Gottlieb Heinrich Totleben

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Count von Tottleben Gottlieb Heinrich Totleben.JPG
Count von Tottleben

Gottlob Curt Heinrich Graf von Tottleben, Herr auf Tottleben, Zeippau und Hausdorf im Saganschen (also Totleben, TodtlebenTodleben; Russian : Готлиб-Генрих Тотлебен) (21 December 1715 – 20 March 1773) was a Saxon-born Russian Empire general known for his adventurism and contradictory military career during the Seven Years' War and, then, the Russo-Turkish War (1768–74) as a commander of the first Russian expeditionary force in Georgia.

Russian language East Slavic language

Russian is an East Slavic language, which is official in the Russian Federation, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, as well as being widely used throughout Eastern Europe, the Baltic states, the Caucasus and Central Asia. It was the de facto language of the Soviet Union until its dissolution on 25 December 1991. Although, nowadays, nearly three decades after the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russian is used in official capacity or in public life in all the post-Soviet nation-states, as well as in Israel and Mongolia, the rise of state-specific varieties of this language tends to be strongly denied in Russia, in line with the Russian World ideology.

Electorate of Saxony State of the Holy Roman Empire, established when Emperor Charles IV raised the Ascanian duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg to the status of an Electorate 1356

The Electorate of Saxony was a state of the Holy Roman Empire established when Emperor Charles IV raised the Ascanian duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg to the status of an Electorate by the Golden Bull of 1356. Upon the extinction of the House of Ascania, it was feoffed to the Margraves of Meissen from the Wettin dynasty in 1423, who moved the ducal residence up the river Elbe to Dresden. After the Empire's dissolution in 1806, the Wettin Electors raised Saxony to a territorially reduced kingdom.

Russian Empire former country, 1721–1917

The Russian Empire, also known as Imperial Russia or simply Russia, was an empire that existed across Eurasia and North America from 1721, following the end of the Great Northern War, until the Republic was proclaimed by the Provisional Government that took power after the February Revolution of 1917.

Contents

Early career

Totleben was born in Tottleben, Thuringia, and served at the court of Augustus III, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony. He fled Saxony after being accused of corruption. He then served for various periods at the courts of Saxe-Weissenfels, Bavaria, the Dutch Republic during the War of the Austrian Succession, and the Kingdom of Prussia. In 1747 he is mentioned as commander of a regiment of infantry of the Dutch Republic, but the regiment existed only on paper and was never realized. By then he already had a reputation as a scoundrel. [1]

Tottleben Place in Thuringia, Germany

Tottleben is a municipality in the Unstrut-Hainich-Kreis district of Thuringia, Germany.

Thuringia State in Germany

Thuringia, officially the Free State of Thuringia, is a state of Germany.

Augustus III of Poland King of Poland, Elector of Saxony

Augustus III was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1734 until 1763, as well as Elector of Saxony in the Holy Roman Empire from 1733 until 1763 where he was known as Frederick Augustus II.

Count Totleben entered the Russian service during the Seven Years’ War (1757-1763). He distinguished himself at the Battle of Kunersdorf (1759) and was promoted to General. Totleben gained particular fame for his brief occupation of the Prussian capital Berlin in 1760. [2] Shortly, the advance of Frederick the Great’s Prussian army forced him to retreat, however. In June 1761, he was accused of treachery and arrested in Pomerania. Sent in chains to St. Petersburg, he was sentenced to death via quartering, but Empress Catherine the Great pardoned him in 1763. Nevertheless, Totleben was deprived of all his titles and awards and sent into exile abroad (or to Siberia, according to one account [2] ).

Battle of Kunersdorf battle

The decisive Battle of Kunersdorf occurred on 12 August 1759 near Kunersdorf (Kunowice), immediately east of Frankfurt an der Oder. Part of the Third Silesian War and the wider Seven Years' War, the battle involved over 100,000 men. An Allied army commanded by Pyotr Saltykov and Ernst Gideon von Laudon that included 41,000 Russians and 18,500 Austrians defeated Frederick the Great's army of 50,900 Prussians.

Raid on Berlin battle

The Raid on Berlin took place in October 1760 during the Third Silesian War when Austrian and Russian forces occupied the Prussian capital of Berlin for several days. After raising money from the city, and with the approach of further Prussian reinforcements, the occupiers withdrew. There were later allegations that the Russian commander Count Tottleben had received a personal bribe from the Prussians to spare the city, and he was subsequently tried and found guilty of being a spy.

