Charles Alexander of Lorraine
Charles Alexander of Lorraine commanded Austria's armies against Frederick the Great for fifteen years and lost to him at Chotusitz, Hohenfriedberg, Soor and Leuthen, and was kept in command through all of it because he was the emperor's brother. He was born in 1712, the younger son of the Duke of Lorraine, and his elder brother Francis married Maria Theresa and became Holy Roman Emperor; Charles married her sister Maria Anna in 1744, which made him twice a member of the family that ruled the monarchy. He was given the army in Bohemia in 1742 and lost Chotusitz within weeks, crossed the Rhine into Alsace in 1744 in the campaign that alarmed France most, and was beaten at Hohenfriedberg and Soor in 1745 when Frederick returned to the war. The Netherlands were made his in the same year. He governed them from Brussels for thirty-six years, and the Brabanters, who had no reason to love Vienna, liked him, for his building, his festivals and his light hand. The Seven Years' War brought him back to the field, where in 1757 he was shut up in Prague by Frederick, relieved after Kolín, and then, in November, took Breslau and the whole of Silesia in a fortnight. On 5 December, six weeks after Rossbach, he drew up 65,000 men near the village of Leuthen and Frederick, with half that, marched across his front behind a line of hills, turned his left, and rolled the army up from the flank. Leuthen cost Austria Silesia for the last time and Charles his command. Maria Theresa removed him gently and did not give him another. He became Grand Master of the Teutonic Order in 1761 and went back to Brussels, where he died in 1780, and the city put up his statue, which stands in the Place du Musée. The Charles of Lorraine who commanded at the relief of Vienna in 1683 was his grandfather's cousin, Charles V, a different man and a better general.
- Lived: 1712 CE – 1780 CE
- Nationality: Austrian
- Roles: general, governor
