Raimondo Montecuccoli

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Portrait of Elias Grießler in the Army History Museum , Vienna.

Montecuccolis signature:Signature Raimondo Montecuccoli.PNG
Raimondo Montecuccoli

Raimondo Graf Montecuccoli : (also Raimund Montecuccoli (*) 21 February 1609 at Castle Montecuccolo in Pavullo nel Frignano in Modena ; † 16th October 1680 in Linz ) was an Italian imperial commander, diplomat and statesman in Austro - Habsburg services.

Raimund von Montecuccoli, from the Count's Montecuccoli-Polignano family , was Imperial Chamberlain and Privy Councilor , Lieutenant General , General Artillery Director , Governor of Raab , President of the Court War Council, owner of a Cuirassier Regiment , President of the Leopoldine Academy of Naturalists and Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece . He was the creator of the first standing army in Austria and one of the most important military theorists and writers of the 17th century. He became famous for his victory against a huge Turkish army, which marched against Vienna in 1664 under the leadership of Ahmed Köprülü , during the Turkish War of 1663/1664 , and was defeated in the battle of Mogersdorf an der Raab .

Life

Castello di Montecuccolo

Montecuccoli was born in Modena and came from a highly respected, Central Italian noble family who had been ennobled in 1369, in 1450 to the count, 1530 to the imperial count with a large palatinate , in 1623 to the Lower Austrian lordship. After linguistic and classical studies, he joined the imperial army in 1625 as a simple warrior and learned the craft of war in the literal sense "from scratch". This was what his much older, distant cousin Ernesto Montecuccoli had asked for, who had served as captain in the bodyguard of the Archduke and Emperor Ferdinand , distinguished himself in the battle of the White Mountain and rose to the rank of Feldzeugmeister before he received a sevenfold in 1633 after the relief of Breisach Succumbed to injury.

With his consent and under his guidance, Montecuccoli entered military service and fought from 1625 to 1633 in Silesia , in the Netherlands , in western and northern Germany. His uncle alternated between the infantry and the cavalry, but, according to his own statements, preferred the cavalry , without underestimating the value of the infantry "from whom the discipline could be learned, on the basis of which every achievement and every fame is based ".

Montecuccoli fought with his horsemen near Nördlingen and in 1635, as a lieutenant colonel, led a group of 200 dismounted (i.e. walking) cuirassiers to Kaiserslautern , captured the commandant and conquered the city. For this achievement the emperor appointed him colonel and awarded him the Trappola regiment , which added five new companies to Montecuccoli and with which he made a significant contribution to the capture of Alsace- Zabern that same year .

Then Montecuccoli led his regiment in 1636 at Wolmirstedt and Wittstock , 1639 at Chemnitz and 1639 at Mělník and Brandeis . General Hofkirchen had accepted the last-mentioned battles against Montecuccolis expressed in the council of war. They ended badly for the imperial troops, Montecuccoli was wounded and taken prisoner. He spent his 2½-year imprisonment partly in Stettin , partly in Weimar and used the time to intensively study legal, philosophical, historical and scientific works. In Szczecin he also designed his own famous work on the art of war . In 1642 he returned to the army after being replaced. In the same year he fought again with the imperial army in Silesia, defeated an enemy corps near Troppau and horrified Brieg . He was appointed sergeant- general, but then moved to Modena with mercenaries in the winter of 1642 to enter the service of Duke Francesco I d'Este .

As a general of the cavalry he fought for the duchy of Castro in the war and rose to become a Modenese field marshal. Returning from Italy in 1644, he was appointed imperial field marshal lieutenant and court war councilor, commanded troops in Franconia and led parts of General Gallas ' cavalry trapped by the enemy in Saxony back to Bohemia. In 1645 he became the commanding officer in Silesia and supported Archduke Leopold with his corps on his campaign against Prince Rákóczi of Transylvania . In 1647 he defeated the Swedes at Triebel in western Bohemia, for which he was appointed general of the cavalry. At the end of 1647 he commanded the imperial cavalry in General Melander's campaign in Hesse, while Johann Wilhelm von Hunolstein commanded the infantry. Montecuccoli penetrated as far as the Weser , but was hardly supported in his advance by Melander, who concentrated in vain on the conquest of Marburg . After retreating from a united Swedish-French army as far as the Danube , Montecuccoli covered the retreat of the imperial soldiers in the battle of Zusmarshausen on May 7, 1648, when Commander-in-Chief Melander, who had come to his aid, died. The weakened Imperial Bavarian army then withdrew to the Inn and left large parts of Bavaria to be devastated by the opposing troops. Before the peace agreement, Montecuccoli supported the new imperial commander-in-chief Piccolomini in pushing back the enemies from Bavaria and the Upper Palatinate . After the Peace of Westphalia , he traveled to Sweden and Italy. His acquaintance with Christine of Sweden gave rise to fictional rumors. In 1653 he was appointed Deputy President of the Supreme War Council in Regensburg.

