Dagobert Sigmund, Count von Wurmser (7 May 1724 – 22 August 1797) was an Austrian field marshal during the French Revolutionary Wars. Although he fought in the Seven Years' War, the War of the Bavarian Succession, and mounted several successful campaigns in the Rhineland in the initial years of the French Revolutionary Wars, he is probably most remembered for his unsuccessful operations against Napoleon Bonaparte during the 1796 campaign in Italy.
Although initially in the Army of France during the Seven Years' War, Wurmser left France after Louis reached a peace agreement with Britain, and joined the military of the House of Habsburg. He later took part in the short-lived War of the Bavarian Succession, also called the so-called Kartoffelkrieg (Potato War). During the French Revolutionary Wars, Wurmser commanded several imperial Habsburg armies on in the Rhine River valley between 1793 and 1795, and perhaps his most conspicuous achievement was the taking of the lines of Lauterburg and Weissenburg in October 1793.
In 1796, Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor sent him to northern Italy, where the Habsburg military defended Austria's southern territories. In a series of well-fought battles with the French army, under the command of the up-and-coming general Napoleon Bonaparte, Wurmser was trapped with his army in Mantua; after a negotiated capitulation, Wurmser left the city with his honors and 700 men, and marched back to Vienna. His defeat at Mantua did not diminish the luster of his service in imperial eyes—he was granted another appointment immediately—but he was an old man of 72 years who had spent most of his adult life in arduous campaigning. His health failed him shortly after his appointment and he died in 1797.
Family and early career Born in Strasbourg, in the French province of Alsace, he was the son of Frantz Jacob Wurmser von Vendenheim. He was christened in the Protestant church of Saint Nicolas and first served in the French Army in 1741 during the early campaigns of the Silesian Wars as a cavalry officer under the command of Marshal Charles, Prince of Soubise. Constant Wurzbach. Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Österreich. Vienna, 1856–91, vol 59, pp. 1-5. In 1747, he was promoted to Captain of Cavalry.Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. The Penny cyclopædia. London: C. Knight, 1833–1843. p. 594.
He married on 25January 1761 in Vendenheim (Département du Bas-Rhin) Sophia Henrietta Rosina Juliana von und zu der Thann. She died aged 39 in Trautenau (Bohemia) on 27June 1772 as a consequence of childbirth, and was buried in Michelsdorf (Silesia).Protestant Church Book of Sundhouse, and that of Vendenheim.
In 1750, when his father left Alsace and became a Habsburg subject, Wurmser too left French service and joined the House of Habsburg military. He brought with him the legions he commanded from France. As part of the imperial Austrian army, he participated in the last years of the continental war, sometimes called the "Little War" because it did not involve three of the five great powers of Europe. In these engagements against the Prussians, he showed exceptional command capabilities and a wily and courageous attitude. On 30January 1761, Emperor Francis I raised him to comital status of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Two years later, Francis' brother, Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine, the Statthalter of the Austrian Netherlands, known as an audacious partisan collected his volunteers—a regiment each of Infantry and Hussars, with an artillery company—and joined Austrian service.Oscar Criste. Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser. Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie. Herausgegeben von der Historischen Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Band 44 (1898), S. 338–340, Digitale Volltext-Ausgabe in Wikisource. (Version vom 24. März 2010, 13:18 Uhr UTC).
War of the Bavarian Succession In Spring 1778, Wurmser's 30th Hussars were posted in northern Bohemia, to cover the border with Saxony and Silesia. Friedrich von Nauendorf, the son of the previous Colonel-Proprietor of the Regiment, was a captain in a village outpost, with about 50 Hussars under his command. In early July, the Prussian General Johann Jakob von Wunsch (1717–1788), crossed into Bohemia near the fortified town of Náchod, in the opening action of the War of the Bavarian Succession. Nauendorf led his 50 Hussars to engage Wunsch's considerably larger force. When they encountered Wunch's force, he greeted them as friends; by the time the Prussians realized the allegiance of the Hussars, Nauendorf, and his small force had the upper hand, and Wunsch withdrew. The next day, Nauendorf was promoted to major. Jens-Florian Ebert. "Nauendorf, Friedrich August Graf." Die Österreichischen Generäle 1792–1815. Accessed 15 October 2009; Constant von Wurzbach. "Nauendorf, Friedrich August Graf." Biographisches Lexikon des kaiserthums Oesterreich, enthaltend die Leben ski zen der denkwürdigen personen, welche seit 1750 in den österreichischen kronländern geboren wurden oder darin gelebt und gewirkt haben. Wien: K.K. Hof- und Staatsdruckerie [etc.] 1856-91, Volume 20, pp. 103–105, p. 103 cited. As the war evolved over the summer, Wurmser's Hussars covered the left flank of the main army, which was positioned in the entrenched heights above Jaroměř, in a triple line of redoubts extending along the river to Königgrätz.Benians, pp. 703–705. See also Fortress Josefov.
