Ludwig Yorck von Wartenburg
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Johann David Ludwig Graf Yorck von Wartenburg (born von[a] Yorck; 26 September 1759 – 4 October 1830) was a Prussian Generalfeldmarschall instrumental in the Kingdom of Prussia ending an alliance with France to form one with Russia during the War of the Sixth Coalition. Ludwig van Beethoven's "Yorckscher Marsch" is named in his honor.
The Field Marshal's surname is Yorck; Wartenburg is a battle-honour appended to the surname as a title of distinction (cf. Britain's Montgomery of Alamein).
Background
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Yorck's father, David Jonathan von Yorck, was born in Rowe in the Prussian Province of Pomerania[1] (now Rowy, Poland), to Jan Jarka, a Lutheran pastor, whose family came from a small manor in Gross Gustkow (hence the name von Gostkowski) and traced its origins from Pomeranian Kashubians. David Jonathan von Yorck served as a captain (Hauptmann) in the Prussian Army under King Frederick the Great; Yorck's mother Maria Sophia Pflug was the daughter of a Potsdam artisan. Their son Ludwig was born in Potsdam in 1759; the couple married in 1763. Ludwig's father changed his name from Jark(a) to Yorck to make it more English (York) and dropped the von Gostkowski.
Career
| This section relies largely or entirely on a single source. (April 2022) |
Yorck entered the Prussian Army in 1772 and reached the rank of
Yorck left Prussia and joined the Swiss mercenaries in Dutch service in 1781. He took part in the operations of 1783-84 in the East Indies as a captain of the Regiment de Meuron. He also participated with the French army in a battle against the British in Cape Town. Returning to Potsdam in 1786 he was, on the death of Frederick the Great, reinstated in the army by Frederick William II, from 1792 with the rank of major. In 1794/95 he participated in the operations in Poland during the Kościuszko Uprising, distinguishing himself especially in the Szczekociny.[3]
From 1799, Yorck began to make a name for himself as commander of a light infantry (Jäger) regiment, being one of the first to emphasize the training of skirmishers. In 1805, with the rank of Oberst, he was appointed to command an infantry brigade as a vanguard force of Duke Karl August of Saxe-Weimar during the War of the Fourth Coalition. In the disastrous Jena campaign, he was a conspicuous and successful rearguard commander, especially at Altenzaun. Having crossed the Elbe river and Harz mountains, he was taken prisoner, severely wounded, in the last stand of Blücher's corps at Lübeck.[3]
In the reorganization of the Prussian army which followed the 1807
Opposed in his advance on
The Convention of Tauroggen armistice, signed by Diebitsch and Yorck without the consent of their king, declared the Prussian corps "neutral". The news was received with the wildest enthusiasm, but the Prussian Court dared not yet throw off the mask, and an order was despatched suspending Yorck from his command pending a court-martial. Diebitsch refused to let the bearer pass through his lines, and the general was finally absolved when the Treaty of Kalisz placed Prussia on the side of the Allies. Yorck's act was nothing less than the turning-point of Prussian history. His veterans formed the nucleus of the forces of East Prussia, and Yorck himself in public took the final step by declaring war on Napoleon as the commander of those forces.[3]
On 17 March 1813, Yorck made his entry into
The storming of Paris was Yorck's last fight. In the campaign of 1815, none of the older men were employed in Blücher's army, in order that
A 1931 film Yorck was made about him with Werner Krauss playing the General.
Notable descendants
Yorck was the great-grandfather of the late-nineteenth-century philosopher Paul Yorck von Wartenburg and the great-great-great-grandfather of Peter Yorck von Wartenburg, a member of the German resistance during the Nazi regime.[citation needed]
See also
Notes
- preposition which approximately means 'of' or 'from' and usually denotes some sort of nobility. While von (always lower case) is part of the family name or territorial designation, not a first or middle name, if the noble is referred to by his last name, use Schiller, Clausewitz or Goethe, not von Schiller, etc.
Regarding personal names:
References
- ^ Richter, O.W.L. (1838). Vaterländisches Archiv für Wissenschaft, Kunst, Industrie und Agrikultur (in German). p. 158.
- ^ Biographie, Deutsche. "York von Wartenburg, Hans David Ludwig Graf - Deutsche Biographie". www.deutsche-biographie.de (in German). Retrieved 2022-01-12.
- ^ a b c d e f Chisholm 1911, p. 923.
- ^ Chisholm 1911, pp. 923–924.
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Yorck von Wartenburg, Hans David Ludwig". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 923–924.
Further reading
- F. W. von Seydlitz: Tagebuch des Preussischen Armee Korps 1812. Berlin, 1823.
- ISBN 3-88851-160-7).
