Karl Gottlieb Guichard
Karl Gottlieb Guichard (1724–1775) also known as Quintus Icilius, was a soldier and military writer.
Life
He was born at Magdeburg, Duchy of Magdeburg, to a family of French refugees.[1]
He was educated for the Church, and at
He made the campaigns of 1747-48 in the Low Countries. In the peace which followed, his combined military and classical training turned his thoughts in the direction of ancient military history. His notes on this subject grew into a treatise, and in 1754 he went over to England in order to consult various libraries.[1]
In 1757 his Mémoires militaires sur les Grecs et les Romains appeared at the Hague, and when
His Prussian official name of Quintus Icilius was the outcome of a friendly dispute with the king (see Nikolai, Anekdoten, vi. 129-145; Carlyle, Frederick the Great, viii. 113-114). Frederick in discussing the battle of Pharsalia spoke of a centurion Quintus Caecilius as Q. Icilius. Guichard ventured to correct him, whereupon the king said, "You shall be Quintus Icilius," and as Major Quintus Icilius he was forthwith gazetted to the command of a
This corps he commanded throughout the later stages of the
On January 22, 1761 Quintus was ordered to sack the castle of Hubertusburg (a task which Major-General
The very day of Frederick's triumphant return from the war saw the disbanding of most of the free battalions, including that of Quintus, but the major to the end of his life remained with the king. He was made lieutenant-colonel in 1765, and in 1773, in recognition of his work Mémoires critiques et historiques sur plusieurs points d'antiquités militaires, dealing mainly with Julius Caesar's campaigns in Spain (Berlin, 1773), was promoted colonel. He died at Potsdam in 1775.[1]
References
Attribution:
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Guichard, Karl Gottlieb". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 686. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the