Friedrich von Veterani

Friedrich von Veterani
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Born	1643 Duchy of Urbino, Papal States
Died	September 21, 1695(1695-09-21) (aged 51–52) Lugoj, Habsburg Monarchy
Nationality	Austrian
Citizenship	Austria
Occupation	General of the Cavalry

Friedrich Ambros Veterani (Duchy of Urbino, Papal States, 1643 - Lugoj, Habsburg Monarchy, 21 September 1695) was an Austrian General of the Cavalry.

Biography

Of Italian birth, he joined the Austrian imperial army in his youth. During the second siege of Vienna, the colonel defended with a thousand cuirassiers a bridge over the Danube. He participated in several major campaigns. In 1684, he distinguished himself under the command of Marshal Antonio Caraffa during the battle for the fortress of Nové Zámky, where he freed regiments prisoners of Imre Thököly. The following year, Veterani contributes to the capture of Prešov and was promoted to Generalfeldwachtmeister. In 1686, he took Szeged. In 1688,he marched with his troops under the command of Louis William, Margrave of Baden-Baden along the right bank of the Danube to Belgrade. During the battle of Vidin in 1689, he was wounded by a musket ball and then led the capture of Niš. On 16 August 1690, he was appointed General der Kavallerie and later Field Marshall.He succeeded Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg with Louis William, Margrave of Baden-Baden.

In the spring of 1688, on Marshal Caraffa's instructions, he marched to Transylvania, conquering the Saxons without difficulty in Brasov. On 9 May, Transylvania surrendered, Veterani set up his headquarters in Sibiu as the commander of the Transylvanian army, from where he could control Transylvania and Muntenia and secure an offensive against Belgrade. He became a lieutenant general on July 13, 1688. In the Balkan campaign of 1688, under the command of Rev. Lajos Badeni, Commander-in-Chief, he and his troops marched on the right bank of the Danube to siege Belgrade. He did not take part in the siege of 1688, and with his troops, Constantin Brâncoveanu pushed Prince of the Highlands to neutrality.

The Balkan Campaign

In the spring of 1689, Veterani handed over the command of the Transylvanian forces to Lieutenant General Heissler. Veterani himself, however, marched with the main army to the Balkans. He took part in the Battle of Niš on 24 September 1689. On 15 October, during the siege of Vidin, he was severely wounded by a projectile of a musket, unable to take part in further fighting, so after Vidin's capitulation (October 19), in mid-November, he was appointed commander-in-chief of Fortress Niš. (The background of his appointment includes the fact that the appointed imperial commander of Niš, Lieutenant General Piccolomini marched towards Old Serbia, ie Kosovo, occupied Priština, reached Üszkübig (Skopje), but fell victim to the plague in Prizren on 9 November 1689.

In 1690, as commander of Niš, on 17 June, Veterani sent an overly optimistic report to Louis William, Margrave of Baden-Baden that he "had put everything in the best order in Serbia again; that the peoples of the Balkans were raising the masses against the Gate at the very first admonition and that he was occupying Constantinople with 12,000 men and expelling the Turks from Europe." Based on the overly-enthusiastic 13 August report, with his troops (6,700 infantry and 4,300 cavalry), he marched from Niš to Jagodina along the Morava River, the gathering place of the main army. His job was to fend off an attack on Niš or Vidin. Until the commander-in-chief arrived, he was in charge of the headquarters. To protect Niš, he left Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg with 4,000 men. Lieutenant General Heissler, who was in charge of defending Transylvania, stood at Caransebes with 3,000 cavalry. Only minimal guards were left in the Hungarian forts previously recaptured from the Turks, and only border guards and Serbian militia protected the Sava. Lieutenant General Veterani was appointed cavalry general on 16 August.

