Blücher, Gebhard Leberecht von

Blücher, Marshal Gerbhard von, Prince of Wahlstadt (1742-1819). Blücher came to prominence only later in a career marked by extreme dissipation during his younger days, and throughout his long life he continued to drink, gamble, and wench to excess. He was first commissioned at 16 into the Swedish army and entered Prussian service after being taken prisoner. Displeased at being passed over for promotion, he resigned in 1773 to discover he had no talent for farming. He was recommissioned in 1786 and by 1802 was a lieutenant general and governor of Münster. Prominently involved in the Prussian disaster of Jena/Auerstadt, he had a horse shot from under him leading a charge and was later forced to surrender at Ratkau, near Lübeck. Ever troublesome to Napoleon, he was forced into temporary retirement in 1812 at Napoleon's request. After the French were defeated in Russia, the 71-year-old Blücher was appointed to command the Prussian Army of Silesia, and at Lützen (1813) had another horse shot from under him and was wounded. He regrouped to beat the French at Katzbach in August the same year, but failed to trap Napoleon at Leipzig in October.

Leading one wing of the Allied advance into France in the Champagne campaign of 1814, despite two setbacks at Craonne and Rheims in March, he had the satisfaction of forcing Napoleon to abdicate, Blücher was thereupon created prince of Wahlstadt and retired. During the Hundred Days, he emerged again to mobilize an army of 120, 000, and confronted the resurgent emperor in person at Ligny while Wellington fought Ney at Quatre Bras. ‘Marschal Vorwärts’ (Marshal Forwards), as by then he was known to his adoring troops, again had a horse killed, which rolled on top of him. He was not found for two hours, but when he was rescued he reversed his subordinates' orders to retreat away from Wellington and kept his promise to join him, decisively, at Waterloo. The implacable pursuit by the relatively fresh Prussian cavalry turned a defeat into a rout. At the end of his life he seems to have become mildly insane, confessing to Wellington that he was pregnant, with an elephant, by a French grenadier.

— Peter Caddick-Adams

The Prussian field marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher (1742-1819) commanded the Prussian armies in the war against Napoleon, 1813-1815. He became a leading hero of the Germans in the struggle to end foreign domination of their lands.

Gebhard von Blücher was born in Rostock in the northern state of Mecklenburg on Dec. 16, 1742. The son of a captain in the cavalry, he became a cadet in a Swedish regiment. He was captured by the Prussians during the Seven Years War and, like so many others, allowed himself to be pressed into the Prussian service. He had reached the rank of captain when, in 1770, Frederick the Great dismissed him in his usual brutal fashion for some minor transgression.

After Frederick's death Blücher rejoined the Prussian army. He distinguished himself in the wars against revolutionary France and eventually became a general. Fortunately for Blücher, he had not been given a major command in the disastrous campaign of 1806, so he escaped its disgrace. As it was, he was forced to surrender to the French in the later stages of that campaign. Both the Prussian chancellor, Prince Hardenberg, and the minister of war, G. J. D. von Scharnhorst, thought highly of Blücher's talents; thus in 1809 he was given command of the Prussian cavalry with orders to reform and modernize it. In 1811, however, he was dismissed at Napoleon's insistence.

At the outbreak of war between Prussia and France in 1813, Blücher was given command of a joint Russo-Prussian army. After defeating the French in three engagements and recapturing Leipzig from them in October 1813, Blücher was promoted to field marshal. His impetuosity and dynamism, which contrasted sharply with the conduct of the generals of Prussia's other ally, Austria, earned him the nickname of "Marshal Forward."

In 1814 Blücher commanded the Prussian army that attacked France. After an initial success he was outmaneuvered by Napoleon and lost a series of engagements. Although he was forced to retreat across the border, Blücher was undaunted by this reverse. He resumed the attack as soon as his defeated army was assembled and rested, and he soon won a major victory over Napoleon at the Battle of Laon (March 10, 1814). Blücher then joined his army with that of the Austrians under Prince Schwarzenberg, and at the end of the month the Allies entered Paris and forced Napoleon to abdicate.

When the Emperor returned from his exile in Elba in 1815, Blücher was once again given command of the main Prussian army. Napoleon planned to defeat his enemies one at a time, thus forcing them to accept his return; he almost succeeded. Blücher, who was badly outmaneuvered, faced the French alone in the Battle of Ligny (June 16). He lost the battle, a good part of his army, and came close to losing his life. Fortunately for the Prussians, Blücher's chief of staff, Count August Gneisenau, was able to organize an orderly retreat in the direction of the English army, which was under the command of the Duke of Wellington. Napoleon had preceded Wellington and came within an ace of beating the English at Waterloo (June 18). But the English infantry held, and the arrival of Blücher's diminished army was enough to turn the tide once and for all against the French.

