Gerhard von Scarnhorst (12 November 1755-28 June 1813) was a Prussian general who fought during the Napoleonic Wars. A brilliant commander, Scharnhorst was mortally wounded at the Battle of Gross-Gorschen (Lutzen) in 1813 and died during the Prussian Army's retreat to Prague.
Biography[]
Scharnhorst at the Battle of Odrzywol, 1805.
Gerhard von Scharnhorst was born in the German city of Bordenau, near the city of Hannover. In 1778 Scarnhorst joined the Hanoverian army and transferred to artillery in 1783, and he joined the Prussian army in 1801 after Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia gave him more pay and better rank. In 1805, Scharnhorst was appointed as the commander of Prussian forces in Warsaw and was wounded during the Bulkiewicz Revolt at the Battle of Odrzywol, during which he was an active combatant, riding to the endangered men on the left flank and rallying them when they were in peril from Polish melee charges (Scharnhorst was the last unit to retreat from the battlefield when his army was defeated). Scharnhorst later recuperated and was made a commander of the Prussian forces that fought in the Fourth Coalition during Prussia's involvement in Europe's Napoleonic Wars against France. He was wounded at the Battle of Auerstedt in 1806 and was awarded for service at the Battle of Eylau, and reluctantly served under Napoleon in the Russian Campaign of 1812. He was appointed as the aide-de-camp to King Friedrich Wilhelm, but Emperor Napoleon I of France was suspicious of his loyalties and refused to allow Von Scharnhorst to serve alongside his king.
At the Battle of Gross-Gorschen in 1813 Scarnhorst was shot in the foot, a wound that was made mortal by his constant walking and fatigue in the retreat to Prague.