In 1657 Montecuccoli married Margaretha von Dietrichstein-Nikolsburg (* 1637; † 1676). In the same year he supported the Polish King John II Casimir against Rákóczi and the Swedes and forced Rákóczi to make peace with Poland. Appointed field marshal in 1658 and sent to the aid of the Danish king , who was besieged by the Swedes , he united with the troops of the Elector of Brandenburg at Küstrin , drove the Swedes from Jutland and Funen , then turned to Swedish Pomerania and conquered Damgarten , Anklam and Demmin , Ueckermünde .

After the Peace of Oliva in 1660 he became a privy councilor and governor of Raab, was then given command against the Turks who invaded Transylvania, forced them to evacuate this country, but had to retreat in the growing rift with the Hungarian warriors and thwarted by clever means All undertakings of the enemy army hesitated until the arrival of Bavarian, Brandenburg, French and Saxon alliance troops, who helped him win the battle of Mogersdorf (August 1, 1664), after which he was appointed lieutenant general . In 1668 he received the presidium of the court war council.

When Louis XIV attacked Holland in 1672, Montecucolli received the supreme command of the imperial auxiliary corps, which was united with the army of the Great Elector , but was not allowed to take any decisive action and therefore resigned from command at the beginning of 1673. In the summer, however, he drove Turenne out of Germany at the head of a new army and, united with the Prince of Orange / Orange, conquered Bonn . In 1675 he again commanded the imperial forces against Turenne. Both maneuvered against each other for four months without success until Turenne fell on July 27, 1675 in the battle of Sasbach , whereupon Montecuccoli pursued the retreating French as far as Alsace and besieged Hagenau and Zabern . But Condé's appearance on the battlefield forced him to leave Alsace again, whereupon he ended his military career with the siege of Philippsburg . He was the military instructor of Ludwig Wilhelm von Baden .

From then on he lived mostly at the imperial court, in contact with scholars. The foundation of the Leopoldine Academy for Natural Research is largely due to him. Count Montecuccoli died in Linz on October 16, 1680. He did not live to see the long promised elevation to the imperial prince, it was only given to his son Leopold Philipp , with whose death in 1698 the princely line was extinguished.

Montecuccoli wrote numerous military works. A particularly frequently quoted sentence from his Aforismi dell'Arte Bellica was the statement: "Richiesto taluno delle cose necessarie alla guerra, egli rispondesse tre esser quelle: denaro, denaro, denaro" ("If you were to ask someone about the things necessary for war, so he would say it was these three: money, money, money ”).

reception

Due to the imperial resolution of Franz Joseph I on February 28, 1863, Montecuccoli was added to the list of the "most famous warlords and generals of Austria worthy of perpetual emulation" , in whose honor and memory a life-size statue was also erected in the general hall of the then newly erected kk Hofwaffenmuseums (today: Heeresgeschichtliches Museum Wien ) was built. The statue was created in 1869 from Carrara marble by the sculptor Thomas Greinwald and was dedicated by Emperor Franz Joseph himself.

In 1909 the Montecuccoliplatz in Vienna- Hietzing was named in his honor. The army barracks in Güssing got his name.

literature

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Web links

Commons : Raimondo Montecuccoli  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Raimondo Montecuccoli  - Sources and full texts (Italian)

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e Adolf Schinzl:  Montecuccoli, Raimund Fürst von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1885, pp. 183-189.
  2. ^ Helmut Neuhaus:  Montecuccoli, Raimund Fürst von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 18, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-428-00199-0 , pp. 44-47 ( digitized version ).
  3. ^ -, Hendrik van Huyssen: Memorie del General Principe di Montecuccoli che rinfermano una esatta instruzzione de i generali ed ufficiali di guerra, per ben commandar un'Armata (...) . Compagnia dei Librarii, Cologne 1704, OBV , p. 54.
  4. Johann Christoph Allmayer-Beck : The Army History Museum Vienna. The museum and its representative rooms . Kiesel Verlag, Salzburg 1981, ISBN 3-7023-0113-5 , p. 32.