Karl Baron of Urban | |
|---|---|
 Karl von Urban, circa 1857 | |
| Native name | Karl Freiherr von Urban |
| Born | 31 August 1802 Kraków, Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, Austrian Empire |
| Died | 1 January 1877 Brünn, Margraviate of Moravia, Austria-Hungary |
| Allegiance |  Austrian Empire |
| Service/ | Imperial and Royal Army |
| Years of service | 1815-1865 |
| Rank | Feldmarschall-leutnant (Field Marshal-Lieutenant) |
| Commands held |
|
| Battles/wars | Revolution in Sardinia-Piedmont
Second Italian War of Independence
|
Karl (Carl) Freiherr von Urban (English: Karl Baron of Urban; Hungarian: Báró Urban Károly; French: Baron Carl d'Urban; born 31 August 1802 in Kraków - died 1 January 1877 in Brünn) was an Austrian Field Marshal-Lieutenant celebrated for his daring tactics of lightning surprise attacks, often against much stronger forces, which earned him the epithet of Austrian Garibaldi.
He is particularly distinguished for his decisive actions during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848-1849, and his participation in the Second Italian War of Independence in 1859. Von Urban was the first commander to make a stand against the Revolution in Hungary, organizing the resistance and defending minorities. He captured Klausenburg, the capital of Transylvania, twice.
Karl von Urban was born in Krakow, at the time part of the Austrian Empire, to a Sudeten German family of officers who served the Imperial Army. He received his education at the Cadet Academy of Olmütz (Olomouc) and enrolled in the Imperial and Royal Army on 1st November 1815, being assigned to the 29th Infantry Regiment.[1]
When the Revolution erupted in the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont in 1821, the Quintuple Alliance was assembled at the Congress of Laibach and Prince Metternich decided to intervene to restore the legitimate government. At the time a young cadet corporal,[1] Urban was selected to integrate the Austrian expeditionary force sent in the name of the Holy Alliance and underwent his baptism of fire at the Battle of Novara on 8 April.[2]
After Novara, Urban's progress in the ranks of the Army was meteoric and he performed a variety of prestigious roles. This swift progress was attributed to his strong expertise and remarkable adaptability.[1] He was promoted to Ensign in 1823 and, upon his appointment as Second-Lieutenant in 1828, he was transferred to the 59th Infantry Regiment. Urban was attached to this unit for sixteen years until his promotion to Major in 1844, when he was assigned to the 13th Border Infantry Regiment.[3]
From 1828 to 1835 Karl von Urban was the Adjutant to the Military Command in Moravia and Silesia, with its headquarter in Olmütz, where he acquired experience in leadership and politics that would be later put to practice with efficacy. He then took up the position of head and instructor at the Regimental Cadet School,[2] where he shared many new ideas of war of movement with Joseph Radetzky.[4]
He participated in the military survey of the Inn Valley in Tyrol in the years 1837-1839 and, from 1843, Urban served as assistant to the General-Command Adjutant of the province of Banat. In 1845 he was named the General-Command Adjutant of the Military Government in the same province, a position he held for two years.[1]
In 1847, Urban was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel and was soon transferred to the 2nd Romanian Border Regiment in the Transylvanian Military Frontier. It was in this position that he found himself caught up by the Revolutionary storm that soon spread to Hungary and across the Austrian Empire during the fateful month of March 1848.[2]
A staunch defender of the Habsburg monarchy and of the ethnic minorities oppressed by the revolutionary movement, Karl von Urban was the first military commander to make a stand against the Revolution in Hungary.[5] He opened a second front on the rearguard of the revolutionary forces and his actions were strategic to boost the morale of the Imperial camp, hence to the ultimate defeat of the Revolution, which threatened the very existence of the Austrian Empire.
