Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick
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Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, (Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand, Herzog zu Braunschweig-Lüneburg, Fürst von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel-Bevern) (October 9, 1735 - 1806) was a Prussian Generalfeldmarschall born in Wolfenbüttel, Germany. He was duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg from 1780 until his death and ruled over the Wolfenbüttel subdivision of the duchy. He is a recognized master of the modern warfare of the mid-18th century, a cultured and benevolent despot in the model of Frederick the Great, and was married to Augusta, a sister of George III of Great Britain.
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[edit] History
Karl received an unusually wide and thorough education, and travelled in his youth in the Netherlands, France and various parts of Germany. His first military experience was in the North German campaign of 1757, under Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. At the Battle of Hastenbeck he won great renown by a gallant charge at the head of an infantry brigade; and upon the capitulation of Kloster Zeven he was easily persuaded by his uncle Ferdinand of Brunswick, who succeeded Cumberland, to continue in the war as a general officer. The exploits of the hereditary prince, as he was called, soon gained him further reputation, and he became an acknowledged master of irregular warfare. In pitched battles, and in particular at Minden and Warburg, he proved himself an excellent subordinate.
After the close of the Seven Years' War, the prince visited England with his bride, the daughter of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and in 1766 he went to France, being received both by his allies and his late enemies with every token of respect. In Paris he made the acquaintance of Marmontel; in Switzerland, whither he continued his tour, that of Voltaire; and in Rome, where he remained for a long time, he explored the antiquities of the city under the guidance of Winckelmann. After a visit to Naples he returned to Paris, and thence, with his wife, to Brunswick. His services to the dukedom during the next few years were of the greatest value; with the assistance of the minister Feonçe von Rotenkreuz he rescued the state from the bankruptcy into which the war had brought it. His popularity was unbounded, and when he succeeded his father, Duke Karl I, in 1780, he soon became known as a model to sovereigns.
[edit] Fame
He was perhaps the best representative of the benevolent despot of the 18th century: wise, economical, prudent and kindly. His habitual caution, if it induced him on some occasions to leave reforms uncompleted, at any rate saved him from the failures which marred the efforts of so many liberal princes of his time. He strove to keep his duchy from all foreign entanglements. At the same time he continued to render important services to the king of Prussia, for whom he had fought in the Seven Years' War; he was a Prussian field marshal, and was at pains to make the regiment of which he was colonel a model one, and he was frequently engaged in diplomatic and other state affairs. He resembled his uncle Frederick the Great in many ways, but he lacked the supreme resolution of the king, and in civil as in military affairs was prone to excessive caution. As an enthusiastic adherent of the Germanic and anti-Austrian policy of Prussia he joined the Fürstenbund, in which, as he now had the reputation of being the best soldier of his time, he was the destined commander-in-chief of the federal army.
[edit] Military Experience
[edit] First experience
His first military experience was in the North German campaign of 1757, under the Duke of Cumberland. He gained great fame at the Battle of Hastenbeck with his gallant charge at the head of an infantry brigade.
[edit] French Revolutionary Wars
In the early summer of 1792, Ferdinand was poised with military forces at Coblenz. After the Girondins had arranged for France to declare war on Austria, voted on April 20, 1792, the Catholic Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II and the Protestant King of Prussia Frederick William II had combined armies and put them under Brunswick's command.
The "Brunswick Proclamation" or "Brunswick Manifesto" that he now issued from Coblenz on July 25, 1792 threatened war and ruin to soldiers and civilians alike, should the Republicans injure Louis XVI and his family. His avowed aim was
- "to put an end to the anarchy in the interior of France, to check the attacks upon the throne and the altar, to reestablish the legal power, to restore to the king the security and the liberty of which he is now deprived and to place him in a position to exercise once more the legitimate authority which belongs to him."
Additionally, the manifesto threatened the French public with instant punishment should they resist the Imperial and Prussian armies, or the reinstatement of the monarchy.
The proclamation was intended to threaten the French public into submission; it had exactly the opposite effect. It helped begin the French Revolutionary Wars.
In Paris, Louis XVI was generally believed to be in treacherous correspondence with the Austrians and Prussians already, and the Republicans became more vocal in the early summer of 1792. It remained for the Duke of Brunswick's proclamation to assure the downfall of the monarchy by his proclamation, which was being rapidly distributed in Paris by July 28 apparently by the monarchists, who badly misjudged the effect it would have (See text in link). The "Brunswick Manifesto" seemed to furnish the agitators with a complete justification for the revolt that they were already planning. The first violent action was carried out on August 10, when the Palace of the Tuileries was stormed.
[edit] After the French Revolutionary Wars
The Duke of Brunswick had served in the Seven Years' War and was made a Prussian general in 1773. After he succeeded to his title in 1780, he was made field marshal in 1787, and commanded the Prussian army that rapidly and successfully invaded the United Provinces (The Dutch Republic) and restored the authority of the House of Orange. He was less successful against the highly motivated citizen's army that met him at Valmy. Having secured Longwy and Verdun without serious resistance, he unexpectedly found himself heavily outnumbered at Valmy, turned back with a mere skirmish, and evacuated France. When he counterattacked the Revolutionary French who had invaded Germany, in 1793, he recaptured Mainz, but resigned in 1794 in protest at interference by Frederick William II of Prussia.
He returned to command the Prussian army in 1806 but was routed by Napoleon's marshal Davout at Auerstedt and died of the wounds he received.
[edit] Children
Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand's eldest son and designated heir, Karl Georg August (1766-1806), married Frederika, daughter of William V, Prince of Orange and Wilhelmina of Prussia, in 1790. He died childless shortly before his father on 20 September 1806.
His successor, Friedrich Wilhelm (1771 - June 16, 1815), who was one of the bitterest opponents of Napoleonic domination in Germany, took part in the war of 1809 at the head of a corps of partisans; fled to England after the Battle of Wagram, and returned to Brunswick in 1813, where he raised fresh troops. He was killed at the Battle of Quatre Bras.
The remaining two sons, Georg Wilhelm Christian (1769-1811) and August (1770-1822), were declared incapacitated and excluded from the line of succession; neither of them married. The eldest daughter, Auguste Caroline Friederike (1764-1788), married King Frederick I of Württemberg. The second daughter, Caroline (1768-1821), married her first cousin King George IV of the United Kingdom.
[edit] Notes
- Note regarding personal names: Herzog is a title, translated as Duke, not a first or middle name. The female form is Herzogin.
- Note regarding personal names: Fürst is a title, translated as Prince, not a first or middle name. The female form is Fürstin.
[edit] External links
- Text of the Proclamation of the Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg, 1792
- Encyclopædia Britannica 1911: Brunswick, Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand, Duke of
- Prussian Army during the Napoleonic Wars
[edit] References
- Lord Fitzmaurice, Charles W. F., duke of Brunswick (London, 1901)
- Memoir in Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, vol. ii. (Leipzig, 1882)
- Arthur Chuquet, Les Guerres de la Révolution: La Première Invasion prussienne (Paris)
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
| Preceded by Charles I |
Duke of Brunswick and Lüneburg, Prince of Wolfenbüttel 1780–1806 |
Succeeded by Frederick William |
