Philipp von Imhoff

Lieutenant General Philipp Ernst Freiherr von Imhoff

Philipp Ernst Freiherr von Imhoff (born December 17, 1702 in Nuremberg ; † April 4, 1768 in Braunschweig ) was a Brunswick-Wolfenbüttelscher lieutenant general .

Life

Philipp Freiherr von Imhoff came to Wolfenbüttel with his father Andreas Lazarus at an early age , received a careful upbringing under the care of his mother, a born von Woyda, when he died, and attended the University of Altdorf .

At the age of 18 he joined the Duke von Bevern infantry regiment garrisoned in Braunschweig as an ensign . With this he moved, captain since 1728 , to the Rhine in spring 1734 to take part in the war of the Polish succession . The company he commanded belonged to the defenders of the Reichsfestung Philippsburg , and when its commandant, the Imperial Field Marshal Lieutenant von Wutgenau, after all means of resistance had exhausted, started negotiations with the besieging French, it was von Imhoff who, alongside Colonel von Rothenburg, began negotiations with the French led.

After attending the battle of Clausen Monastery am Salmbach in Trier in the autumn of the following year , he returned to his homeland at the beginning of 1736 after the peace was made. Duke Karl, who had meanwhile become part of the government, soon turned his full favor to von Imhoff. Proof of the trust this prince placed in him was a broadcast to the theater of war in Hungary, where Brunswick troops fought against the Turks on the basis of imperial pay.

The infantry regiment, of which he had become chief and colonel in 1748, marched into the Netherlands in the same year ; the peace concluded at Aachen soon after , however, did not allow the same to come into war activity.

Seven Years War

Braunschweig added a contingent of 5800 men in seven battalions to the Allied army, which was set up in northwestern Germany in the spring of 1757 under the orders of the Duke of Cumberland , whose command was given by Lieutenant General von Imhoff.

As a result of the unfortunate battle of Hastenbeck , in which Imhoff's left wing was subordinate to the infantry, the convention concluded by the Zeven Monastery , this troop got into a peculiar situation. Their fatherland, and with it their sovereign, were in the power of the French; Compelled by this and at the same time motivated by agreements he had made with the Viennese court, Duke Karl von Imhoff gave the order to return the Brunswick troops to their homeland in accordance with the convention. However, King George II of Great Britain , whose pay these were, rejected the convention and ordered the resumption of operations, which Duke Ferdinand von Braunschweig , the brother of the ruler, was appointed to lead. Von Imhoff knew that he would not be allowed to march off; he therefore tried secretly on the night of 19./20. He escaped from his camp near Schwinge (between Stade and Bremervörde) on November 11th, but was overtaken by Mulsum the following morning and forced to turn back by Major General von Wangenheim from Hanover . The company's own indecision was not without its fault. Von Imhoff was brought to Stade as a detainee and only returned to the army in May 1758, when Duke Ferdinand was already on the Rhine. The son of his warlord, the "Hereditary Prince", later Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand of Braunschweig , now also appointed lieutenant general, received the anciency before him.

In 1758 and 1759 he took part in the war intensively. The Battle of Meer (French: Affaire de Meer, today Hamminkeln -Mehrhoog) and the capture of Munster are the occasions on which he stood out, but also in the Battle of Minden he was one of those generals to whom Duke Ferdinand's order of 2 August expressly thanked the successes of the day. The Battle of Meer on August 5, 1758, saved the bridges at Rees, which secured the army's retreat to the right bank of the Rhine; Von Imhoff directed it independently and, even if he can be accused of being surprised by his opponent General Chever's attack, his tactical arrangements and his timely transition to the offensive deserve full recognition.

He began the siege of Munster at the end of August 1759; The Marquis d'Armentière's approaching relief soon compelled him to turn it into a blockade, and when conditions allowed the formal attack to be resumed, the management of the actual siege fell to Count Wilhelm zur Lippe , while von Imhoff attempted the relief fended off. The agreement between the two leaders was admittedly not the best, and it cost Major von Bülow, Duke Ferdinand's adjutant, whom von Imhoff had added, to maintain the peace between them, but the end result was that the brave French commander, General Gayon, on November 21, surrendered and that d'Armentières withdrew.

Imhoff was worse off in 1760. Duke Ferdinand and 13,000 men had asked him to maintain the important ohmic line. But he gave up this prematurely when Marshal Broglie advanced against it at the end of June, and there was such a rift between himself and Duke Ferdinand, who himself cannot be entirely absolved of the guilt for the loss, that the latter, especially through Imhoff's Way of defending himself, irritated, removed him from the army. But he did not lose the trust of the ruling duke as a result. The same appointed him commander of Braunschweig and, when Prince Xaver of Saxony threatened the city in October 1761 , he had the opportunity to justify the same by taking the defense institutions he met and the resistance he opposed to the city in front of the city the occupation until General von Luckner and Prince Friedrich August von Braunschweig came up for relief.

death

On April 4, 1768 he died unmarried in Braunschweig and was buried in the family crypt of the Hohenstein estate near Coburg, which he bought in 1763.

literature

• C. v. Decker, F. v. Ciriacy, L. Blesson: Journal of the Art, Science, and History of War. Berlin, Posen and Bromberg 1828, digitized version (PDF; 73.5 MB).
• Georg Wilhelm von Düring: History of the Schaumburg-Lippe-Bückeburg Karabinier and Jäger Corps. A contribution to the teaching of the small, in examples excellent weapons deeds of this corps, during the Seven Years' War. Mittler, Berlin, Posen and Bromberg 1828.
• Just Friederich Froriep: In memory of Lieutenant Colonel Johann Casimir von Monkewitz, former commander of the Bückeburg Carabiniers and Jäger Corps. Althans, Bückeburg 1789, digitized .
• Bernhard von Poten :  Imhof, Philipp von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 14, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1881, p. 54 f.
• Gothaisches genealogical pocket book of the baronial houses to the year 1860. Tenth year, p.379