irish county of Limerick born into a family of Norman nobility. The family originally came from Lassy .

At the age of 13, Peter des Lacy fought with the rank of lieutenant in the defense of Limerick against the army of William of Orange . In 1691 he had to leave Ireland with his father and brothers . He was part of an emigration movement of Irish officers which became known as the Escape of the Wild Geese . He joined the Irish Brigade in the service of France . Both his father and his brothers fell. In 1696 he fought for Louis XIV in Italy . He then spent two years in the service of Austria and finally in 1698 followed his general Charles Eugène de Croy and entered service in Russia.

In the service of Tsar Peter the Great

His first experience in the service of the Russian army was the devastating defeat in the battle of Narva in November 1700 in the rank of Poruchik ( lieutenant ). Seriously wounded twice during the Great Northern War , he rose to the rank of colonel in 1708 . In the Battle of Poltava , he commanded a brigade, was wounded and distinguished himself. That was the starting point of his fame as a soldier. His next activity was the siege of Riga under Anikita Ivanovich Repnin . Peter Lacy was reportedly the first Russian officer to enter the capital of Livonia and subsequently became the first in command of the Riga Castle .

In 1719 Lacy landed with Apraxin's fleet of 5,000 infantrymen and 350 cavalrymen near Umeå in Sweden . More than a dozen Swedish iron foundries and several metallurgical plants were destroyed in this operation . Soon he was promoted to general and in 1723 entered the Military College , as the Russian Defense Ministry was then called. Lacy overtook Repnin as the commander of the Russian armed forces in Livonia and became governor of Livonia in 1729. It was then that he met the Duchess of Courland, who later became known as Tsarina Anna of Russia . During her reign , Lacy's exceptional military capabilities were never questioned.

In the service of Empress Anna

The Polish war of succession called him into the next battle. In 1733 Lacy and Münnich drove the Polish King Stanislaus I. Leszczyński from Warsaw to Danzig , which was then besieged in 1734. In 1734 he was in command of Danzig . August II proposed Lacy as thanks to the Knight of the Order of the White Eagle of Poland . Then Lacy was assigned to the Rhine to join Eugen von Savoyen with his 13,500 soldiers . His troops advanced to Germany and met the Austrians on August 16 and returned to their winter quarters in Moravia with exemplary discipline .

Lacy had assumed the rank of field marshal when the Russo-Turkish war broke out . His success exceeded even the wildest expectations. In 1736 he was responsible for the Don army which the important citadel of Azov occupied. In 1737 Lacy was inducted into the Order of Saint Andrew the First Called . Lacy's next assignment was to take the Crimea . After the unsuccessful attempts by Leontjew in 1735 and Münnich in 1736. He solved the task brilliantly by crossing the Siwasch swamp with his own brilliance and improvisation and marching into the Crimea. The campaign was a complete success and caused only minor losses to his troops. In 1738 he landed again in the Crimea and took the Tatar fortress Çufut Qale (Чуфут Калэ) near the capital Bakhchysaray .

After the pacification, Lacy was reinstated as governor of Livonia . Charles VI , Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire , bestowed on him the title of Count . His political indifference saved him from falling after the death of Tsarina Anna, while most of his colleagues fell out of favor and were dismissed from active service.

In the service of Empress Elisabeth

When in 1741 the Russo-Swedish War broke out, made him Anna Leopoldovna the commander because he was the most experienced among the generals. Lacy advanced rapidly against Finland and won his last brilliant battle at Lappeenranta (Swedish: Villmanstrand) in 1741. The following year he gathered his strength and took Hamina , Porvoo and Hämeenlinna . In August, he trapped 17,000 Swedes near Helsinki and ended the fighting.

After the war, Lacy retired to Riga and took back command of the Russian armed forces in Livonia . He administered Latvia and Estonia .

family

• De Lacy

literature

• Patrick J. O'Meara: Field Marshal Peter Lacy. To Irishman in Eighteenth-Century Russia . In: Scotland and Russia in the Enlightenment. Proceedings of the international Conference, September 1-3, 2000, Edinburgh. St. Petersburg Center for History of Ideas, St. Petersburg 2001, ( The philosophical age Almanac 15, ZDB -ID 2471635-2 ), pp. 82–90, online (PDF; 1.58 MB) .
• Edward de Lacy-Bellingari: The roll of the house of Lacy: pedigrees, military memoirs and synoptical history of the ancient and illustrious family of De Lacy, from the earliest times, in all its branches, to the present day. Full notices on allied families and a memoir of the Brownes (Camas). Waverly Press, Baltimore (MD) 1928. viii, 409 pp., 24 cm. on-line
• Nordic Miscellanees , volumes 15-17, pp. 496ff, von Funcken family

Web links

• Baltic Historical Commission (ed.): Entry on Peter von Lacy. In: BBLD - Baltic Biographical Lexicon digital
• Article in biographies of Russian generals and field marshals, 1840 (Russian)
• Article in Russian Biographical Handbook (russ.)
• Biography in Chronos (russ.)