Karl Freiherr von Müffling

Philipp Friedrich Carl Ferdinand Freiherr von Müffling called White ( born June 12, 1775 in Halle, † January 16, 1851 in Erfurt) was a Prussian Field Marshal, military writer and surveyor.

Life

Origin

Karl came from a noble family Müffling and was the first child of the later Prussian Major General Johann Friedrich Wilhelm von Müffling ( born May 14, 1742 in Holzhausen, Thuringia, † December 9, 1808 in Neisse ) and his wife Christiane Charlotte Wilhelmine von Borsch Itten (* 16 December 1743 in Möbisburg; † September 30, 1796 in Prenzlau ).

Military career

Müffling joined in 1787 as a squire in a Fusilier Battalion, with whom he went to Silesia in 1790 and 1792/94 mitmachte the campaign against France. From 1797 to 1802 he was employed by the trigonometrical survey of Westphalia for the Lecoqsche map, 1803 First Lieutenant in the measurement of a degree in Thuringia. Funded by the influential General Ernst von Ruchel, he joined in 1805 as a captain in the General Staff. He was also a member of the founded by Gerhard von Scharnhorst military society.

In 1806 he was in the corps of the Duke of Weimar, joined after the disaster of Jena and Blucher received after the meeting in Lübeck Council to complete the surrender of Ratekau. In 1808, he appeared as a member of the so-called secret Konseils in Weimar services, but again in 1813 the Prussian Army and was assigned as Lieutenant Colonel of the General Staff of Blucher.

After the battle of Haynau in Silesia, to which he had designed the disposition, he was promoted to colonel. After the armistice he was quartermaster-general in the Silesian army, after the battle of Leipzig, Major General, and after the first Paris Peace Chief of the General Staff of the backward along the Rhine army.

In the campaign against Napoleon in 1815 Müffling acted as Prussian liaison officer in the British Army headquarters and completed in this function, among others, at the Battle of Ligny communication between Wellington and Blücher. After the second capture of Paris, he was then appointed governor of the city. He was responsible for the systematic return of looted by Napoleon cultural goods, such as the Quadriga from the Brandenburg Gate and the Marcus lions from Venice. Before 1816 Müffling remained as representative of Prussia in the headquarters of the Duke of Wellington. Here he joined with French officers and scholars to a degree measurement between Dunkirk and the Seeberg. The Prussian king gave him for his services in 1816 Good Ringhofen of Miihlberg in Thuringia, mill mountain and the neighboring Vorwerk Freudenthal. The manor remained until 1926 by the family.

After the Congress of Vienna in a unified map series of the territory of the Kingdom of Prussia was created under the direction of Charles of Müffling. Until then, only the cards of Jean Joseph Tranchot from the times of Napoleon were available. The inclusion of maps of the Prussian Uraufnahme were made under his direction by young officers. Work began in 1836 for the province of Westphalia and Rhineland in 1842 for the province.

1818 Müffling took part in the Aachen Congress. In 1820 he became chief of the general staff of the Prussian army. As a lieutenant general in 1829, he received a mission to Constantinople Opel to make the gate for peace with Russia inclined, and was in the March 1832 General of the VII Army Corps and in 1837 governor of Berlin. From 1838 to 1844, he was also President of the Prussian State Council. In 1847 he received the requested dismissal with the title of field marshal and as a gift the domain Wandersleben and settled thereon in Erfurt, where he died on 16 January 1851.

He was on the Brühler cemetery (now Brühler garden ) buried in Erfurt. On his grave in 1853 by Friedrich August Stiller a classical monument with a bust of the Berlin sculptor Hermann Wittig had created, built. The rundown for the GDR era monument, the bust had been removed in 1951, was restored in 2000, desecrated a year later and restored again. Since then, the bust is backed by a three-meter high steel mesh.

Charles of Müffling was bearer of the Black Eagle with diamonds.

Tomb in the garden Brühler in Erfurt

Bust of Karl Müffling in Erfurt, Wittig 1853

Bust of Charles of Müffling behind steel mesh (2013 )

History of the tomb of Müffling in Brühler garden in Erfurt

Family

Charles of Müffling married in 1799 Wilhelmine von Schele Scheel Castle ( born October 29, 1775 † January 22, 1836 ). The couple had the following children:

• Friedrich Ludwig Georg Karl Eduard (* January 13, 1801, † October 20, 1887 ); Men on Ringhofen, Secret Government Council and Honorary Knight of the Order of St John

• Friederike Charlotte Ottilie (* May 23, 1802, † December 30, 1862 ) ∞ May 23, 1831 Hermann von Estorf (* September 26, 1806, † June 8, 1878 )
• Antoinette Pauline (* November 17, 1803, † May 15 1886 ) ∞ June 23, 1822 Lieutenant General Count Karl Viktor Adolf of Westarp (* April 6, 1796, † May 4, 1850 )

Publications

Müffling published his works under the cipher " C. by W. '.

• Operation plan for the Prussian- Saxon Army 1806 (Weimar 1806)
• Marginalia to the principles of the higher art of war for the Austrian generals (Weimar 1808, 2nd edition 1810)
• The Prussian- Russian campaign in 1813 (Breslau 1813; 2nd edition, Leipzig 1815)
• History of the campaign of the English - Dutch and hannöversch - Brunswick army under the Duke of Wellington and the Prussian under Prince Blucher in 1815 (Stuttgart 1815)
• Contributions to the war history of 1813 and 1814; the campaigns of the Silesian Army ( Berlin 1824, 2 volumes)
• Reflections on the major operations and battles, etc. (Berlin 1825)
• Napoleon's strategy in 1813 (Berlin 1827)
• About the Roman roads on the right bank of the Lower Rhine -: from the winter camp Vetera starting, the Veste Aliso about the pontes longi to the tops and of the lower Weser. - Berlin:. Mittler, 1834 Digitized edition of the University and State Library Dusseldorf. Google digitized

The posthumous writing from my life (Berlin 1851, 2nd edition 1855 digitized ) gave out his son. It contains descriptions of the processes in Blücher 's headquarters 1813-14. Müfflings memoirs were heavily criticized by Theodor von Bernhardi ( Memoirs of the life of General von Toll, Vol 4) Müfflings because of alleged bias against vanity and Gneisenau.