Charles Eugène de Croÿ

Charles Eugène de Croy, Duc de Croy (* 1651 in Roeulx, Hainaut, Belgium, † January 30, 1702 in Tallinn, Estonia ) was an Imperial Russian and Austrian field marshal.

Family

Charles Eugène came from the old, originally coming from the county of Ponthieu in Picardy noble family de Croy, which is first mentioned in the 12th century. He was the son of Jacques Philippe de Croy, Prince de Croy (1614-1685), Lord of Roeulx, and the Countess Johanna van Bronckhorst - Batenburg ( 1627 - ), daughter of Johann Jakob von Bronckhorst - Batenburg ( 1582-1630 ).

Croÿ married in 1681 Countess Juliana van den Bergh (* January 20, 1638 in Zutphen, Gelderland, Netherlands, † October 1714 ), daughter of Heinrich Graf of the Bergh ( 1573-1638 ) and his second wife Catherine Hieronyma Countess of Spaur ( 1600-1683 ).

Life

He began his service in the Danish army with the rank of colonel and as commander of a regiment took Croy in 1676 at the Battle of Lund in the Danish- Norwegian side part. 1677 he was appointed Major-General, in 1678 promoted to lieutenant general. Since 1682 he fought with success in the Imperial Austrian army against the Turks in 1683 and took in the liberation of Vienna and the attack on Belgrade in 1690 in part. He was promoted for his services to the Imperial Field Marshal. After the Peace of Karlowitz Croy was unemployed and went in 1699 initially in Saxon services. On the recommendation of August the Strong and he joined another group of foreign officers in 1699 in the service of the Russian Tsar Peter the Great. Croy only reached mid 1700's Russia and received directly from the hands of Peter I the rank of Field Marshal ( the second in the history of the Russian army after Fyodor Alexeyevich Golovin ). He was commander of the Russian army in Livonia. This decision, however, was to prove a momentous: namely Croÿ spoke no Russian, knew not his subordinate Russian officers and therefore found it difficult to give orders. On top of that he did not agree with the statement of Russian troops. On November 20, In 1700, he commanded the Russian troops in the Battle of Narva, which was lost against the Swedes. He was not made ​​by Peter responsible for the defeat. This is supposed to have said that if he had Croy given command of the army before Narva two weeks earlier, then it would not come to defeat.

Croÿ died 1702 in Tallinn as a prisoner of war.

His life story was by the German writer Werner Berggruen in his short story collection The Death of Reval. Fancy Stories from an old city (1939 ) processed in literature.