Prussia's success in the Napoleonic Wars was due as much to Gneisenau's organization and planning as to Blücher's leadership, and the field marshal readily acknowledged this circumstance. But it was the grizzled and energetic Blücher who captured the imagination of the Prussians, and many other Germans as well, becoming perhaps the first German national hero. Blücher died on Sept. 12, 1819, in Silesia.

Further Reading

E. F. Henderson, Blücher and the Uprising of Prussia against Napoleon, 1806-1815 (1911), discusses Blücher and the military campaigns of the period. A more general study is W. O. Shanahan, Prussian Military Reforms, 1786-1813 (1945). See also J. F. C. Fuller, A Military History of the Western World, vol. 2 (1955), and Hajo Holborn, History of Modern Germany, vol. 2 (1963).

Additional Sources

Parkinson, Roger, The Hussar general: the life of Blücher, man of Waterloo, London: P. Davies, 1975.

For more information on Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, prince von Wahlstatt, visit Britannica.com.

Blücher, Gebhard Leberecht von (Rostock, 1742-1819, Krieblowitz, Silesia), Prussian field-marshal (Generalfeldmarschall), first served as an officer of Swedish cavalry. During the Seven Years War he transferred to the Prussian army, serving in a hussar regiment. In 1770 he left the army, incurring the displeasure of Friedrich II of Prussia. He returned to the army under Friedrich Wilhelm II in 1787, and distinguished himself in the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793-4 (see Revolutionskriege). He rose rapidly to general's rank and in 1806 fought at Auerstedt and, after the defeat, conducted a successful retreat to Lübeck, surrendering finally at Tatekau. Blücher held commands in Prussia during the period of subjugation, but his anti-French views led to his removal in 1811. With the outbreak of the War of Liberation in 1813 he was reinstated and was prominent at Großgörschen, Bautzen (see Napoleonic Wars), and, with Gneisenau as his chief of staff, at Katzbach, Möckern, and, above all, Leipzig. Blücher commanded in the French campaign in 1814, and was at first successful but later suffered several reverses. He won a decisive victory at Laon, and shortly afterwards entered Paris. He was enthusiastically welcomed in England on a visit in 1814, receiving an honorary doctorate from Oxford University. When Napoleon returned from Elba, Blücher was placed in command of the Prussian army. At Ligny he was defeated and wounded, but was rescued by his adjutant von Nostitz. Two days later Blücher brought up his forces in time to outflank the right of the French position at Waterloo, meeting Wellington at La Belle Alliance in the moment of victory.

Blücher's outstanding qualities were his courage and energy (which gained him the nickname ‘Marschall Vorwärts’), and also his loyalty, which led him, against contrary opinions, to come vigorously to the support of Wellington. He was proverbial for startling misspellings in his letters, which were first published in 1876. He was created Fürst von Wahlstatt (near Katzbach in Silesia) in 1814. He is the subject of a cycle of five poems (Blücher) by F. Rückert, in which reference is made to his visit to England and his passion for gambling. He figures in the fourth and fifth acts of C. D. Grabbe's Napoleon oder Die hundert Tage.

Blücher, Gebhard Leberecht von (gĕp'härt lā'bərĕkht fən blü'khər) , 1742–1819, Prussian field marshal, an outstanding military opponent of Napoleon I. An officer in the army of King Frederick II from 1760, he incurred royal displeasure when, believing himself passed over for promotion, he abruptly resigned in the early 1770s. He returned to service only in 1787 after Frederick's death. He fought well in the disastrous campaign of 1806 against the French and surrendered with honor near Lübeck. In the dark days that followed he helped Karl vom und zum Stein, K. A. von Hardenberg, and General Scharnhorst recreate the Prussian opposition to Napoleon. He was a leader in the War of Liberation (1813–14). Although ill and subject to delusions, he won brilliant victories at Wahlstatt and Möckern and played a part in the defeat of the French at Leipzig. Crossing the Rhine, he led his army to Paris. In the Waterloo campaign of 1815, he was defeated at Ligny but arrived at the battle of Waterloo in time to make it a victory. In 1814 he was made prince of Wahlstatt.

Bibliography

See study by E. F. Henderson (1911).