Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel | |
|---|---|
 Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick | |
| Birth name | Ferdinand von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel |
| Born | 12 January 1721 |
| Died | 3 July 1792(1792-07-03) (aged 71) |
| Allegiance |  Prussia (1740–1757) Hanover (1757–1763) |
| Rank | Field Marshal |
| Battles / wars | |
| Signature | .PNG) |
Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (12 January 1721 – 3 July 1792) was a German military officer best known for his participation in theSeven Years' War. From 1757 to 1762, he led an Anglo-German army in western Germany which successfully repelled French attempts tocapture Hanover.
The fourth son ofFerdinand Albert II, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Ferdinand joined the Prussian army as acolonel in 1740. He was present in the battles ofMollwitz andChotusitz. AfterMargraveWilhelm of Brandenburg-Schwedt was killed atPrague in 1744, Ferdinand received command ofFrederick the Great'sLeibgarde battalion, and at theBattle of Soor (1745) he distinguished himself greatly, especially in the assault of a steep hill, that incidentally was defended by his older brotherduke Louis Ernest of Brunswick-Lüneburg.[1] He took part in theSecond Silesian War before leading part of the invasion ofSaxony andBohemia in 1756 during theSeven Years' War. He participated in theBattle of Rossbach, and then became commander of the alliedHanoverian Army.
He also was afreemason, initiated in 1740 into theLodge of The Three Globes inBerlin, and received the degree of Master Mason in 1743 atBreslau.[2]
During ten years of peace, he was in the closest touch with the military work of Frederick the Great, who supervised the instruction of the guard battalion, and sought to make it a model of the whole Prussian army. Ferdinand was, moreover, one of the most intimate friends of the king, and thus he was peculiarly fitted for the tasks which afterwards fell to his lot. In this time, he was promoted to major-general and then lieutenant-general.
In the first campaign of the Seven Years' War, Ferdinand commanded one of the Prussian columns which converged uponDresden, and in the operations which led up to the surrender of the Saxon army atPirna (1756). At theBattle of Lobositz, he led the right wing of the Prussian infantry. In 1757, he distinguished himself atPrague, and served also in theRossbach campaign.
Shortly after this, he was appointed to command theHanoverian Army of Observation which had been raised and funded byBritain to protect western Germany, but had recently failed to prevent theFrench Invasion of Hanover under the previous commander theDuke of Cumberland. Ferdinand accepted this appointment on the condition that he would have direct access toGeorge II ruler of Hanover and Britain.[3] His new commission placed him in Hanoverian service, rather than Prussian or British. Despite this Frederick continued to communicate with him as though he were under his direct command.
He found this army dejected by a reverse and a capitulation, yet within a week of his taking up the command, he assumed the offensive, and thus began the career of victory which made his reputation as a soldier. He tried to raise Hanoverian support for the war effort by highlighting various atrocities committed by French troops during their occupation.[4] By Spring 1758 he had driven the French out of Hanover and back across theRiver Rhine which gave him a reputation in Britain as a talented General, and helped boost support for British involvement in the German war. From June 1758, following theCapture of Emden, British troops arrived on the continent and directly added to Ferdinand's forces. The number of British troops was increased throughout the war.
Ferdinand followed up his success in driving the French back by crossing the Rhine himself as part of a fresh offensive. This caused alarm in France, as it was feared that anaval descent by large number of British reinforcements was intended to be co-ordinated with Ferdinand's advance, although the destination of the descentsoon turned out to be St Malo inBrittany rather than theLow Countries. In spite of this Ferdinand still posed a not insignificant threat and it was believed he was poised to attack theAustrian Netherlands or even northern Italy.
On 12 June 1758 he fought an indecisiveBattle of Rheinberg before he won theBattle of Krefeld but could not easily maintain so advanced a position and fell back to theRiver Lippe.
He resumed a bold offensive in 1759, only to be repulsed atBergen where he was defeated by France in theBattle of Bergen on 13 April 1759. Following the battle Ferdinand retreated in the face of a French advance, but managed to check them with a decisive victory at theBattle of Minden. This ended the immediate French threat to Hanover, as the French army was in no condition to continue its advance.
Villinghausen,Wilhelmsthal,Warburg and other victories attested the increasing power of Ferdinand in the following campaigns, and Frederick, hard pressed in the eastern theatre of war, owed much of his success in an almost hopeless task to the continued pressure exerted by Ferdinand in the west.
In promoting him toField Marshal in November 1758, Frederick acknowledged his debt in the words,Je n'ai fait que ce que je dois, mon cher Ferdinand. After Minden, KingGeorge II of Great Britain gave the duke theOrder of the Garter, and the thanks of the British parliament were voted on the same occasion to the victor of Minden.
After the Seven Years' War, he was honored by other sovereigns, and he received the rank of field marshal and a regiment from the Austrians. During theWar of American Independence, there was a suggestion, which came to nothing, of offering him the command of the British forces. He devoted most of the small income he received from his various offices and the rewards given to him by the allied princes to compensate those who had suffered in the Seven Years' War.
The estrangement of Frederick and Ferdinand in 1766 led to the duke's retirement from Prussian service, but there was no open breach between the old friends, and Ferdinand visited the king in 1772, 1777, 1779 and 1782. Ferdinand retired toBrunswick and his castle ofVechelde, where he occupied himself in building and other improvements. He became a patron of learning and art, and a great benefactor of the poor. He died on 3 July 1792.
The merits, civil and military, of the prince were recognized by memorials not only in Prussia and Hanover, but also in Denmark, the states of western Germany and England. The Prussian memorials include an equestrian statue at Berlin 1863.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Ferdinand of Brunswick".Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.| History | |||||||||||
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