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Prince Bernhard
Born	(1792-05-30)30 May 1792 Weimar
Died	31 July 1862(1862-07-31) (aged 70) Schloss Belvedere, Weimar
Spouse	Princess Ida of Saxe-Meiningen ​ ​(m. 1816; died 1852)​
Issue	Princess Luise Wilhelmine Prince Wilhelm Carl Princess Amalie Auguste Prince Edward Prince Hermann Prince Frederick Gustav Princess Anna Amalia, Princess Henry of the Netherlands
Names Charles Bernhard
House	Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach
Father	Charles Augustus, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach
Mother	Princess Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt

Prince Carl Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (30 May 1792 – 31 July 1862) was a distinguished soldier, who, in 1815, after the congress of Vienna, became colonel of a regiment in the service of the king of the Netherlands. He fought at the Battle of Quatre Bras and the Battle of Waterloo where he commanded the 2nd Brigade of the 2nd Dutch Division, and later became a Chief Commander of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army.

Early life

Prince Bernhard, the seventh child of Charles Augustus, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, was born on 30 May 1792 in Weimar. He enlisted in the Prussian army and in 1806 he fought in the army of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen. By 1809 he had enlisted in the Saxon army and he fought under Marshal Bernadotte at Wagram.

Waterloo campaign

Prince Bernhard's 2nd Brigade of the 2nd Dutch Division (Sedlnitsky) was the first of the Duke of Wellington's forces to arrive at the cross roads of Quatre Bras. Prince Bernhard's brigade (joined later by the 1st Brigade,) held the cross roads at Quatre Bras for almost 24 hours from the late afternoon of 15 June 1815, until about 3 p.m. on the 16 June, preventing Marshal Michel Ney with the left wing of the French L'Armée du Nord from taking the cross roads before the Duke of Wellington and substantial allied forces arrived to reinforce the 2nd Division and fight the Battle of Quatre Bras. The successful holding action by the two brigades of the Dutch 2nd Division was one of the most important actions by any of the coalition brigades in the whole of the Waterloo Campaign.

At the Battle of Waterloo Prince Bernhard commanded the allied forces holding the farms of Papelotte, Frischermont and La Haie on the extreme left of the Duke of Wellington's line of battle. They were strategically important, not just because if the forces holding these positions gave way then the French could out flank Wellington, but because it was from that direction that Wellington expected and received Prussian support. Though in the course of the battle Durutte's 4th French Division obtained a temporary foothold in Papelotte, it was never captured

Commander of the Dutch East Indies Army

Bernhard was appointed commander of the Dutch East Indies Army on December 6, 1848, and arrived on April 14, 1849, in Java. Barely a few weeks after his arrival, the commander of the third Balinese expedition, General Andreas Victor Michiels was killed at Kasumba; and Saxe-Weimar offered to the Governor-General to take over the leadership of the expedition, acting according to the rules that had been given to General Michiels. In the winter of 1849 he was promoted to general of the infantry and three years later (1852) he returned to the Netherlands, for his health, after many improvements and having accomplished to restore the East Indies army. He received on October 5, 1853, an honorable retirement.

Later life and family

Prince Bernhard traveled extensively in the United States in 1825–26. A heavily edited account of his travels, Reise seiner Hoheit des Herzogs Bernhard zu Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach durch Nord-Amerika, was published by the historian Heinrich Luden in 1828. The work was translated into English and published in Philadelphia, also in 1828, as Travels through North America, during the Years 1825 and 1826. A critical edition of the original manuscript became available in 2017.

In the years after Waterloo, Bernhard distinguished himself as commander of a Dutch Division in the Belgian campaign of 1831 (the Ten Days Campaign), and from 1847 to 1850 held the command of the forces in the Dutch East Indies. He died 21 July 1862 in Liebenstein.

He married Princess Ida of Saxe-Meiningen, daughter of Georg I, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, on 30 May 1816 in Meiningen. Prince Bernhard's son, William Augustus Edward, known as Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar (1823–1902), entered the British army, served with much distinction in the Crimean War, became colonel of the 1st Life Guards, and later a British Field Marshal.

His daughter Amalia married Prince Henry of the Netherlands.

His granddaughter Pauline of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (through his son Prince Hermann) married Charles Augustus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.

His residence in Batavia (now Jakarta) was later used for sessions of the Volksraad quasi-legislature of the Dutch East Indies and the Investigating Committee for Preparatory Work for Independence (BPUPK). Now owned by the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it is preserved as the Pancasila Building.

