Pieter Hendrik van Zuylen van Nijevelt

Last updated May 02, 2019

Pieter Hendrik van Zuylen van Nijevelt (1 July 1782 in Kampen – 25 January 1825 in Utrecht) was a Dutch count and baron who served as a general in the French and Dutch armies during the Napoleonic era and later. He was present at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 as chief of staff of the 2nd Dutch Division.

Dutch people or the Dutch are a Germanic ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Aruba, Suriname, Guyana, Curaçao, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United States. The Low Countries were situated around the border of France and the Holy Roman Empire, forming a part of their respective peripheries, and the various territories of which they consisted had become virtually autonomous by the 13th century. Under the Habsburgs, the Netherlands were organised into a single administrative unit, and in the 16th and 17th centuries the Northern Netherlands gained independence from Spain as the Dutch Republic. The high degree of urbanization characteristic of Dutch society was attained at a relatively early date. During the Republic the first series of large-scale Dutch migrations outside of Europe took place.

The Napoleonic era is a period in the history of France and Europe. It is generally classified as including the fourth and final stage of the French Revolution, the first being the National Assembly, the second being the Legislative Assembly, and the third being the Directory. The Napoleonic era begins roughly with Napoleon Bonaparte's coup d'état, overthrowing the Directory, establishing the French Consulate, and ends during the Hundred Days and his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. The Congress of Vienna soon set out to restore Europe to pre-French Revolution days. Napoleon brought political stability to a land torn by revolution and war. He made peace with the Roman Catholic Church and reversed the most radical religious policies of the Convention. In 1804 Napoleon promulgated the Civil Code, a revised body of civil law, which also helped stabilize French society. The Civil Code affirmed the political and legal equality of all adult men and established a merit-based society in which individuals advanced in education and employment because of talent rather than birth or social standing. The Civil Code confirmed many of the moderate revolutionary policies of the National Assembly but retracted measures passed by the more radical Convention. The code restored patriarchal authority in the family, for example, by making women and children subservient to male heads of households.

The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday, 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in Belgium, part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands at the time. A French army under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated by two of the armies of the Seventh Coalition: a British-led allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellington, and a Prussian army under the command of Field Marshal Blücher. The battle marked the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

Early years

Pieter Hendrik van Zuylen van Nijevelt was a member of the prominent Rotterdam patrician ( regenten ) family of Van Zuylen van Nijevelt. He was the oldest son of Philip Julius van Zuylen van Nijevelt and Clara Helena de Wacker van Son. His father was a Dutch general who was appointed Marshal of Holland in the Kingdom of Holland, served as French senator following the annexation of Holland by the Napoleonic Empire, and was named comte de l'Empire by Napoleon.^[1]

In the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, the regenten were the rulers of the Dutch Republic, the leaders of the Dutch cities or the heads of organisations. Though not formally a hereditary "class", they were de facto "patricians", comparable to that ancient Roman class. Since the late Middle Ages Dutch cities had been run by the richer merchant families, who gradually formed a closed group. At first the lower-class citizens in the guilds and schutterijen could unite to form a certain counterbalance to the regenten, but in the course of the 15th century the administration of the cities and towns became oligarchical in character. From the latter part of the 17th century the regent families were able to reserve government offices to themselves via quasi-formal contractual arrangements. In practice they could only be dislodged by political upheavals, like the Orangist revolution of 1747 and the Patriot revolt of 1785.

Van Zuylen van Nijevelt (Dutch pronunciation: [vɑn ˈzœylə vɑn ˈnɛivɛlt] is a noble family from the region of Rotterdam, town and region where several members of the family played a significant role. The head of the family is the Count van Zuylen van Nijevelt; the rest of the family bears the title baron or baroness. This family must not be confused with the old noble family from Utrecht, Van Zuylen van Nievelt

PhilipJulius van Zuylen van Nijevelt was a Dutch general, nobleman and politician. He was appointed Marshal of Holland in the Kingdom of Holland and served as French senator following the annexation of Holland by the Napoleonic Empire. Van Zuylen van Nijevelt was also an amateur scientist and became known for his treatise on chess.

