Karl Heinrich von Nassau-Siegen (5 January 1743-10 April 1808) was an admiral of the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of France during the American Revolutionary War and Russo-Swedish War of 1788-1790.
Biography[]
Karl Heinrich von Nassau-Siegen was born on 5 January 1743, a bastard member of the ruling family of the principality of Nassau-Siegen in the Holy Roman Empire. Nassau-Siegen claimed that he was entitled to style himself as Prince of Nassau-Siegen, and he enlisted in the French Navy at the age of 15. In 1766, he joined Louis Antoine de Bougainville's expedition to explore the Indian Ocean and, in 1779, he was one of the commanders in a hastily-prepared attack on Jersey in the English Channel. Nassau-Siegen would later decide to enter the service of the Russian Empire, and in 1788 he defeated the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Ochakov (Fidonisi), and he won the Order of St. Andrew for his victory at the Battle of Svensksund in 1789 alongside John Paul Jones. In 1790, he was decisively defeated in a second battle at Svensksund, and in 1802 he returned to France. He died in 1808 in Podolia, Russia after he failed to gain a command in Napoleon's army.