The Turkish attack began in July 1690. Attacking from the Törcsvári gorge, Imre Thököly smashed the Transylvanian defensive force in the battle of Zărnești on 21 August, Lieutenant General Heissler was taken prisoner, and the Transylvanian chief general Mihály Teleki fell. Turkish-Tatar armies looted Transylvania. The imperial main army had to march to liberate Transylvania. Mezzo Morto Hüseyin Pasha (“half-dead”) from Romania was able to successfully push upwards in the Danube Valley. On 29 August, he recaptured Vidin, then Kladovo, Orsova, Galambóc, and Ram's fortress. Veterani could not repel Grand Vizier Mustafa Köprülü, who also besieged Niš on 15 August. Starhemberg resisted for 24 days, but could not expect an exemption due to the retreat of the main army, so on 8 September, he gave up the castle. The Grand Vizier also took over Szendrő on 24 September and then Belgrade on 8 October, causing a general collapse.

In Transylvania, Louis William, Margrave of Baden-Baden started against the Tartar hordes and Thököly's troops. He left the imperial infantry in Transylvania under the command of General Veterani, he himself marched with cavalry through Cluj-Napoca and Satu Mare against the Tartars, who broke into Transylvania via Szilágysomlyo. The Seargent defeated them at Gyalu, while Veterani attacked and smashed Imre Thököly's army at Bran on 2 January 1691, and the prince barely escaped captivity. The Tartars were expelled from Transylvania towards Oradea and Thököly towards Havasalföld.

Commander of the Transylvanian Imperial Force

On 5 September 1691, Veterani managed to occupy Lippa Castle. He then focused on the strategic defense of Transylvania. He tried to prevent the Turks from advancing along the Danube. Imperial Captain D’Arnau discovered and surveyed a natural rock cavity called “Piskabara” on the shores of the Iron Gate (near the village of Dubova), which he fortified with Veteran’s fortifications. He deployed a 300-strong defense team behind the ramparts. On March 16, 1692, the Turks attacked the fortified cave. The first attack from the water was carried out by a 300-strong squadron reinforced with cannons, which was defended by the defenders. The Turks then launched a series of attacks from the mainland, already occupying the area above the cave, yet the small defensive army lasted for 45 days and only surrendered to the outpost at the end of May. To commemorate the fighting, this cave was then called the Veterani Cave. (It was the site of a similar heroic defense during the Habsburg-Turkish War of 1787-91. Due to a hydroelectric power plant built in the Iron Gate in the late 1960s, the cave was submerged and is no longer visible.)

In 1691, Veterani seized the fortress of Lipova in order to establish the defense of Transylvania against the Turks who committed several attacks. He chased them away each time and occupied the Banat, he fortified Caransebeș and Orşova. In September 1695, he took command of Lugoj where there were seven cavalry regiments (about 6500 men) and 800 infantry while awaiting an invasion by the Turks. Veterani was powerless against ten times the number of enemies. He was seriously injured, his soldiers tried to remove him from the battlefield, but he was caught and killed. Beheaded his body and head were brought to Sultan Moustafa II who asked for his body to be buried there.

During his reign, Emperor Franz Joseph celebrated his memory. He had a statue erected at the Vienna Military History Museum. The statue was created in 1867 by sculptor Karl Ludwig Costenoble, it was consecrated by the emperor himself.

Legacy

A Romanian cave is named after him. In the 18th century the cave knew an exciting period, when the Danube was the border of the two great empires of the time: on the left, on the Serbian side, under the Ottoman Empire, and on the other side, the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Austrians have thought that it would be good to find a strategic point on the Danube to stop the Turkish invasion in the Great Turkish War of 1663-1699. A cave was discovered where a military fortification was built and named the Veteranische-Höhle or Veteranova peštera (Veterani's Cave) — so-called in memory of General Veterani, the Austrian officer of distinction, who defended this pass against the Turks, at the close of the seventeenth.

Literature

• C. V. Duncker: Veterani, Friedrich Graf von. In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Band 39, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1895, S. 655–658.
• Geschichte der Veteranischen Höhle, 1789, Digitalisat

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