Wilhelm (Schaumburg-Lippe)

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Painting by Count Anton Wilhelm Strack after Johann Georg Ziesenis the Elder J. 1782, Gleimhaus Halberstadt

Count Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst zu Schaumburg-Lippe (born January 9, 1724 in London ; † September 10, 1777 at Haus Bergleben , Wölpinghausen ) was an important military theorist, military leader in the Seven Years War and, as the owner of the county of Schaumburg-Lippe, a state of the Holy Roman Reichs.

Life

Joshua Reynolds : Wilhelm Graf zu Schaumburg-Lippe, oil on canvas, around 1764/1767

Wilhelm was the second son of Count Albrecht Wolfgang and Margarete Gertrud, born. Countess von Oeynhausen, an illegitimate daughter of the Hanoverian Elector and British King George I with his mistress Melusine von der Schulenburg (and foster daughter of her sister Margarethe and her husband Raben Christoph von Oeynhausen ).

Wilhelm was born in London, where his grandparents, King George I and Duchess Melusine, lived together and Oeynhausen was chamberlain. He received his school education in Geneva , then studied in Leiden and Montpellier and then joined the royal bodyguard as an ensign in Great Britain .

After the duel death of his older brother, Hereditary Count Georg (1722–1742), he returned to Bückeburg as heir . He accompanied his father, who was then a general in the Dutch service, on the campaign against France, where he distinguished himself in the Battle of Dettingen in 1743, and then took part as a volunteer in the imperial army in the campaign of 1745 in Italy. After the death of his father (1748) he inherited him as regent of the county of Schaumburg-Lippe . His policy was shaped by the conflicting relations with the Landgraviate of Hessen-Kassel , whose ruler was waiting for the opportunity to annex the Grafschaft Schaumburg-Lippe. Wilhelm's later military policy primarily served to prevent the country from being quickly annexed.

In order to gain military experience, he first went to Berlin to see Frederick the Great , where he belonged to Voltaire's inner circle . (Wilhelm spoke French, English, Latin, Italian and Portuguese.) He later traveled to Italy and Hungary. When the Seven Years' War broke out , he provided the allied army with its own contingent , became Generalfeldzeugmeister ( Major General ) in the Braunschweig-Lüneburg district and received several awards for his fights. The artillery he led repulsed the attack of the right wing of the French army in the battle of Minden in 1759. In 1759 he received the supreme command of the entire artillery of the allied armies.

Wilhelm's wife Marie Barbara Eleonore zur Lippe-Biesterfeld

After the attack by France and Spain on Portugal (1761), the leading minister of Portugal, the great reformer Marquês de Pombal , offered William the supreme command of the allied British and Portuguese troops. Wilhelm followed the call in 1762 and fought off an attempted Spanish invasion in what is still known as the “Fantastic War” ( Guerra Fantástica ) in Portugal today , which preserved Portuguese independence. He founded a war and artillery school and reformed the Portuguese army. He also had the Fort Nossa Senhora da Graça built in the style of Vaubans near Elvas , which the king named "Fort Lippe" in his honor. The model was the fortress Wilhelmstein in the Steinhuder Meer . As a thank you for his help, he received several gold miniature cannons, examples of which are still on display today on the Wilhelmstein and at Bückeburg Castle. Since the war had ended in 1762 by the Treaty of Fontainebleau , he returned to Germany in 1764. In recognition of his outstanding military leadership skills and his services as commander of British troops in Portugal, he was appointed British field marshal by the British crown. In his honor, the Portuguese Infantry Regiment No. I was named after him by decree of May 10, 1763. In memory of his achievements, the Portuguese state had a memorial plaque placed in front of the mausoleum at the Baum hunting lodge on July 6, 1960.

Count Wilhelm married Countess Marie Barbara Eleonore zu Lippe-Biesterfeld, 20 years his junior, very late . Wilhelm's only daughter died at the age of three, his wife two years later. After these strokes of fate, he retired to his hunting lodge Bergleben near Wölpinghausen, where he died childless on September 10, 1777, which is why his cousin Philipp-Ernst zu Lippe-Alverdissen followed him in the government.

His body was buried next to that of his wife and daughter in the mausoleum he built near the Baum hunting lodge in the Schaumburg Forest . The Wilhelmsturm was later built on the site of the Bergleben hunting lodge, where the count died . Haus Bergleben was demolished and rebuilt as a spa pharmacy in Bad Nenndorf in 1790 . His written estate is located in the Fürstlich Schaumburg-Lippische Hausarchiv in the State Archive of Bückeburg and - edited by Curd Ochwadt - was published in three volumes from 1977 to 1983.