Napoleonic era

During the Napoleonic era, he served in the Dutch brigade on the French side in the Peninsular War from 1808 to 1810; at the Battle of Ocaña (1809), he was a captain. Van Zuylen van Nijevelt also served in the French armed forces in Germany and Russia. At the age of 30, he was promoted to the rank of adjutant general.^[2]

The Dutch Brigade was a unit of the Royal Army of the Kingdom of Holland. It was sent out in September 1808, by King Louis Bonaparte at the request of his brother Emperor Napoleon of France, to take part in the Peninsular War on the French side. The brigade, under the command of Major-General David Hendrik Chassé, was made part of the so-called "German Division". The Division also consisted of units from the Nassau, the Baden and other German allies of the French empire under command of the French general Leval. It was, in turn, part of the IVth French Corps under command of Marshals Lefebvre and Sébastiani, and was later part of the Ist Corps of Marshal Victor. The brigade distinguished itself initially in several major battles, and was later employed mainly in counter-guerrilla warfare. After the annexation of the Kingdom of Holland by the French empire in 1810, the brigade was formally decommissioned and its personnel, now French subjects, absorbed into the French 123rd Line Infantry Regiment, and later into the 130th Line Infantry Regiment, the other battalions of the 123rd back home being reassigned to the Russian campaign of 1812.

The Peninsular War (1807–1814) was a military conflict between Napoleon's empire and Bourbon Spain, for control of the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars. The war began when the French and Spanish armies invaded and occupied Portugal in 1807, and escalated in 1808 when France turned on Spain, previously its ally. The war on the peninsula lasted until the Sixth Coalition defeated Napoleon in 1814, and is regarded as one of the first wars of national liberation, significant for the emergence of large-scale guerrilla warfare.

The Battle of Ocaña was fought on 19 November 1809 between French forces under Marshal Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult, Duke of Dalmatia and King Joseph Bonaparte and the Spanish army under Juan Carlos de Aréizaga, which suffered its greatest single defeat in the Peninsular War. General Juan Carlos de Aréizaga's Spanish army of 51,000 lost nearly 19,000 killed, wounded, prisoners and deserters, mostly due to the French use of their cavalry. Tactically, the battle was a Cannae-like encirclement of the Spanish army. The strategic consequences were also devastating, as it destroyed the only force capable of defending southern Spain; the area was overrun over the winter in the Andalusia campaign.

Following the restoration of the House of Orange-Nassau in the Netherlands in 1813, he joined the Dutch armed forces with the rank of colonel (as the rank of adjutant general did not exist in the Dutch army). In the Battle of Quatre Bras and the Battle of Waterloo (1815), Pieter Hendrik served on the allied side as chief of staff of the 2nd Dutch Division under the command of Perponcher. In recognition of his service at Waterloo, he received the Military William Order and was promoted to the rank of general.^[2]

The House of Orange-Nassau, a branch of the European House of Nassau, has played a central role in the politics and government of the Netherlands and Europe especially since William the Silent organized the Dutch revolt against Spanish rule, which after the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) led to an independent Dutch state.

The Battle of Quatre Bras was fought on 16 June 1815, as a preliminary engagement to the decisive Battle of Waterloo that occurred two days later. The battle took place near the strategic crossroads of Quatre Bras and was contested between elements of the Duke of Wellington's Anglo-allied army and the left wing of Napoleon Bonaparte's French Armée du Nord under Marshal Michel Ney. While the battle was tactically indecisive, Napoleon achieved his larger strategic aim of preventing Wellington's forces from aiding the Prussian army at the Battle of Ligny, which the French won the same day.

Hendrik George de Perponcher Sedlnitsky Dutch diplomat and general

Hendrik George, Count de Perponcher Sedlnitsky was a Dutch general and diplomat. He commanded the 2nd Netherlands Division at the Battle of Quatre Bras and the Battle of Waterloo.

United Kingdom of the Netherlands

In 1817 he married his niece, the baroness Susanna Martha van Zuylen van Nijevelt (1787–1831). They moved to Luxembourg where he served as Dutch military commander. In Luxembourg, Pieter Hendrik frequently came into conflict with the Prussian military, who garrisoned the fortress of Luxembourg.^[2]

Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a small landlocked country in western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France to the south. Its capital, Luxembourg City, is one of the three official capitals of the European Union and the seat of the European Court of Justice, the highest judicial authority in the EU. Its culture, people, and languages are highly intertwined with its neighbours, making it essentially a mixture of French and German cultures, as evident by the nation's three official languages: French, German, and the national language, Luxembourgish. The repeated invasions by Germany, especially in World War II, resulted in the country's strong will for mediation between France and Germany and, among other things, led to the foundation of the European Union.

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.

He left Luxembourg in 1824 for Utrecht, where he lived in a house on Plompetorengracht canal. There he died in 1825 at age 42, a year before the death of his father.^[2]

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References

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[nationaalarchief-1] Nationaal Archief (Dutch)

[herinneringen-2] 1 2 3 4 Julius van Zuylen van Nijevelt, "Herinneringen uit mijn leven. Opgedragen aan mijn beminde kinderen". In C. Dekker et al. (eds.), Nederlandse historische bronnen, vol. 2. Martinus Nijhoff, Den Haag 1980, pp. 217-219 (Dutch)