Philipp Moritz von Gruben

Philipp Moritz pits (* 20th August 1766 in Goetz village , Kehdingen ; † 13. October 1828 in Diepholz ) one was royal Hanoverian Major General and Chief of the 2nd Hussar - Regiment . He was in command of the Guelph Order , holder of the English Order of the Bath , and the English gold medals of Salamanca , Orthez , Toulouse and that of Waterloo .

Life

Philipp Moritz of mines came from the noble family of mines , which the Lower Saxon nobility is to be allocated, and especially in the duchies of Bremen and Verden was a resident.

His military career began pits at the age of ten years as a cadet at the kurhannoverschen first heavy Dragoon - Regiment . There he was promoted to cornet ten years later . In 1793 he was called into the Hanoverian army to serve in the First Coalition War on the side of the grand coalition consisting of Prussia , Austria and smaller German states against revolutionary France to defend the monarchy . On the side of the Allies, he attended the victorious battle of Famars , the siege and capture of the fortress of Valencienne s, the three-day battle of Hondschoote and the battle of Menin. In 1794 von Gruben was promoted to lieutenant and in 1802 in the body regiment to Rittmeister .

After Napoleon had placed the Electorate of Braunschweig-Lüneburg under French administration and had dictated the dissolution of the Hanoverian army with the Convention of Artlenburg an der Elbe (July 5, 1803), von Gruben and other Hanoverian officers were forced to retire . When the opportunity arose in 1804, he fled to England to return to the service of George III. who ruled at that time as King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and in the Holy Roman Empire as Elector of Braunschweig-Lüneburg . Arrived in England, von Gruben was entrusted with a company in the 1st light dragoons, later hussars regiment of the King's German Legion . Within this network, von Gruben fought with his regiment in various battles during the Napoleonic Wars on the Iberian Peninsula under Arthur Wellesley , the Duke of Wellington .

At the battle of Fuentes de Onoro he was wounded by a saber from pits and a few days later was appointed titular major for his services . During the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo , the squadron led by the Major von Gruben took a large number of prisoners and at the Battle of Salamanca he commanded the regiment, the success of which earned him the English gold medal as an award. Appointed a real major in January 1813, he attended the Battle of Vitoria on June 21st , after which Wellington's troops had a victorious outcome, and the army under Joseph Bonaparte's command was routed. In the battles near Orthez and Toulouse , which now took place on French soil , von Gruben was awarded a second and third English medal for his services in these two conflicts. Von Gruben spent the weeks between Napoleon's abdication as emperor and his return from the island of Elba in the closest circle of the Duke of Wellington , whose personal affection he won for himself during this time. After Napoleon returned from the island of Elba and opened the last chapter of the coalition wars with his summer campaign in 1815 , von Gruben, now a lieutenant colonel , also took part in the battle of Waterloo .

A few weeks after his service in the Battle of Waterloo, von Gruben became the commander of the Cumberland Hussar Regiment , awarded the English Order of the Bath for his military successes and, at the end of 1815, also became a Knight of the Guelph Order . Back in Germany he was first commander of the 4th Hussar Regiment, and later became Colonel and Chief of the 2nd Hussar Regiment stationed in Osnabrück . After another six years in the Royal Hanoverian Army, he was promoted to major general and in the same year commander of the Guelph Order . In these years after his various war missions, the general made outstanding contributions to training the next generation of leaders within the Hanoverian army. He had such a good reputation that many Hanoverian officer families specifically sent their sons to him for training. In addition, von Gruben worked on the "draft of a military code for the Kingdom of Hanover " and advised, often in a leading role, the Hanover military authorities on many cavalry- related issues.

Bad health from many years of campaigns , von Gruben died at the age of 62 on October 13, 1828, when he was at the side of his wife Charlotte, nee. v. Dassel , on the return trip to Osnabrück to his regiment.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} New Nekrolog der Deutschen . BF Voigt., 1830, p. 739–745 ( google.de [accessed July 10, 2020]).
2. ↑ Justus Berthes (Ed.): Gothaisches Genealogisches Taschenbuch der Nobeligen houses - The nobility born in Germany (Uradel) . 2nd year. Gotha 1901, p. 329 .
3. ↑ Hannoversches Magazin , 1822, p. 116
4. ↑ ^{a b c d} Patriotic archive of the Historical Association for Lower Saxony . 1829, p. 116–128 ( google.de [accessed July 10, 2020]).
5. ↑ Christopher Hibbert: George III - A Personal History.
6. ^ Ian Fletcher: Vittoria 1813 (= Osprey Military Campaign Series. Vol. 59). Osprey, London 1998, ISBN 1-85532-739-2 .
7. ^ Günther Rothenberg: The Napoleonic Wars. BVH Brandenburgisches Verlagshaus, Berlin 2000.