In October, Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor withdrew most of the Imperial army to the Bohemian border, under threat of intervention by Catherine II of Russia; Frederick II of Prussia did the same. A small force of hussars and dragoons remained in Bohemia to provide a winter cordon, designed to prevent Prussian incursions into Bohemia. Appointed to be commander of the winter cordon, Wurmser ordered a small assault column under command of Colonel Wilhelm Klebeck to attack the village of Dittersbach.Shortly afterward, Klebeck was elevated to the rank of Baron (Freiherr), and awarded the Knights Cross of the Military Order of Maria Theresa (15 February 1779). Digby Smith. Klebeck. Leonard Kudrna and Digby Smith, compilers. A biographical dictionary of all Austrian Generals in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1792–1815. Napoleon Series. Robert Burnham, Editor in Chief. April 2008. Accessed 22 March 2010. Klebeck led a column of Croats into the village. During the action, 400 Prussians were killed, another 400 made prisoner, and eight colors were captured. Following his successes against the Prussians in 1778, Joseph awarded him the Knights Cross of the Military Order of Maria Theresa on 21 October 1778.Digby Smith. Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser. Leonard Kudrna and Digby Smith, compilers. A biographical dictionary of all Austrian Generals in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1792–1815. Napoleon Series. Robert Burnham, Editor in Chief. April 2008. Accessed 22 March 2010.
In another raid, in January 1779, Wurmser advanced into the Grafschaft Glatz in five columns, two of which, commanded by Major General Franz Joseph, Count Kinsky, surrounded Habelschwerdt on 17–18 January. While one column secured the approach, the other, under the leadership of Colonel Pallavicini,This officer was probably Colonel, later Count, Carlo Pallavicini, of the House of Pallavicini, who had been in Habsburg service since the latter days of the Seven Years' War. See Erik Lund. War for the every day: generals, knowledge, and warfare in early modern Europe. Westport, Ct: Greenwood Press, 1999, , p. 152. stormed the town, captured Major General Adolph, Landgrave of Hesse-Philippsthal-Barchfeld and 714 men, three cannons, and seven colors. Wurmser himself led the third column in an assault on the so-called Swedish blockhouse at Oberschwedeldorf; it and the town of Habelschwerdt were set on fire by howitzers. Major General Ludwig, Baron of Terzi (1730–1800), who was covering with the remaining two columns, threw back the enemy relief and took 300 Prussian prisoners. Meanwhile, Wurmser maintained his position at the nearby village of Rückerts and town Reinerz. His forward patrols reached the outskirts of Glatz, and were able to cover the Silesian borders, almost reaching Schweidnitz. Halberschwerdt and Oberschwedeldorf were both destroyed.Thomas Carlyle. History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great: in eight volumes. Vol. VIII in The works of Thomas Carlyle in thirty volumes. London: Chapman and Hall, 1898, p. 219.
French Revolutionary Wars Promotions Transferred from French service to Austrian military in 1763 Major General: 1763 Lt. Field Marshal: 10 October 1778 (effective 10 January 1778) General of Cavalry: 8 September 1787 (effective 2 September 1787) Field Marshal 11 December 1795 In 1787, Wurmser received a promotion to General der Kavallerie; he held a series of posts in Vienna, Bohemia and Galicia, becoming commanding general at the latter in 1787 during the Austrian War with the Ottoman Empire. While Wurmser fought Austria's battles in the Balkans, in France, a coalition of the clergy and the professional and bourgeoisie class—the First and Third estates—led a call for reform of the French government and the creation of a written constitution. Initially, the rulers of Europe viewed the French Revolution as an event between the French king and his subjects, and not something in which they should interfere. In 1790, Leopold succeeded his brother Joseph as emperor and by 1791, he considered the situation surrounding his sister, Marie Antoinette, and her children, with greater alarm. In August 1791, in consultation with French émigré nobles and Frederick William II of Prussia, he issued the Declaration of Pillnitz, in which they declared the interest of the monarchs of Europe as one with the interests of Louis and his family. They threatened ambiguous but quite serious, consequences if anything should happen to the royal family. The French émigrés continued to agitate for support of a counter-revolution. On 20 April 1792, the French National Convention declared war on Austria. In the War of the First Coalition (1792–1797), France opposed most of the European states sharing land or water borders with her, plus Portugal and the Ottoman Empire.Timothy Blanning. The French Revolutionary Wars. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, , pp. 41–59.
Rhine campaign 1793–1794 From February 1793 to January 1794, Wurmser commanded the Imperial Army of the Rhine. He commanded the successful storming of the Lauterburg and Weissenburg lines on 13 October 1793. The Lines, a series of earthworks on the south side of the Lauter river, a tributary of the Rhine river in Alsace-Lorraine, offered a major strategic defensive position for the French.
Part of France's Army of the Vosges, under the general command of Jean Victor Moreau, manned the French position. The three battalions and six squadrons, commanded by General of Brigade Illier, held the position with ten artillery pieces. The French defensive line ran west from Lauterbourg on the Rhine to Saarbrücken. The western part of this line, from Lauterbourg to Wissembourg, was protected by the Lines of Wissembourg, a series of fortifications built nearly a century earlier to protect Alsace from invasion along the flat plain between the Vosges and the Rhine. The Army of the Rhine defended these Lines. The Army of the Rhine also was at Saarbrücken and the Corps of the Vosges linked the two, with camps at Hornbach and Kettrick.