Leopold I ''Der Alte Dessauer'' (3rd July 1676 - 7th April 1747) was a German prince of the House of Ascania, a Field Marshal of the Prussian Army - as well as the Holy Roman Empire - and a distinguished commander. He reigned for nearly 50 years as the Fürst von Anhalt-Dessau. Nicknamed by Europe as ''Der Alte Dessauer'' (the Old Dessau''), his lineage granted him much luxury as a member of the houses of Hohenzollern and Orange, on top of his familial reign over Ascania.
Leopold took the throne of Anhalt-Dessau after the death of his father, Prince John II Georg in 1693 when Leopold was only 18. His mother, Henriette Catherine, acted as Regent during her minority, which lasted 10 years. Upon the declaration of a regency, his mother had sent him and his siblings upon a Grand Tour. Incognito as Graf von Waldersee, Leopold travelled for more than a year in Italy, visiting Verona, Venice, Ferrara, Rome (where he lived) Augustus the Strong's courts in Poland and Saxony, the Duchy Naples, and he ascended Mount Vesuvius, which "interested him more than the Pope".
The characteristic expression of his countenance and loyalty corresponded with his nature - being bold, passionate, and warlike. Leopold was born into the illustrious, if not infamous: Anhalt-Ascania family, making him the eldest of several Cousins, Nephews, and brothers whom all ruled the various Anhalt principalities. He was even cousin to Frédéric le Grand. This status, which was extremely pleasing, being full of extraordinary indications of his families fortunes and wealth, but also his own benevolentness.
Early Life[]
Birth[]
Leopold was born in Dessau as the ninth of ten children (and the younger of only two sons) of John George II, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, by his wife Henriette Catherine, daughter of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange. An older brother had died well before Leopold was born.
The Princess had experienced a successful birthing. It was in the bright summer morning of June 6th, 1676 that in the Princely apartments of the Dessau Stadtschloss; the young Leopold was born after a mere hour and a half of birthing. The Princess had already had experience with already his eight other siblings at birth thus had experienced almost no difficulties.
Infancy[]
In his infancy, young Leopold had been described as a happy, curious, stubborn but determined child with wondering eyes and a great spirit of wiseness and an ability to learn. A factor of which would follow him into his adult life. Leopold had already an impressive ancestral connection at birth, and, as time would tell, boast more in the future Through a great-grandmother of his own; Frederick II is also his third cousin. By this connection of Leopold's own grandfather and the great-grandfather of the future Frederick the Great, the two had been in a blood relation as a family.
After birthing, the young Count was immediately put into the care of numerous old officers of the Prussian army from his father's retinue as tutors and governors. He was taken care of for the most part by a Governess from Berlin by the name of Henriette Louise Gustaheimen.
Education[]
Like that of his family, Leopold would be educated as a member of the hochadel (as was usual for those belonging under the name of Anhalt, or Ascania). He would be educated to become proficient in several languages, them being English, Latin, French and Italian - and even some degrees of Dutch. This would make him ranked highly within the Court as an intellectual personage to represent the Ascanians. In addition to this, Leopold enjoyed the sports of hunting, fencing sparring, and warfare. Throughout much of his early life, he would consistently study the art of the sword.
Adolescence[]
From his earliest youth, he devoted himself to military pursuits, for which he educated himself both physically and mentally. He became colonel of a Prussian regiment in 1693, and in the same year inherited his own principality; for the remainder of his long life, he performed the duties of a sovereign prince and a Prussian officer simultaneously.
Leopold's first campaign was that of 1695 in the Netherlands during the Nine Years' War, in which he was present at the Siege of Namur. He remained on the field to the end of the war in 1697. The affairs of the principality being managed chiefly by his mother, the Dowager Princess Henriette Katharina (in fact, she had been acting as regent since the death of his father until he reached adulthood the same year, but continued in charge of the government of Anhalt-Dessau for some time after he attained his majority).
Military career & Adulthood[]
War of the Spanish Succession[]
Leopold I, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau
Leopold's career as a soldier in important commands began with the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701. He had many improvements made in the Prussian army, notably the introduction of the iron ramrod about 1700, and he now took the field at the head of a Prussian corps on the Rhine, serving at the sieges of Kaiserswerth and Venlo in 1702. In the following year, having obtained the rank of lieutenant-general, Leopold took part in the Siege of Bonn and fought as part of the Battle of Hochstadt, in which the Austrians and their Prussian allies were defeated by the French under Marshal Claude-Louis-Hector de Villars on 20 September 1703. In the campaign of 1704, the Prussian contingent served first under Louis William, Margrave of Baden-Baden, then the illustrious Prince Eugene of Savoy, and fought at Blenheim.
