Jean-Louis Raduit de Souches

Jean-Louis Raduit de Souches was born on 16 August 1608, son of Jean Ratuit, Sieur de Barres (died 1614), and his wife Marguerite de Bourdigalea (died after 1636). Both parents were members of the Huguenot nobility, originally from Aunis, who owned property in the Protestant stronghold of La Rochelle.^[1] His elder brother was killed serving with the French army in 1636, while he also had a sister, Marguerite (died 1654).^[2]

His first wife Anna Elisabeth de Hoffkirchen died in 1663; they had two sons, Jean Louis (died 1717) and Charles Louis (1645–1691), who both served in the Imperial Army, and two daughters, Anna Dorotha (1652–1724) and Eleonora. Anna Salome Aspermont-Reckheim (1648–1729) became his second wife in 1677; they had no surviving children.^[3]

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Aunis

Aunis

Aunis is a historical province of France, situated in the north-west of the department of Charente-Maritime. Its historic capital is La Rochelle, which took over from Castrum Allionis (Châtelaillon) the historic capital which gives its name to the province.

La Rochelle

La Rochelle

La Rochelle is a city on the west coast of France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department. With 75,735 inhabitants in 2017, La Rochelle is the most populated commune in the department and ranks fifth in the New Aquitaine region after Bordeaux, the regional capital, Limoges, Poitiers and Pau. Its inhabitants are called "les Rochelaises" and "les Rochelais".

Imperial Army (Holy Roman Empire)

Imperial Army (Holy Roman Empire)

The Imperial Army, German: Kaiserliche Armee, Imperial Troops, or Imperials (Kaiserliche) for short, was a name used for several centuries, especially to describe soldiers recruited for the Holy Roman Emperor during the early modern period. The Imperial Army of the Emperor should not be confused with the Army of the Holy Roman Empire, which could only be deployed with the consent of the Imperial Diet. The Imperialists effectively became a standing army of troops under the Habsburg emperor from the House of Austria, which is why they were also increasingly described in the 18th century as "Austrians", although its troops were recruited not just from the Archduchy of Austria but from all over the Holy Roman Empire.

Thirty Years War

Souches began his military career during the siege of La Rochelle, part of the 1627 to 1629 Huguenot rebellions against Louis XIII of France. When the town surrendered in October 1628, he went into exile in Protestant Sweden, where he joined the army led by Gustavus Adolphus which entered the Thirty Years War in 1630. By 1636, he was captain in an infantry regiment which unsuccessfully defended Stargard against an Imperial force; he narrowly escaped court martial after accusing his commanding officer of negligence. This was symptomatic of a quarrelsome tendency which followed him throughout his career.^[3]

Siege of Brno 1645; de Souches established his reputation with his successful defence

In May 1636, France formally entered the Thirty Years War in alliance with Sweden; the rapid expansion of the French army created vacancies for experienced officers and de Souches used the opportunity to return home. He was unable to obtain a satisfactory position and returned to Sweden in August 1639, where he was promoted colonel of a regiment in the force that invaded Bohemia in early 1640.^[4] However, he later fell out with his superior officer whom he challenged to a duel in violation of military regulations; he resigned from the Swedish army in early 1642 and a few months later was appointed colonel in the Imperial army.^[5]

Over the next two years, de Souches took part in the 1643 invasion of Pomerania and an attack on the Swedish-held city of Olomouc in Moravia. Although both actions were unsuccessful, he impressed his superiors sufficiently to be given command of defending Brno in May 1645 against a force led by Lennart Torstensson; after a siege described as "one of the epic stands of the Imperial army", the Swedes retreated in August having lost 8,000 men.^[6] This contributed to the failure of Torstensson's attempt to attack Vienna and helped speed up peace negotiations at Westphalia.^[6] Until the end of the war, de Souches contributed to regaining Swedish-occupied cities in the Erblande like the capture of Jihlava in 1647.^[7]

De Souches was rewarded with promotion to the rank of general and granted lands outside Brno; when the war finally ended in 1648, he was placed in charge of supervising the withdrawal of Swedish troops from Moravia and made Governor of Špilberk Castle.^[8] In 1649, he was elevated to the Moravian nobility on condition he converted to Catholicism within the next three years.^[7]

Later career

In 1654, Sweden attacked the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, initiating the Second Northern War. When the fighting expanded to include Brandenburg-Prussia in 1657, Austria joined the anti-Swedish coalition. With de Souches in charge of the infantry, an army under Melchior von Hatzfeldt was sent to support Poland and helped recapture Kraków in August 1657. De Souches later commanded the Austrian contingent at the Siege of Toruń, whose Swedish garrison surrendered in December 1658.^[9] In 1659, he was given command of an army of 13,000 which invaded Swedish Pomerania and besieged Stettin; before the town fell, the Treaty of Oliva ended the war in May 1660, while de Souches quarrelled with his colleague Raimondo Montecuccoli and was ordered home to Moravia.^[10]

The 1663 to 1664 Austro-Turkish War began when Ottoman forces invaded Hungary and over-ran large parts of eastern and southern Moravia.^[11] Having successfully defended Brno and Olomouc, de Souches was promoted Field Marshall in May 1664 and given command of one of three separate forces operating in Hungary, with the other two led by Montecuccoli and Miklós Zrínyi. Although he won a minor victory at Levice in July 1664, while Montecuccoli stopped the main Ottoman advance at Saint Gotthard in August, Leopold was concerned by the expansionist policies of Louis XIV of France and agreed the Peace of Vasvár a few days later.^[12]

