Louis Ferdinand, Prinz von Preussen (18 November 1772-10 October 1806) was a prince of Prussia and a general during the Napoleonic Wars. At the Battle of Saalfeld during the Fourth Coalition he was killed, stabbed in the chest during a cavalry charge.
Biography[]
Louis Ferdinand at the Battle of Aichach.
Ludwig Ferdinand was the nephew of Frederick the Great and a military commander for the Kingdom of Prussia. He was a cavalry commander, serving in the Siege of Mainz during the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793, in which he was wounded. In 1805, Prince Louis Ferdinand was the commander of the Prussian armies that conquered Saxony and Hessen to prevent France from having a chance of taking them over.
In 1806 he was an advocate of continuing the war with the French Empire after the Prussians were defeated in the Second Coalition of 1800, which started the Fourth Coalition war. Louis Ferdinand scored an amazing victory over the French at the Battle of Aichach in late January 1806, resulting in his capture of Munich from the Confederation of the Rhine and the Prussian occupation of Bavaria as a new province of their expanding Germanic kingdom. He also captured Innsbruck later in the year, handing it over to the Austrian Empire to avoid the high possibility of anti-Prussian rebellion in the province.
Death at Saalfeld[]
Later, Louis Ferdinand took his chance at the Battle of Saalfeld in October 1806, planning to stop the French from invading Germany. Jean Lannes' V Corps broke out of the Thuringian Forest of Saxony, Louis Ferdinand led an army to defeat him before he could march on the Prussian capital city of Berlin. Since the French had the high ground and superior numbers, the Prussian army started to rout and withdraw, so Louis rallied his men with his war trumpet. He and his bodyguards charged into the battlefield which was clearly a losing battle for Prussia, and 10th Hussars Quartermaster Guindet attempted to convince the prince to surrender. When he refused, Guindet ran him through with a sword through the heart. His death was deeply felt, as he was a high member of the Prussian court.