The theorist of the war of defense

Bust of Count Wilhelm in the Walhalla

Wilhelm developed for the first time a polemological theory of the pure defensive war , which he considered the only justifiable for ethical reasons: “ None other than the defensive war is legitimate! “The core of the strategy he developed for this purpose was the concept of“ fortified landscapes ”in areas that were particularly disruptive for invading armies: a combination of bases, armed rural populations and soldiers who sometimes worked in agriculture during peace.

Significance for the Prussian reform era

Wilhelm's ideas and practical experience can be used to build a bridge to Scharnhorst's (and Gneisenau's ) planning of a “ people's war ” against Napoleon and to Scharnhorst's army reform . His advocacy of general conscription and against corporal punishment for soldiers should also be seen in this context.

Fortress construction for a small state

As a base for the county, Wilhelm had the Wilhelmstein Fortress built on an artificial island in the Steinhuder Sea, which was extremely difficult to take for the funds at the time, i.e. it required a force that was several times larger, or rather disrupted its supplies . His political goal was to make the small state difficult to completely conquer, and thus to make Schaumburg-Lippe a valuable ally of much more powerful states (especially the Electorate of Braunschweig-Lüneburg (Electorate of Hanover) and the Kingdom of Prussia ). It should be saved from a pure satellite status.

In fact, when Hessen-Kassel attempted to occupy the land in 1787, the Wilhelmstein was held against the Hessian by troops from Schaumburg-Lippe. This gained the necessary time for a legal dispute in which the rulers of Hanover and Prussia successfully campaigned for the further independence of Schaumburg-Lippe, which in fact only ended in 1946.

The monarch

Built on Graf Wilhelm command fortress Wilhelm Stein

Wilhelm did great services to his county - by promoting trade and agriculture, by founding weaving mills , spinning mills , brickworks , as well as the chocolate factory in Steinhude , the iron hammer and the paper mill on the Ahrensburg and the foundry in Bückeburg. He also founded new settlements and recruited new settlers with exemption from taxes, free house building or free seeds . To promote agriculture, most of the compulsory labor was posted on the sovereign domains, country visits were carried out and exemplary farmers were honored. The abolition of compulsory labor was prepared and directed by Christian Friedrich Westfeld . Wilhelm tried to appoint important people to his court, including Thomas Abbt , Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach and Johann Gottfried Herder .

He also carried out military reform. He abolished the humiliating flogging and introduced a kind of conscription with the country militia . In 1767 he founded a war school for artillery and geniuses , which gained a great reputation, and set it up on the small island fortress Wilhelmstein in the Steinhuder Meer. The most famous graduate was Gerhard von Scharnhorst . The world's first submarine , known as the Steinhuder Hecht , was built there in 1762 on Wilhelm's order .

Wilhelm maintained a standing army of up to 1,000 soldiers, which was disproportionately large for a small country, which resulted in high financial burdens, which then led to internal political tensions in the country. The costly fortress construction in the Steinhuder Meer also burdened the subjects. Herder, employed by Wilhelm as consistorial councilor and court preacher from 1771 to 1776 , complained in 1772 about the count, his own position and the conditions in the county of his fiancée Karoline Flachsland: “A noble gentleman, but extremely spoiled! a great gentleman, but too great for his country, a philosophical spirit, under whose philosophy I succumb [...] - there is nothing for me to do in the country. A pastor without a community! a patron of schools without schools! ” And: “ There is no middle class here. Regarded as a republic, a heap of extremely depraved and, by the greatest, greatest number of poor and wretched people, in such a happy country. If God didn't want us to grow so much superfluous and good bread, we could live on soldiers and fortified islands. ” After the Count's death, the Wilhelmstein field was dismantled and the troops were greatly reduced. The Wilhelmstein Fortress was converted into a prison.

The mausoleum of Count Wilhelm in the Schaumburg Forest

title

In 1770 Wilhelm had the following titles: Wilhelm, ruling Count of Schaumburg, Noble Lord and Count of Lippe and Sternberg etc., Knight of the Royal Prussian Great Order of the Black Eagle, Generalissimo of the armies of His Most Loyal Majesty the King of Portugal and Algarbia , as well as the Armies of His Royal Majesty of Great Britain and Electoral Highnesses of Braunschweig-Lüneburg appointed General Field Marshal etc. etc.