Špilberk Castle; rebuilt by de Souches as governor

In October 1664, de Souches was appointed Governor of Komárom, an important town on the modern Slovakian/Hungarian border, and spent the next few years supervising the construction of new fortifications there, as well as other towns in the region. He also became a member of the Hofkriegsrat, or Imperial War Council, although his duties were largely nominal.^[13] When Austria entered the Franco-Dutch War in 1673 as an ally of the Dutch Republic and Spain, he was appointed commander of Imperial troops in the Low Countries and took part in the Battle of Seneffe in August 1674. The Imperial troops suffered minimal casualties in what was the bloodiest battle of the war and his Allies subsequently claimed de Souches had ignored requests for support. One suggestion is he did so under instructions from Emperor Leopold, who wanted to conserve resources for the Rhineland campaign, which he viewed as having far greater strategic significance.^[14]

Shortly thereafter, the Allies attacked the town of Oudenarde; siege operations commenced on 16 September, and the French began marching to its relief three days later. The Dutch and Spanish redoubled efforts to breach the walls before their arrival, but without advising his colleagues, de Souches withdrew the Imperial artillery to Ghent. Since his troops would not fight without their guns, and the Dutch and Spanish could not face the French on their own, the Allies were forced to abandon the siege. After strong protests from the Dutch States General, supported by some of his Austrian colleagues, de Souches was relieved of his command.^[15] In December 1674, Emperor Leopold set up an enquiry into his conduct, which resulted in de Souches being dismissed from his remaining military positions.^[16] He retired to his estates at Jevišovice in Moravia, where he died on 12 August 1682 and was buried in the Church of St. James (Brno).^[17]

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Siege of La Rochelle

Siege of La Rochelle

The siege of La Rochelle was a result of a war between the French royal forces of Louis XIII of France and the Huguenots of La Rochelle in 1627–28. The siege marked the height of the struggle between the Catholics and the Protestants in France, and ended with a complete victory for King Louis XIII and the Catholics.

Huguenot rebellions

Huguenot rebellions

The Huguenot rebellions, sometimes called the Rohan Wars after the Huguenot leader Henri de Rohan, were a series of rebellions of the 1620s in which French Calvinist Protestants (Huguenots), mainly located in southwestern France, revolted against royal authority. The uprising occurred a decade after the death of Henry IV who, himself originally a Huguenot before converting to Catholicism, had protected Protestants through the Edict of Nantes. His successor Louis XIII, under the regency of his Italian Catholic mother Marie de' Medici, became more intolerant of Protestantism. The Huguenots tried to respond by defending themselves, establishing independent political and military structures, establishing diplomatic contacts with foreign powers, and openly revolting against central power. The Huguenot rebellions came after two decades of internal peace under Henry IV, following the intermittent French Wars of Religion of 1562–1598.

Gustavus Adolphus

Gustavus Adolphus

Gustavus Adolphus, also known in English as Gustav II Adolf or Gustav II Adolph, was King of Sweden from 1611 to 1632, and is credited with the rise of Sweden as a great European power. During his reign, Sweden became one of the primary military forces in Europe during the Thirty Years' War, helping to determine the political and religious balance of power in Europe. He was formally and posthumously given the name Gustavus Adolphus the Great by the Riksdag of the Estates in 1634.

Habsburg monarchy

Habsburg monarchy

The Habsburg monarchy, also known as the Danubian monarchy, or Habsburg Empire, was the collection of empires, kingdoms, duchies, counties and other polities that were ruled by the House of Habsburg, especially the dynasty's Austrian branch.

Brno

Brno

Brno is a city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava and Svratka rivers, Brno has about 380,000 inhabitants, making it the second-largest city in the Czech Republic after the capital, Prague, and one of the 100 largest cities of the EU. The Brno metropolitan area has almost 700,000 inhabitants.

Kingdom of France

Kingdom of France

The Kingdom of France is the historiographical name or umbrella term given to various political entities of France in the medieval and early modern period. It was one of the most powerful states in Europe since the High Middle Ages. It was also an early colonial power, with possessions around the world.

Colonel

Colonel

Colonel is a senior military officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations.

Bohemia

Bohemia

Bohemia is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohemian kings, including Moravia and Czech Silesia, in which case the smaller region is referred to as Bohemia proper as a means of distinction.

Duchy of Pomerania

Duchy of Pomerania

The Duchy of Pomerania was a duchy in Pomerania on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, ruled by dukes of the House of Pomerania (Griffins). The country had existed in the Middle Ages, in years 1121–1160, 1264–1295, 1478–1531 and 1625–1637.

Olomouc

Olomouc

Olomouc is a city in the Czech Republic. It has about 99,000 inhabitants, and its larger urban zone has a population of about 384,000 inhabitants (2019).

Moravia

Moravia

Moravia is a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic and one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia.

Lennart Torstensson

Lennart Torstensson

Lennart Torstensson, Count of Ortala, Baron of Virestad, was a Swedish Field Marshal and military engineer.