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Gebhard Leberecht Von BlcherGebhard Leberecht von Blcher (December 16, 1742 in Rostock (Mecklenburg) - September 12, 1819) in Krieblowitz (Silesia), count, later elevated Prince of Wahlstatt, was a Prussian general who led his army against Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Honorary citizen of Rostock, and Berlin. Campaigns - 1760: Pomeranian Campaign (as Swedish soldier; captured by Prussia; changed sides)
- Seven Years' War
- 1787: Expedition to Holland with Red Hussars
- 1793-1794: French campaigns with Red Hussars
- 1806: Auerstedt, Pomerania, Berlin, Knigsberg
- 1813: Ltzen, Bautzen, Katzbach, Mockern, Leipzig
- 1814: Brienne, La Rothire, Champaubert, Vauxchamps, Montmirail, Laon, Montmartre
- 1815: Lower Rhine (Ligny), Waterloo
Career In his fourteenth year he entered the service of Sweden, and in the Pomeranian campaign of 1760 he was taken prisoner by the Prussians. He was persuaded by his captors to enter the Prussian service. He took part in the later battles of the Seven Years War, and as a hussar officer gained much experience of light cavalry work. In peace, however, his ardent spirit led him into excesses of all kinds, and being passed over for promotion he sent in his resignation, to which Frederick replied, "Captain Blcher can take himself to the devil" (1773). He then settled down to farming, and in fifteen years he had acquired an honorable independence. But he was unable to return to the army until after the death of Frederick the Great. He was then reinstated as major in his old regiment, the Red Hussars. He took part in the expedition to Holland in 1787, and in the following year became lieutenant-colonel. In 1789 he received Prussia's highest military order,the Pour le Merite, and in 1794 he became colonel of the Red Hussars. In 1793 and 1794 he distinguished himself in cavalry actions against the French, and for his success at Kirrweiler he was promoted to major-general. In 1801 he was promoted lieutenant-general. He was one of the leaders of the war party in Prussia in 1805-1806, and served as a cavalry general in the disastrous campaign of the latter year. At Auerstadt Blcher repeatedly charged at the head of the Prussian cavalry, but without success. In the retreat of the broken armies he commanded the rearguard of Prince Hohenlohe's corps, and upon the capitulation of the main body of Prenzlau he led a remnant of the Prussian army away to the north and in the neighborhood of Lbeck fought a series of combats, which, however, ended in his being forced to surrender at Ratekau (November 7, 1806). His adversaries testified in his capitulation that it was caused by lack of provisions and ammunition. He was soon exchanged for General Victor, and was actively employed in Pomerania, at Berlin, and at Knigsberg until the conclusion of the war. After the war, Blcher was looked upon as the natural leader of the patriot party, with which he was in close touch during the period of Napoleonic domination. His hopes of an alliance with Austria in the war of 1809 were disappointed. In this year he was made general of cavalry. In 1812 he expressed himself so openly on the alliance of Russia with France that he was recalled from his military governorship of Pomerania and virtually banished from the court. Following the start of the 1813 War of Liberation, Blcher was again placed in high command, and he was present at Ltzen and Bautzen. During the armistice he worked at the organization of the Prussian forces, and when the war was resumed Blcher became commander-in-chief of the Army of Silesia, with Gneisenau and Muffling as his principal staff officers, and 40,000 Prussians and 50,000 Russians under his command. The irresolution and divergence of interests usual in allied armies found in him a restless opponent. Knowing that if he could not induce others to co-operate he was prepared to attempt the task in hand by himself often caused other generals to follow his lead. He defeated Marshal Macdonald at the Katzbach, and by his victory over Marmont at Mockern led the way to the decisive overthrow of Napoleon at Leipzig which was taken by Blcher's own army on the evening of the last day of the battle. On the day of Mockern (October 16, 1813) Blcher was made a general field marshal, and after the victory he pursued the French with his accustomed energy. In the winter of 1813-1814 Blcher, with his chief staff officers, was mainly instrumental in inducing the allied sovereigns to carry the war into France itself. The