Everything about Levin August Count Von Bennigsen totally explained
Levin August Gottlieb Theophil (
Russian:
Leonty Leontyevich),
Count von Bennigsen (
February 10 1745 -
December 3 1826) was a
German general in the service of the
Russian Empire.
He was born into a
Hanoverian family in
Brunswick and served successively as a page at the Hanoverian court and as an officer of foot-guards where he participated in the
Seven Years' War. In
1764, he retired from the Hanoverian army and entered the Russian service as a field officer in the Vyatka musketeer regiment in
1773. He fought against the Turks in
1774 and in
1778, becoming lieutenant-colonel in the latter year. In 1787 his conduct at the storming of
Ochakov won him promotion to the rank of
brigadier, and he distinguished himself repeatedly in smashing the
Kościuszko Uprising and in the
Persian War of 1796. In 1794 he was awarded the
Order of St. George of the Third Degree and an estate in
Minsk guberniya and promoted to Major General for his accomplishments in the former campaign.
In 1798 he was fired from military service by the
Tsar Paul I allegedly because of his connections with
Platon Zubov. It is known that he took an active part in the planning phase of the conspiracy to assassinate Paul I, but his role in the actual killing remains a matter of conjecture.
Tsar Alexander I made him governor-general of
Lithuania in 1801, and in 1802 a general of cavalry.
In
1806 he was in command of one of the Russian armies operating against
Napoleon, when he fought the
battle of Pultusk and met the emperor in person in the sanguinary
battle of Eylau (
8 February,
1807). In the battle of Pultusk he defeated French troops under
Jean Lannes but later he retreated. This victory brought him Order of St. George of the Second Degree while after the battle of Eylau he was awarded
Order of St. Andrew - the highest order in the Russian empire. Here he could claim to have inflicted the first reverse suffered by Napoleon, but six months later Bennigsen met with the
crushing defeat of Friedland (
14 June 1807) the direct consequence of which was the
treaty of Tilsit.
Bennigsen was heavily criticised for the battle of Friedland and for the decline of discipline in the army and now retired for some years, but in the campaign of 1812 he reappeared in the army in various responsible positions. He was present at
Borodino, and defeated
Murat in the
engagement of Tarutino where he himself was wounded in the leg, but on account of a quarrel with Marshal
Kutusov, the Russian commander-in-chief, he was compelled to retire from active military employment.
After the death of Kutusov he was recalled and placed at the head of an army. Bennigsen participated in the battles of
Bautzen and
Lützen, leading one of the columns that made the decisive attack on the last day of the
battle of Leipzig (16-19 October 1813). On the same evening he was made a count by the emperor Alexander I, and he afterwards commanded the forces which operated against
Marshal Davout in North Germany, most notably in the year-long
Siege of Hamburg (1813-14). After the peace
treaty of Fontainebleau he was awarded the St. George order of the First Degree - the highest Russian military order - for his actions in the Napoleonic wars in general.
After the general peace he held a command from 1815 to 1818, when he retired from active service and settled on his Hanoverian estate of Banteln near
Hildesheim. By the end of his life he completely lost his sight. He died, aged 81. His son,
Alexander Levin, Count von Bennigsen (1809-1893) was a distinguished Hanoverian statesman.
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