Wilhelm von Dörnberg

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Wilhelm von Dörnberg, etching by Ludwig Emil Grimm (1790–1863)

Wilhelm Caspar Ferdinand Freiherr von Dörnberg (born April 14, 1768 at Schloss Hausen near Bad Hersfeld , † March 19, 1850 in Münster ) was a Hanoverian lieutenant general . He became known through his attempted uprising against Jérôme Bonaparte and is also called "Aufstandsdörnberg" (see also Dörnberg uprising ).

origin

The family of the Barons von Dörnberg belongs to the Protestant Hessian nobility and is a member of the Old Hessen Knighthood . From 1732 the von Dörnberg held the court office of the hereditary kitchen master (hereditary master) of Hesse-Kassel . His parents were Karl Sigismund von Dörnberg (1718–1778), heir to Hausen and Dittershausen, hereditary kitchen master in Hesse and his wife Henriette von und zu Mansbach (1743–1785). She was a daughter of the Hessian Colonel Friedrich Wilhelm von und zu Mansbach (1711–1784) and his wife Sophie von Bernstein. His uncle Johann Friedrich von und zu Mansbach (1744–1803) was a Swedish-Danish lieutenant general and envoy, his cousin Carl von und zu Mansbach (1789–1867) was also a Swedish-Danish lieutenant general and envoy.

Military background

Dörnberg joined the First Guard Battalion of the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel in Kassel in January 1783 and was appointed Premier Lieutenant on January 22, 1785 . He gained his first war experience in 1792 during the campaign against France in Champagne . On December 6, 1792 he received his patent as a staff captain .

From 1794 he was in the Dutch service and did particularly well during the siege of Ypres . After the Hessian Army had been reduced in personnel due to the Basel Peace between France and Spain on July 22, 1795, Dörnberg asked to leave and was released on January 22, 1796. He joined in the same year as captain in the Fusilier Battalion "Bila" the Prussian army one, which as part of the vanguard of Blücher at the of Prussia lost Battle of Jena-Auerstedt was involved.

After the capitulation of Lübeck , Dörnberg and Blücher's corps became a prisoner of war. Shortly after his release, he moved to England with Prince Wittgenstein in order to organize an uprising in Hesse against the French government. The peace of Tilsit , on July 7th 1807 between France and Russia and on July 9th 1807 between France and Prussia, ended the coalition war of 1806/07. Tsar Alexander I of Russia joined the continental barrier. Prussia lost all areas west of the Elbe to the Kingdom of Westphalia , which was merged under Napoléon's brother Jérôme and which essentially consisted of the occupied Landgraviate of Hessen-Kassel with the now Westphalian capital of Kassel. Dörnberg's efforts were therefore useless for the time being.

Dörnberg uprising

Dörnberg Temple in Homberg
Profile of Wilhelm von Dörnberg
Protocol records Dörnberg Uprising 1808

Dörnberg returned to Hesse, entered the Westphalian military service and received the Chasseur Carabiniers regiment from Jérôme on May 18, 1808 as colonel of the guard hunters and was commander of the Jäger battalion in Marburg . The government in Kassel did not doubt his loyalty, and so he was able to enter into secret contact and exchange with Scharnhorst , Gneisenau , Schill and Katte and, without suspicion, make preparations for an uprising in northern Germany and begin planning a war between France and Austria that would break out at the same time . The capture of Jérôme, which was to mark the beginning of the uprising, was also planned. Due to the rapid political and military changes, however, he felt compelled, in the midst of these preparations, on April 22nd, 1809, to start the uprising against French rule in Hesse, although poorly prepared. The planned capture of Jérôme could no longer be carried out. He was supported by the sister of the former Prussian minister and reformer vom Stein , the abbess Marianne vom Stein of the Wallenstein monastery in Homberg (Efze) , as well as Werner von Haxthausen .

In Homberg he gathered several thousand (according to other sources only 600) poorly armed and lightly equipped peasants who only had the support of a few soldiers who were experienced in the war to let the uprising break out. A ceremonial handing over of the flag took place on the market square by the Homberg abbesses Marianne vom Stein and Charlotte von Gilsa , who according to tradition are said to have embroidered the flag in the so-called Dörnberg Temple. The voluntary corps moved in the direction of Kassel. At Rengershausen (today part of the Baunatal ) at the Knallhütte south of Kassel there was a brief battle that the Westphalian government troops won with little effort. The dead of Dörnberg'schen Korps were buried in the Rengershausen cemetery. In 1808 Dörnberg was a member of the Kassel Masonic lodge "Königlich Hieronymus Napoleon zur Treue", from which he was expelled in 1809 for high treason. In Kassel he was sentenced to death in absentia as a high traitor .