In 1705 Leopold was sent with a Prussian corps to join Eugene of Savoy in Italy, and on 6th August 1705, Leopold fought at the Battle of Cassano. In the Battle of Turin of 1706, Leopold was the first commander to enter the hostile entrenchments (7th September 1706) and swiftly obtained victory after overwhelming the enemy. Leopold continued to follow Eugene throughout numerous campaigns in Italy, then to join the steadfast and respected Lord Marlborough in the Low Country, being present in 1709 at the Siege of Tournai and the Battle of Malplaquet - The latter being one of Prussia's greatest victories under the reign of Friedrich Wilhelm I.
In 1710, during the War of Spanish Succession, Leopold succeeded as Supreme Commander of the entire Prussian contingent on the Western Front against France front during the war, and in 1712, he was made a field marshal at the particular request of the crown prince of Prussia, the future Soldatenkönig, Friedrich Wilhelm I, who had served with him as an Aide de Camp. Shortly before this, Leopold had executed a Coup de Main on the Castle of Mors, which had been held by the Dutch in defiance of the claims of König Friedrich I to its possession as Prussian land. The operation was performed with absolute precision and the castle was seized without a shot being fired. In the earlier part of the reign of Frederick William I, the Prince of Dessau was one of the most influential members of the Prussian governing circle. He remained so even until the reign of Friedrich II.
The Great Northern War[]
Although Prussia was hostile to Sweden, the Prussians were reluctant to participate in the Great Northern War. Only after the Russians destroyed most of the Swedish army at the renown Battle of Poltava, did Prussia enter the war in 1715 with support to the illustrious Czar Peter the Great. Leopold accompanied the king to the front, commanded an army of 40,000 men, and defeated the much smaller force of Charles XII of Sweden in a hard-fought battle on the Island of Rügen on 16 November in alliance with the Danish army of Stralsund. In peacetime, and especially after a court quarrel and duel with General Friedrich Wilhelm von Grumbkow in 1725, he devoted himself to the training of the Prussian army.
Drillmaster of the Prussian Army[]
"The Old Dessauer" (German: der alte Dessauer), was a minor field commander but a talented drill master who modernized the Prussian infantry.
Although the reputation gained by the Prussian army in the wars fought between 1675 and 1715 was an illustrious one, it was still considered one of the minor military forces in Europe by 1740 - when the War of the Austrian Succession and the War of the Rheinlands broke out. Leopold's outstanding achievement just before this time was his training of the Prussian infantry. The "Old Dessauer" was one of the sternest disciplinarians in an age of stern discipline, and the technical training of the infantry under his hand made the Prussian infantry into a formidable fighting force whose effectiveness had not yet been demonstrated. Leopold was essentially an infantry soldier; in his time, artillery usually did not decide battles, but he nonetheless chose to neglect the cavalry service, with results that manifested themselves at the Battle of Mollwitz in 1741. Frederick II of Prussia led the cavalry himself at the battles of Hohenfriedberg in 1745 and Leuthen in 1757, but had it not been for the supporting infantry trained by Leopold he would never have had the opportunity to do so.
Thus Leopold, with the steadfast support of King Frederick William of Prussia, himself one of the greatest drillmasters of Europe, turned to good account the twenty years following the peace with Sweden. During this time two incidents in his career deserve special mention: firstly, his intervention in the case of the crown prince Frederick, who was court-martialed for desertion, but due to his efforts reinstated in the Prussian army; and secondly, his successful role in the War of the Polish Succession on the Rhine, where he served under his old chief Eugene of Savoy and held the office of Field Marshal of the Empire.
Service under Frederick the Great[]
Leopold I, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau
With the death of Friedrich Wilhelm I in 1740, Friedrich II (Frederick the Great) succeeded to the Prussian throne, and a few months later initiated the invasion and conquest of Silesia, the first action in the long Silesian Wars and the test of Leopold's lifelong efforts to improve the effectiveness of the Prussian army. The prince himself was not often employed in the king's own army, though his sons held high commands under Frederick. The king, indeed, found Leopold somewhat difficult to manage, and the prince spent most of the campaigning years up to 1745 in command of an army of observation on the Saxon frontier.
Early in that year, his wife died. Leopold was now over seventy, but his last campaign was destined to be the most successful of his long career. A combined effort of the Austrians and Saxons to retrieve the disasters of the summer by a winter campaign towards Berlin itself led to a hurried concentration of the Prussians. Frederick from Silesia checked the Austrian main army and hastened towards Dresden. But before Frederick arrived, Leopold had decided the war by means of his overwhelming victory over Saxons at Kesselsdorf on 14 December 1745. It was his habit to pray before battle, for he was a devout Lutheran. On this last field, his words were, "O Lord God, let me not be disgraced in my old days. Or if Thou wilts not help me, do not help these scoundrels, but leave us to try it ourselves." When Frederick arrived after the battle, he embraced the Old Dessauer personally.
