The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica have written a series of mini-biographies. Here is an excerpt from Albert van Selden’s profile of Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher.

Those who have seen Mel Brooks’s film Young Frankenstein should recognize the name and already know that Blücher was notorious for abusing horses among his cavalry forces and in the stables of his various estates.

To learn more about him and other subjects, please click here.

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Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, Fürst (prince) von Wahlstatt, byname Marschall Vorwärts (“Marshal Forward”), (born December 16, 1742, Rostock, Mecklenburg [Germany]—died September 12, 1819, Krieblowitz, near Kanth, Silesia, Prussia [now Katy Wrocławskie, Poland]), Prussian field marshal, a commander during the Napoleonic Wars, who was important in the Allied victory at Waterloo.

Blücher enlisted in the Swedish cavalry in 1756 and served until he was captured in 1760 by the Prussians, for whom he thereafter fought. He distinguished himself against the French in 1793–94 and commanded the Prussian rear guard at the Battle of Jena (1806). Around this time he met Gerhard Johann David von Scharnhorst, who served as one of his principal staff officers until Scharnhorst’s death in June 1813. After the Peace of Tilsit (1807) Blücher was employed for a time in the War Department and then went into retirement.

In 1813, when war between France and Prussia broke out again, Blücher, then 71 years old, returned to active service. He took part in the battles of Lützen and Bautzen in May 1813, and three months later at Wahlstatt (Legnickie Pole), on the Katzbach (Kaczawa) River, he decisively defeated the French under Marshal Jacques-Alexandre Macdonald, capturing 18,000 prisoners and more than 100 guns. For his part in the Battle of Leipzig (October 1813) he was made a field marshal. After hard fighting he entered Paris with other victorious Allied commanders in May 1814. He then received his title of Prince of Wahlstatt and retired to his estates.

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