Later career

Dörnberg first fled to Bohemia , where he joined the corps of Duke Friedrich Wilhelm (Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel) in Nachod , with whom he fled to England. There he served as a colonel in Friedrich Wilhelm's black band before he was appointed major general in the King's German Legion in 1812 . After diplomatic missions in northern Germany and Russia, he served in the Russian army in the winter of 1812/13 . During the wars of freedom he excelled in the battle near Lüneburg against the French general Joseph Morand , where he destroyed his corps. For his services he received the order Pour le Mérite . In 1814 he besieged Diedenhofen . After the First Peace of Paris he commanded a cavalry brigade in Mons . After Napoleon's return from Elba , he was also entrusted with setting up an intelligence service. As the commander of his brigade, he distinguished himself on June 16, 1815 in the Battle of Quatre-Bras and on June 18 in the Battle of Waterloo , in which he was seriously wounded. The decisive victory of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington and Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher over Napoléon spurred Dörnberg's career.

After the peace he entered the service of the Kingdom of Hanover . He became lieutenant general and served from 1818 to 1850 as envoy extraordinary at the Russian court in Saint Petersburg .

Posthumous honors

In literary terms, the Dörnberg uprising was processed by Ludwig Mohr in the story Rot-Weiß . Even Heinrich Albert Oppermann describes the uprising in its hundred years . Ernst Moritz Arndt wrote the Dörnber link about him . He also received numerous honors during his lifetime. So he was z. B. Knight of the Order of the Black Eagle by Prussia .

There are streets in Kassel , Homberg (Efze), Braunschweig and Lüneburg , and the Dörnberg barracks in Homberg are named after him.

family

He married Julie von Münster-Meinhövel (1776–1839), daughter of Count Georg Werner August Dietrich von Münster-Meinhövel (1751–1801) in Königsbrück near Dresden in 1796 . The couple had five sons and three daughters, including:

  • Selma Tusnelda (1797–1876) ⚭ Karl von der Groeben (1788–1876)
  • Henriette (1803–1836) ⚭ Friedrich Wilhelm von Hedemann (1798–1859), heir to Dorste and Elvershausen
  • Auguste (1815–1876) ⚭ September 3, 1837 Arthur von der Groeben (1812–1893), lord of Ponarien

Orders and decorations

Source:

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gothaisches genealogical pocket book of the baronial houses . Volume 20, p. 560 ( books.google.de ).
  2. ^ Yearbook of the German Nobility . Second volume, Berlin 1898, p. 549 ( dlib.rsl.ru ).
  3. ^ Adam Zamoyski: Napoleon's campaign against Russia. 1812, p. 70.
  4. ^ Heinrich Albert Oppermann : Hundred Years. 7th edition, Volume IV, Frankfurt 2002, p. 81.
  5. ^ Genealogical handbook of the nobility . Volume FA VII, CA Starke Verlag, Limburg, 1969, p. 76.
  6. ^ Genealogical pocket book of the count's houses. Volume 27, p. 282 ( books.google.de ).
  7. ↑ Hof- und Staats-Handbuch for the Kingdom of Hanover for the year 1850. Verlag der Berenbergschen Buchdruckerei, Hanover 1850, p. 106.
  8. ↑ Johann von Horn: The Guelph order of the Kingdom of Hanover according to its constitution and history. Hinrichsche Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1823, p. 304 ff.
  9. ^ William Arthur Shaw: The Knights of England. Volume 1, Sherratt and Hughes, London 1906, p. 226.
  10. ↑ North Ludlow Beamish: History of the Royal German Legion. Second part. Hahnsche Hofbuchhandlung, Hanover 1837, p. 489 ( books.google.com ).
personal data
SURNAME Dörnberg, Wilhelm von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dörnberg, Wilhelm Caspar Ferdinand Freiherr von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German general and freedom fighter
DATE OF BIRTH April 14, 1768
PLACE OF BIRTH Hausen Castle (Oberaula)
DATE OF DEATH March 19, 1850
Place of death Muenster