combat of Brienne and the Battle of La Rothire were the chief incidents of the first stage of the celebrated campaign of 1814, and they were quickly followed by the victories of Napoleon over Blcher at Champaubert, Vauxchamps and Montmirail. But the courage of the Prussian leader was undiminished, and his great victory of Laon (March 9 to 10) practically decided the fate of the campaign. After this Blcher infused some of his own energy into the operations of Prince Schwarzenberg's Army of Bohemia, and at last this army and the Army of Silesia marched in one body directly towards Paris. The victory of Montmartre, the entry of the allies into the French capital, and the overthrow of the First Empire were the direct consequences. Blcher was inclined to make a severe retaliation upon Paris for the calamities that Prussia had suffered from the armies of France had not the allied commanders intervened to prevent it. Blowing up the bridge of Jena was said to be one of his contemplated acts. On June 3, 1814 he was made Prince of Wahlstatt (in Silesia on the Katzbach battlefield), and soon afterwards he paid a visit to England, being received everywhere with the greatest enthusiasm. After the war he retired to Silesia, but the return of Napoleon from Elba soon called him to further service. He was put in command of the Army of the Lower Rhine, with General Gneisenau as his chief of staff. In the campaign of 1815 the Prussians sustained a very severe defeat at the outset at Ligny (June 16), in the course of which the old field marshal was ridden over by cavalry charges, his life being saved only by the devotion of his aide-de-camp, Count Nostitz. He was unable to resume command for some hours, and Gneisenau drew off the defeated army. The relations of the Prussian and the English headquarters were at this time very complicated, and it is uncertain whether Blcher himself was responsible for the daring resolution to march to Wellington's assistance. This was in fact done, and after an incredibly severe march Blcher's army intervened with decisive and crushing effect in the Battle of Waterloo. The great victory was converted into a success absolutely decisive of the war by the relentless pursuit of the Prussians, and the allies re-entered Paris on July 7. Prince Blcher remained in the French capital for some months, but his age and infirmities compelled him to retire to his Silesian residence at Krieblowitz, where he died aged seventy-seven. He retained to the end of his life that wildness of character and proneness to excesses which had caused his dismissal from the army in his youth, but however they may be regarded, these faults sprang always from the ardent and vivid temperament which made Blcher a dashing leader of horse. The qualities which made him a great general were his patriotism and the hatred of French domination which inspired every success of the War of Liberation. He was twice married, and had, by his first marriage, two sons and a daughter. Statues were erected to his memory at Berlin, Breslau and Rostock. In gratitude for his service at Waterloo and before, an early British locomotive engineer named his invention after Blcher, and Oxford University granted him the honorary Doctor of Laws. It is an indication of the rusticated state of the Prussian aristocracy of Blcher's time that he said "I will make it all right, as long as I have an apothecary who makes as good and efficient pills as Gneisenau" for it is unclear whether the "old hussar" knew that a doctor of laws does not give medicine. August von Gneisenau was Blcher's able quartermaster-general also an experienced soldier who'd fought against the Americans. (source of quote: "Das Leben des Feldmarschalls Grafen Neithardt von Gneisenau," by Hans von Delbrck: cf. http://www.nationarchive.com/Summaries/v036i0923_09.htm for mention of this out of print book). But despite his rustic expostulation upon receiving the Oxonian laurels, Blcher did, perhaps, make a more high-class comment to the Duke of Wellington upon linking up at La Belle Alliance: "mein Leiber Kamerade", the marshal said, "quelle affaire!". Of the various biographies of Prince Blcher, that by Varnhagen von Ense (1827) is the most important. His war diaries of 1793--1794, together with a memoir (written in 1805) on the subject of a national army, were edited by Golz and Ribbentrop (Campagne Journal 1793-4 von Gl. Lt. v. Blcher). Blcher, Gebhard Leberecht von Blcher, Gebhard Leberecht von Blcher, Gebhard Leberecht von
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