Bernard of Saxony-Weimar

See also: Bernard

Bernard, duke of Saxony-Weimar (° 1604, Weimar - July 18th 1639), was the eleventh wire of Jean, duke of Saxony-Weimar. General, it made himself famous during the Guerre Thirty Year old

He receives a particularly good education, and studies with Iéna, but goes soon to the court of the voter of Saxony.

At the beginning of the War Thirty Year old, it chooses the camp Protesting, in which it is used under the orders of Mansfeld for Wiesloch in 1622, and of the count de Baden with Wimpfen (1622), and with his/her brother William with Stadtlohn in 1623. It takes part in the campaigns of Christian IV, king of the Denmark. When this one withdraws combat, Bernard leaves in Holland where it is present at the time of the Siège of Wood-the-Duke in 1629.

He is used under Gustave II Adolphe as Sweden, and drives out the Impériaux Landgraviat of Hesse-Cassel, assistance with the catch of Würzburg in 1631, passes the the Rhine to Oppenheim, surprises Mannheim, and gains several advantages over Albrecht von Wallenstein.

He takes the command of the army, after the death of Gustave-Adolphe to the Bataille of Lützen, and completes the victory, 1632. Deprived by Axel Oxenstierna of a half of the army and put under the orders of Gustaf Horn, it does not make any less capitulate Ratisbon; but it loses the decisive battle of Nordlingen against the Imperial ones, 1634.

Drawn aside by the Swedish following this reverse, it puts at the service France, which entered the Protestant Ligue, delivers or takes various cities, inter alia Mainz in 1635, second the operations of Henri II of Bourbon-Cop in Comté of Burgundy in 1636, conquers the Alsace on the Imperial ones, in 1637 with Rheinfeld beats them, and takes Freiburg and Brisach, 1638.

It tries again, at the request of Richelieu, in 1639, the conquest of the Comté of Burgundy, with the head of its army of soldiers recruited in Germany (commonly called " Suédois").

Among all those which fought the comtois, the duke of Weimar with his semi-Swedish bands, semi-allemandes, devastated the country comtois with an amazing brutality and the evocation of his " suédois" terror sowed among the populations. it was sadly famous for its exactions worthy of what the Nazis will do a few 350 years later. R. Fonville wrote: " German Saxony-Weimar, followed the genius of his race to him. He made burn the villages whose inhabitants were pushed back in the flames; and when the peasants fleeing with his approach, were going to hide in the mountain, the German roughneck soldier, when he discovered these hiding-places, made wall alive the fugitive poor at the bottom of their retirement, and then satisfied, it ordered to turf the opening, and to plant arbres." there; to see the article on the captain Lacuzon.

He dies in the middle of his successes with Neubourg, in July 1639, removed by the fever or, according to others, by the Poison.

He is at the origin of the 1st regiment of cuirassiers French which bore the name of regiment of Saxony-Weimar.

See too

War Thirty Year old

Source

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