Prince Joseph of Saxe-Hildburghausen

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Joseph Maria Frederick Wilhelm of Saxe-Hildburghausen (b. Erbach, 5 October 1702 - d. Hildburghausen, 4 January 1787), was an Austrian General and Field Marshal.

He was the third but second surviving son of Ernst, Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen and Sophie of Waldeck. His mother died ten days after his birth, on 15 January 1710.

He received the typical education of a noblemen of his time, with some education journeys at the different countries of Europe. With sixteen years, the prince joined to the Habsburg Army and already became in 1719 as a Staff Captain in the Infantry Regiment N°18 "Seckendorff", and fight with them in the War of the Quadruple Alliance (1717-1720) in Sicily. After his conversion to the Catholicism in 1728, began for Joseph a fast ascent in his military career. In 1729 he was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel and the next year (18 July 1730) Colonel of the Regiment "Palffy". In January 1732 even he own the 8th Infantry Regiment. Briefly after the outbreak of War of the Polish Succession (1733-1735/1738) he served in the following campaigns in the north of Italy. Still during the fights, with which he worked satisfactorily, his transport took place there to the Fieldmarschall Lieutenant (30 April 1735).

Joseph ended his participation in the War of the Polish Succession with the rank of Field Marshal (25 September 1736). Only one year after, during the Russo-Turkish War (1735–1739), he was entrusted with the command of Austrian Corps. In 1737, his attempt to conquer Banja Luka failed, but in practically all important engagements of the war, Joseph was thus characterised by his personal bravery, for example in the Battle of Grocka (22 July 1739), where he covered the retreat of the Imperial Army.

After the war, Joseph was appointed Governor of Komárom in Hungary. Also, his designation had taken place already before (11 June 1739) as a General and Master Field of the Imperial Army. At the beginning of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) Joseph organized in Komáron the equipment and compilation of the new Hungarian Regiments and was substantially in the consultation of the Austrian military administration involved in this function. In 1743 was appointed High Military Director and General Commander of Inner-Austria, Karlsstadt and Warasdin. Thus the organization of the Military Frontier and the military supply was incumbent on he. This was expressed, also, in his appointment to Field Marshal (18 April 1744). Only in May of 1749 he was relieved on own desire of this responsible posts.

In the following years, he lived in Austria quietly. After the outbreak of the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), in the spring of 1757 Joseph was appointed Commander of the Imperial Army, with the order to proceed against the King Frederick II of Prussia. Together with a French Corps, the Imperial Army was defeated in the Battle of Rossbach (5 November 1757). Joseph, shamed for the defeated, decided to renounced to all military affairs. In the evaluation of later historians the prince was nearly always reduced to these a defeat, although he could have changed something in view of the catastrophic condition of the Imperial Army and the failure of the French troops hardly in the exit of the fight. Rather symbolically also the appointment (who taken place briefly before his death) to the post of Field Marshal of the Imperial Army (9 November 1785), with which the military career of Joseph ended.

Joseph maintained for the rest of his life very good relations with the Habsburg family. In 1739 the Emperor Charles VI appointed him Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, the Honorific Medal of the Habsburgs. On 13 March 1741 he represented the King August III of Poland as a godfather of the young Archduke Joseph, the son of the Empress Maria Theresa. Thereby becomes evident how close he stood to the new Empress, whose close friend was to have been he.

In Paris on 17 April 1738 Joseph married with the niece and sole heiress of the enormous fortune of the deceased Prince Eugene of Savoy, Princess Anna Victoria of Savoy-Carignan, Countess of Soissons, who was twenty years older than him. Thanks for this union, Joseph came into the possession of large real estates, and much money. The marriage, however, was unhappy, and in 1752 they were separated, but never formalized the divorce. The prince made himself for that time as Patronage, in addition, as a spendthrift. He spent most time at his castle in Vienna, but after the many debts of his relatives, which left governing as dukes of Saxe-Hildburghausen, he became by order of the Emperor Joseph II in 1769 to Manager of the Duchy, in order to avoid the bankruptcy of Saxe-Hildburghausen. The duke Ernst Frederick III, his grand-nephew, was incapacitated for ruling, and when he died (1780) left a young heir, the seventeen years old prince Frederick; for this, Joseph took over the function of a prince-regent, who retain upon his own death, aged eighty-four.