Work edition

  • Writings and letters . Edited by Curd Ochwadt. (= Publications of the Leibniz Archive; 6–8). Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1977–1983.

literature

  • Falkmann:  Wilhelm, Count of Schaumburg-Lippe . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 43, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1898, p. 202 f.
  • Character traits and anecdotes of the late Count Wilhelm von Schaumburg-Bückeburg . In: New military journal 1 (1788), pp. 123-127.
  • Karl August Varnhagen von Ense : Count Wilhelm to Lippe . In: Varnhagen: Biographical monuments . 1st chapter. G. Reimner, Berlin 1824, pp. 1-130.
  • Curd Ochwadt : Wilhelmstein and Wilhelmsteiner field. From the work of Count Wilhelm zu Schaumburg-Lippe (1724–1777) . Charis-Verlag, Hanover [1970].
  • Curd Ochwadt: Wilhelm Graf zu Schaumburg-Lippe 1724–1777. To mark the return of the 200th anniversary of death . Edited by the Schaumburg-Lippischen Heimatverein. Driftmann, Bückeburg 1977.
  • Carl-Hans Hauptmeyer : Sovereignty, Participation and the Absolute Small State. The county of Schaumburg- (Lippe) as an example. (= Sources and representations on the history of Lower Saxony; 91). Hildesheim 1980.
  • Hans H. Klein: Wilhelm zu Schaumburg-Lippe. Classic of deterrence theory and Scharnhorst's teacher . (= Studies on military history, military science and conflict research; 28). Biblio, Osnabrück 1982. ISBN 3-7648-1265-6
  • Gerd Steinwascher (editor): Count Wilhelm zu Schaumburg-Lippe (1724–1777). A philosophizing regent and general in the age of the Enlightenment . Exhibition in 1988 in the Lower Saxony state parliament (among others). Lower Saxony State Archives, Bückeburg 1988.
  • Eva Rademacher: Count Wilhelm in Schaumburg-Lippe and his time . In: Schaumburg-Lippische Heimat-Blätter . Vol. 53 (77) (2002), No. 4, pp. 6-17.
  • Heike Matzke: The libraries of Count Wilhelm zu Schaumburg-Lippe (1724–1777). Approaching the personality of a sovereign of the 18th century through the reconstruction of his book collections . Diploma thesis, FH Hannover 2003 (available in the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library Hannover)
  • Martin Rink : Count Wilhelm von Schaumburg-Lippe. A “strange” duodec prince as a military innovator . In: Martin Steffen (Hrsg.): The battle near Minden. World politics and local history . Bruns, Minden 2008, ISBN 978-3-00-026211-1 , pp. 137-155, 237-243.
  • Stefan Brüdermann : Schaumburg-Lippe, Count Wilhelm and Herder in the Lichtenberg period , in: Lichtenberg-Jahrbuch, 2013, pp. 33–49.
  • Stefan Brüdermann: Count Wilhelm and the Schaumburg-Lipper in the battle of Minden , in: Schaumburgische Mitteilungen 1 (2017), pp. 110-133.

Web links

Commons : Friedrich Wilhelm, Count of Schaumburg-Lippe  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Varnhagen, Wilhelm, p. 5 .
  2. ↑ In addition, his writing: Records and drafts for Portugal's military and defense , in: ders., Schriften und Letters , ed. von Curd Ochwadt, Vol. 2: Military writings, Frankfurt am Main 1977, pp. 130–141, and Christa Banaschik-Ehl: Scharnhorst's teacher, Count Wilhelm von Schaumburg-Lippe, in Portugal. The army reform 1761–1777 , Osnabrück 1974. (= studies on military history, military science and conflict research, 3)
  3. ↑ See Anna-Franziska von Schweinitz: Architecture for Eternity. The burial garden of Count Wilhelm zu Schaumburg-Lippe. In: Kritischeberichte 29 (2001), No. 2, pp. 21-29.
  4. ^ Johann Gottfried Herder: In August 1772, in: Memories from the life of Joh. Gottfried von Herder, collected and described by Maria Carolina von Herder, born. Flachsland, published by Johann Georg Müller, Vol. 1, Stuttgart and Tübingen 1830, No. 24, pp. 226–228, here p. 226 .
  5. ↑ Johann Gottfried Herder: From Herder's estate. Unprinted letters from Herder and his wife , ed. by Heinrich Düntzer, 1857, No. 79, Bückeburg, August 24, 1772, pp. 323–328, here p. 324 . Both quotations follow one another in the same letter, but are published in different places.
  6. ↑ Designation in the head of his regulations, the study and exercise of the Schaumburg-Lippe-Bückeburg engineers and artillerymen , 1770, in: ders., Schriften und Liefe , ed. von Curd Ochwadt, Vol. 2: Militärische Schriften, Frankfurt am Main 1977, pp. 78–88, here p. 78.
predecessor Office successor
Albrecht Wolfgang Count of Schaumburg-Lippe
1748–1777 		Philip II Ernst
personal data
SURNAME Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wilhelm zu Schaumburg-Lippe; Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Count of Lippe-Schaumburg-Bückeburg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Army commander, military theorist
DATE OF BIRTH January 9, 1724
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH September 10, 1777
Place of death Bergleben House, Wölpinghausen