Honours

He received the following orders and decorations:

•  Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach: Grand Cross of the White Falcon, 15 December 1815
•  Kingdom of Saxony:
  • Knight of the Military Order of St. Henry, 1809; Grand Cross, 1857
  • Knight of the Rue Crown, 1827
•  Netherlands:
  • Knight of the Military William Order, 3rd Class, 8 July 1815; Commander, 24 May 1821; Grand Cross, 8 October 1842
  • Grand Cross of the Netherlands Lion
•  Luxembourg: Grand Cross of the Oak Crown
•  United Kingdom: Honorary Grand Cross of the Bath (military), 22 July 1830
• Ernestine duchies: Grand Cross of the Saxe-Ernestine House Order, September 1835
•  Württemberg: Grand Cross of the Württemberg Crown, 1835
•  Russian Empire:
  • Knight of St. Andrew, 1837
  • Knight of St. Alexander Nevsky
  • Knight of St. Anna, 1st Class
  • Knight of the White Eagle
•  Grand Duchy of Hesse: Grand Cross of the Ludwig Order, 23 May 1840
• Kingdom of Prussia:
  • Knight of the Black Eagle, 26 June 1841
  • Grand Cross of the Red Eagle
• Kingdom of France: Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, June 1842
•  Baden:
  • Knight of the House Order of Fidelity, 1844
  • Grand Cross of the Zähringer Lion, 1844
•  Brunswick: Grand Cross of the Order of Henry the Lion
•  Nassau: Knight of the Gold Lion of Nassau, September 1858

Ancestry

References

1. ^ Jens Verner Nielsen. "Descendants of Hans den Yngre af Sønderborg Ninth Generation". Retrieved 2009-09-18.
2. ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Charles Augustus" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 5 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 940.
3. The Battle of Waterloo Archived 2001-08-03 at the Wayback Machine
4. N. Gash. "Wellington and the Waterloo campaign" (PDF).
5. Heuken, Adolf (2000). Historical Sites of Jakarta (6th ed.). Jakarta, Indonesia: Cipta Loka Caraka. pp. 205–209.
6. Staatshandbuch für das Großherzogtum Sachsen / Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach (1859), "Genealogie" pp. 5-6
7. Staatshandbuch für das Großherzogtum Sachsen / Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach (1859), "Großherzoglicher Hausorden" p. 10
8. Staatshandbuch für den Freistaat Sachsen: 1845. Heinrich. 1845. pp. 4–5.
9. Staatshandbuch für den Freistaat Sachsen: 1858. Heinrich. 1858. p. 11.
10. "Militaire Willems-Orde: Saxen-Weimar-Eisenach, Karl Bernhard Herzog von" [Military William Order: Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Charles Bernhard Duke of]. Ministerie van Defensie (in Dutch). 8 July 1815. Retrieved 6 August 2020.
11. "Militaire Willems-Orde: Saxen-Weimar-Eisenach, Karl Bernhard Herzog von" [Military William Order: Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Charles Bernhard Duke of]. Ministerie van Defensie (in Dutch). 24 May 1815. Retrieved 6 August 2020.
12. "Militaire Willems-Orde: Saxen-Weimar-Eisenach, Karl Bernhard Herzog von" [Military William Order: Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Charles Bernhard Duke of]. Ministerie van Defensie (in Dutch). 8 October 1842. Retrieved 6 August 2020.
13. Shaw, Wm. A. (1906) The Knights of England, I, London, p. 186
14. Staatshandbücher für das Herzogtum Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha (1847), "Herzogliche Sachsen-Ernestinischer Hausorden" p. 24
15. Württemberg (1858). Königlich-Württembergisches Hof- und Staats-Handbuch: 1858. Guttenberg. p. 31.
16. Hessen-Darmstadt (1860). Hof- und Staatshandbuch des Großherzogtums Hessen: für das Jahr ... 1860. Staatsverl. p. 8.
17. Liste der Ritter des Königlich Preußischen Hohen Ordens vom Schwarzen Adler (1851), "Von Seiner Majestät dem Könige Friedrich Wilhelm IV. ernannte Ritter" p. 21
18. M. & B. Wattel (2009). Les Grand'Croix de la Légion d'honneur de 1805 à nos jours. Titulaires français et étrangers. Paris: Archives & Culture. p. 523. ISBN 978-2-35077-135-9.
19. Hof- und Staats-Handbuch des Großherzogtum Baden (1858), "Großherzogliche Orden" pp. 33, 47
20. Staats- und Adreß-Handbuch des Herzogthums Nassau (1862), "Herzogliche Orden" p. 8

Further reading

• Pierre de Wite
• june/qb.1.pdf The prince of Orange at Quatre Bras and the order of battle of the 2nd Dutch division gives a description of Prince Bernhard's actions at Quatre Bras
• Karl-Bernhard von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach. Herzog Bernhard von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach: Das Tagebuch der Reise durch Nord-Amerika in den Jahren 1825 und 1826, edited by Walter Hinderer and Alexander Rosenbaum. Stiftung für Romantikforschung LX. Königshausen und Neumann, 2017. ISBN 978-3826060519

• 1792 births
• 1862 deaths
• German military personnel of the Napoleonic Wars
• Dutch military commanders of the Napoleonic Wars
• Royal Netherlands East Indies Army generals
• Military personnel from Weimar
• House of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach
• People from Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach
• People of the Battle of Waterloo
• Knights Grand Cross of the Military Order of William
• Recipients of the Order of the Netherlands Lion
• Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour
• Honorary Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath
• Nobility from Weimar
• Sons of dukes