Friedrich Heinrich von Seckendorff (5 July 1673-23 November 1763) was a Field Marshal of the Holy Roman Empire and Bavaria.
Biography[]
Friedrich Heinrich von Seckendorff was born in Koenigsberg, Franconia in 1673, and he served in the Austrian, Venetian, Ansbacher, and Dutch militaries during the wars with France and Turkey from the 1690s to the 1700s. Seckendorff commanded Saxon troops during the Siege of Stralsund in 1715 during the Great Northern War, and he served under Eugene of Savoy during his 1718 campaign against the Turks at Belgrade before being ennobled for fighting against the Spanish in Sicily during the War of the Quadruple Alliance. Eugene helped Seckendorff become a successful diplomat, but he returned to the military in 1734 and defeated the French at Clausen in 1735 during the War of the Polish Succession, before serving as commander-in-chief in Hungary and being imprisoned at Graz for his failures against the Ottomans in 1737. Empress Maria Theresa released Seckendorff from prison in 1740, and he became a Field Marshal of the Bavarian army and repelled an Austrian invasion from Bohemia in 1743-1744 during the War of the Austrian Succession. He returned to Austrian service after Emperor Francis I of Germany restored all of Seckendorff's honors, but he was captured by the Prussians in 1758 during the Seven Years' War and was later exchanged for Prince Moritz of Anhalt-Dessau. He died at his estate in 1763.