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Johann Ludwig von Erlach

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Anonymous portrait, c. 1650

Johann Ludwig von Erlach (30 October 1595 – 26 January 1650) was a Swiss mercenary and military commander of the Thirty Years' War.[1][2]

Biography

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Erlach was born on 30 October 1595 in Bern, canton of Bern, into the Bernese patrician Erlach family.[3] He was the son of Colonel Rudolf von Erlach, Landvogt of Morges, and Katharina von Mülinen.[3] Erlach studied in Geneva from 1608 to 1611 and was a page at the court of Christian I, Prince of Anhalt-Bernburg, from 1611 to 1616.[3] He began his career as a mercenary early in the Thirty Years' War, as an officer in the service of Anhalt, Brandenburg and Brunswick between 1618 and 1625; he was taken prisoner in 1620 and wounded in battle several times.[3]

In 1625, Erlach fought for King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden in the Polish–Swedish War (1621–1625) as a colonel and quartermaster general.[3] Returning in Bern, he entered the Grand Council in 1627 and the Small Council in 1629, and was responsible for the 1628 reform of the Bernese army.[3] Erlach then entered French service and led his regiment in the Siege of Casale, during the War of the Mantuan Succession.[3] In 1632 and from 1635 onwards, Erlach served in the army of the Duke Bernard of Saxe-Weimar.[3] In the meantime, in 1633, he had commanded Bernese troops in Aargau and acquired the lordship and castle of Kasteln, which he rebuilt.[3] Erlach would also acquire the lordship of Auestein in 1644.[4]

As the Duke of Saxe-Weimar's chief of staff, Erlach organized the Rhine campaign of 1638 that led to the conquest of Laufenburg, Rheinfelden and the fortified Habsburg stronghold of Breisach.[3] Back in French service, he was appointed governor of Breisach and promoted to lieutenant-general in 1647.[3] Erlach fought in the Flanders campaign of 1648 at the end of the war, and became the commander of the French army in the Holy Roman Empire in 1649.[3] During the Congress of Westphalia he supported the French ambassadors in the negotiations regarding Alsace, and pushed for the annexation of the four Waldstädte [de] ("forest cities") of Rheinfelden, Säckingen, Laufenburg and Waldshut.[3] Erlach died in Breisach on 26 January 1650, aged 55, and was buried in Schinznach-Dorf.[3]

References

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  1. ^ Chéruel, Adolphe (1879). Histoire de France Pendant la Minorité de Louis XIV (in French). Hachette et cie. p. 373.
  2. ^ Wright, Thomas (1852). The Universal Pronouncing Dictionary, and General Expositor of the English Language: Being a Complete Literary, Classical, Scientific, Biographical, Geographical, and Technological Standard ... London Print. and Publishing Company. p. 391.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Marco Jorio: Johann Ludwig von Erlach in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland, 15 November 2005.
  4. ^ Alfred Lüthi: Auestein in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland, 25 August 2009.
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