Later Life & Death[]
He was succeeded as Prince of Anhalt-Dessau by his son, Leopold II Maximilian. Another of his sons, Dietrich of Anhalt-Dessau, was a Prussian general, but the most famous of his sons was Moritz of Anhalt-Dessau.
Personality & Appearance[]
Personality[]
Leopold had always loved to read ancient and newer writings and military texts, mostly reading when not in a conversation. When he is reading, he is thinking of what he would do differently, along with the possible outcomes. If he is at the War Office or at in the field of battle, his notebook would be out, quill scribbling away on military plans and other such documents. If neither of these is happening, you can expect Leopold to stay in the back of the crowd, only speaking to those who look to speak with him.
Appearance[]
Marriage and Issue[]
Marriage[]
Leopold I and Anna Föhse
As a young prince, Leopold fell in love with Anna Louise Föhse (Dessau, 22 March 1677 – Dessau, 5 February 1745), an apothecary's daughter in Dessau. His mother, the Dowager Princess, tried to break up the relationship, sending her son abroad for an extended travel, but to no avail.
Issue[]
One year after officially becoming an adult in 1697, he married his beloved Anna Louise in Dessau on 8 September 1698, forming a union that was morganatic until the imperial decree of 29 December 1701. The couple had ten children:
- William Gustav (Dessau, 20 June 1699 – Dessau, 16 December 1737), Hereditary Prince of Anhalt-Dessau.
- Leopold II Maximilian (Dessau, 25 December 1700 – Dessau, 16 December 1751), Prince of Anhalt-Dessau.
- Dietrich (Dessau, 2 August 1702 – Dessau, 2 December 1769), later Regent.
- Frederick Henry Eugen (Dessau, 27 December 1705 – Dessau, 2 March 1781).
- Henriette Marie Louise (Dessau, 3 August 1707 – Dessau, 7 August 1707).
- Louise (Dessau, 21 August 1709 – Bernburg, 29 July 1732), married on 25 November 1724 to Victor Frederick, Prince of Anhalt-Bernburg.
- Maurice (Dessau, 31 October 1712 – Dessau, 11 April 1760).
- Anna Wilhelmine (Dessau, 13 June 1715 – Dessau, 2 April 1780).
- Leopoldine Marie (Oranienbaum, 12 December 1716 – Kolberg, 27 January 1782), married on 13 February 1739 to Frederick Henry, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt.
- Henriette Amalie (Dessau, 7 December 1720 – Dessau, 5 December 1793).
On 29 December 1701 Anna Louise was created an Imperial Princess (German: Reichsfürstin) by the Emperor Leopold I of the Holy Roman Empire, who also declared that their children would be considered princes and princesses of Anhalt (as all of them arguably, and the two born before this decree certainly, would not have otherwise) and would enjoy all the rights that other princes of the Empire enjoy. King Frederick I of Prussia extended his personal guarantee on 12 March 1702, promising to recognize the rights of the issue of this marriage. The agnates of all the branches of Anhalt also gave their agreement a few days later, on 21 March.
Leopold and Anna Louise enjoyed a long and happy marriage, and the princess acquired an influence over her husband that she never ceased to exert on behalf of his subjects. After the death of Leopold's mother she performed the duties of regent when he was absent on campaign. Often, too, she accompanied him into the field.
In later life, however, Leopold sired two illegitimate sons by one Sophie Eleonore Söldner (Ellrich, 7 September 1710 – Dessau, 16 September 1779):
- John Georg Henry von Berenhorst (Sandersleben, 26 October 1733 – Dessau, 30 October 1814), who married first in Zöberitz on 8 May 1781 to Katharina Christiane Maria Otto, but divorced in 1783; in Köthen on 26 October 1783 he married for a second time to Henriette Christine Karoline von Bülow (Predel, 30 June 1765 – Dessau, 29 August 1813), with whom he had six children, one son, George John (whose descendants in the male line became extinct in 1952), and five daughters: Louise Sophie, Eugenie Johanne (d. in infancy), Wilhelmine Henriette, Klara Hedwig, and Thekla Pauline, who, from her first marriage to Julius, Freiherr von Richthofen, was a great-grandmother of Manfred von Richthofen -the infamous Red Baron.
- Karl Franz von Berenhorst (Sandersleben, 1 March 1735 – Dessau, 6 June 1804), married in Schweinitz on 7 February 1785 to Johanne Eleonore Scholtz; their two sons, Henry Karl and George Franz, were killed in battle; neither of them married or had children.