Prussia state in Central Europe between 1525–1947

Prussia was a historically prominent German state that originated in 1525 with a duchy centred on the region of Prussia on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It was de facto dissolved by an emergency decree transferring powers of the Prussian government to German Chancellor Franz von Papen in 1932 and de jure by an Allied decree in 1947. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organised and effective army. Prussia, with its capital in Königsberg and from 1701 in Berlin, decisively shaped the history of Germany.

Expedition to Georgia

In 1768, with the outbreak of the war with the Ottoman Empire, he was summoned to active service again, this time in Transcaucasia, where, for the first time in the history of the Russo-Turkish wars, Catherine decided to stage a military diversion against the Ottomans' frontier provinces. Thus, Totleben became the first commander to have brought an organized Russian military force in Transcaucasia through the Daryal Pass. [3] He was instructed to join his forces with King Heraclius II of Georgia who hoped to reconquer the Ottoman-held southern Georgian lands in conjunction with Russia. However, Totleben soon quarreled with the Georgian king and his commanders, whom he despised as "ignorant orientals" [4] and demanded the exclusion of all Georgian officers from a combined army. Several Russian officers plotted against Totleben who, in his turn, accused Georgians of instigating all intrigues. [5] The relations between the Russian commander and Heralcius were subjected to greater strain in April 1770, when the Russo-Georgian army marched against Akhaltsikhe, the Ottoman stronghold in Georgia. Totleben suddenly showed reluctance to engage in battle and abandoned the king on the battlefield. While the battle raged between the Georgians and Turks, Totleben marched to Tiflis and allied himself with a party of oppositionist Georgian nobles to stage a coup. However, Heraclius' victory over the Turks at the Battle of Aspindza made this plan unrealizable. The Russian government sent Captain Yazykov to investigate the affair, but Totleben had already crossed into Imereti, western Georgia, where he acted more energetically. Totleben dispossessed the Turks of the fortresses of Shorapani and Bagdatschick and helped King Solomon I of Imereti recover his capital Kutaisi on 6 August 1770. He then routed 25,000 Ottoman troops on his march to the Black Sea and laid siege to the fortress of Poti. However, Totleben again found himself in the center of intrigues between Solomon and his defiant vassal princes of Mingrelia and Guria who wanted to secure the Russian support against each other. The siege of Poti did not go well for the besiegers, and Totleben's relations with Solomon rapidly deteriorated. [5] Totleben was recalled from Georgia in January 1771 [6] and assigned to lead a division at Warsaw where he soon died. (For background, see Russian conquest of the Caucasus.)

Ottoman Empire Former empire in Asia, Europe and Africa

The Ottoman Empire, historically known in Western Europe as the Turkish Empire or simply Turkey, was a state that controlled much of Southeast Europe, Western Asia and North Africa between the 14th and early 20th centuries. It was founded at the end of the 13th century in northwestern Anatolia in the town of Söğüt by the Oghuz Turkish tribal leader Osman I. After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans, the Ottoman beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror.

Transcaucasia geopolitical region located on the border of Eastern Europe and Western Asia

Transcaucasia, or the South Caucasus, is a geographical region in the vicinity of the southern Caucasus Mountains on the border of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. Transcaucasia roughly corresponds to modern Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Total area of these countries is about 186,100 square kilometres. Transcaucasia and Ciscaucasia together comprise the larger Caucasus geographical region that divides Eurasia.

The Russo–Turkish wars were a series of wars fought between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire between the 17th and 20th centuries. It was one of the longest series of military conflicts in European history.

Notes

  1. ↑ F.L. Kersteman, "Den oorlog zwerver of het leven van den grave van Tottleven" , published by J.W. Karreman, Zaltbommel, 1761.
  2. 1 2 The Russian Biographical Dictionary
  3. ↑ Avtorkhanov and Broxup, page 73.
  4. ↑ Lang, page 36.
  5. 1 2 Potto (2006)
  6. ↑ His successor, Major General Sukhotin, continued the fruitless siege of Poti, and after an abortive attempt at storming the fortress, withdrew to Tiflis. The Russian expedition was finally recalled by Catherine early in 1772, leaving behind several gangs of deserters. One of them, of 300 men strong and commanded by Captain Semitryev, engaged in widespread robbery and looting, and penetrated the Caspian whence it reached the Volga only to be routed by the regular army. Potto (2006)

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References

Vasily Potto Russian military historian (1836-1911)

Vasily Aleksandrovich Potto was a Russian lieutenant-general (1907) and military historian, known for his landmark works on the history of the Caucasian War.

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The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier which is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency.

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