Karl von Urban's leadership against the Revolution derived from his support for the rights of minorities oppressed by the Revolutionary movement, specially Romanians, as well as by his challenge against the cooptation of the Austrian Imperial and Royal Army by the Revolutionary government.[6][2]
Tensions started to brew in the Principality of Transylvania and across the Empire when the Hungarian revolutionary government passed the April Laws, which annexed the multi-ethnic Transylvania into Hungary. The Revolution further refused to grant equal rights to the Romanian and German minorities in the region.[6][7][8]
The situation was exacerbated on 11 July 1848, when the parliament in Budapest enacted the law creating the Hungarian Revolutionary Army, the Honvédség, and implementing mass conscription. The conscription included men from all ethnicities, which aggravated the minorities, not consulted in the process. Furthermore, the minorities were exasperated by the summary executions and massacres of Romanians by Revolutionary units and tribunals on the orders of the government in Pest, mostly for refusing forced conscription.[7]
Besides that, the July law also incorporated several units of the Austrian Imperial and Royal army into the Honvédség and ordered them to implement both the conscription and the punishments on the population. Every military personnel was also obliged to make an oath of allegiance to the April Laws.[6][8]
In this context of increasing tensions, Karl von Urban's first public defiance against the Revolution was a speech directed to his troops. During the mobilization of the first battalion of his regiment, Urban addressed the soldiers in Romanian, their native language, exhorting them to remain faithful to the Imperial House and their oath. He urged them to refuse to swear the mandatory allegiance to the April Laws - and thus to the Revolution.[2]
Von Urban then summoned leaders of all 44 districts of the Principality to his headquarters in Naszód (Năsăud) for a General Assembly on 10 September 1848. The villages and cities responded enthusiastically, sending hundreds of delegates backed by the local leaderships, with the travel expenses afforded by the communities' collective suport.[6]
At the Assembly, Karl von Urban offered protection both to villages that rejected forced conscription and to the landowners who feared a peasant uprising. He then administered the oath of allegiance to the hundreds of peasants and village delegates.[6] Finally he denounced the Revolution in a Memorandum widely distributed.[8]
Urban's impactful actions resulted in 918 communities in the region withdrawing their support from the Revolution and embracing the Imperial and Counter-revolutionary cause by the conclusion of September. This proved to be a fatal blow to the revolutionary party's power and influence, effectively thwarting the plans of the Revolution to conduct mass recruitment for the new Revolutionary Army in Transylvania.[9]
Without communication with the Headquarters in Vienna and operating without directives or logistic support - since Vienna at the time was taken by a revolutionary upheaval - Urban initiated preparatives for the looming conflict: he organized the Romanian national militia and prepared his small force of Grenz Infantry for the herculean challenge of fighting the Revolution.[9]
Despite the presence of six higher-ranking generals in the region, Lieutenant-Colonel Urban was appointed the Strategic Commander in northern Transylvania on October 1848 by the War Minister Count von Latour, with the instruction to "trust himself and his judgment".[9] Simultaneously, he moved with his troops to Sächsisch Regen (Reghin/Szászrégen), in order to attract the Revolutionary Army and enable the troops in the southern part of Transylvania to concentrate and gather resources.[10]
The war against the Hungarian Revolutionary Government was officially declared after the assassination in Pest of Count von Lamberg, appointed by Vienna as military commander and palatine for Hungary, by a mob of revolutionaries on 28 October 1848. However, skirmishes between the revolutionary National Guard and the Austrian troops under Von Urban had already commenced on October 22.[9]
Despite being vastly outnumbered, Von Urban was determined to fight. On 31 October 1848, he and his 1.200 men faced the revolutionary National Guard, numbered over 12.000 and formed mostly by Szeklers, in an intense reconnaissance engagement at Voivodeni (Vajda-szent-ivány/Johannisdorf).[8] In this first major encounter with the revolutionary army, Urban was forced to pull back to Wallendorf and wait for reinforcements.[9]
With the joint forces of his Romanian Infantry Regiment and the reinforcement of the Wardener Brigade, Urban now could count with 3.000 men. Despite still being vastly outnumbered, he considered himself ready to go on the offensive.[9]
Firstly he conquered Dej (Dés/Desch) after combat on November 10 and occupied Gherla (Szamos-Ujvár/Neuschloss) on November 11. Then Urban, again standing alone with his regiment and departed from the Wardener Brigade, attracted the revolutionary army stationed in Klausenburg with a surprise and daring maneuver. At the Battle of Szamos-Ujvár that followed on 13 November 1848, Karl von Urban engaged with his small force of 1.200 the 4.000-strong Hungarian Revolutionary Army led by Baron Manó Baldacci, the Hungarian commander-in-chief in Transylvania.[6] Urban won a brilliant victory, decisively defeating the enemy, who disbanded in a rout.[9][11]
With this success at Gherla, Lieutenant-Colonel Urban set off to capture Klausenburg (Cluj-Napoca/Kolozsvár), the capital of the Principality of Transylvania. He reached the nearby village of Apahida (Bruckendorf) on November 15, which he would use as bridgehead to launch the attack.[12][11]
Urban's columns stormed the city through a narrow road while enduring heavy crossfire from well defended Hungarian positions. Facing a bayonet charge by the Hungarians, the Austrians hesitated and lost momentum at a certain point, however the Lieutenant-Colonel, employing his reserves, pressed on for a renewed attack, which was successful.[12] The authorities of the city then sent a delegation and surrendered the city, signing a formal agreement with Urban on 17 November. Klausenburg was captured by Karl von Urban for the first time on 18 November 1848.[13][6][10][11]
Meanwhile, the revolutionaries had recaptured Dej (Dés/Desch). Katona Miklós, the Hungarian commander, probably did not anticipate an attack from Urban and his single regular brigade. However, the Austrian Lieutenant-Colonel held a different opinion. In a war council in Klausenburg, he offered to retake the city.[12]
At the Battle of Dés on November 24, Urban launched a storming attack from two flanks with his 2.300 infantry and 150 cavalry against 10.000 enemy force armed with 16 cannons, allowing Katona barely enough time to fire a few of his artillery pieces. During this engagement, Urban's cavalry charged into the ranks of the insurgents, plunging them into great disarray. They fled into the mountains, pursued by Urban for seven hours.[12]
Urban, promoted to the rank of Colonel on December 1st, was by now renowned for his remarkable military feats. He had captured the entirety of northern Transylvania and defeated the enemy with a forces at his disposal of only 1.200 to 3.000 men.
In response to this triumph, the High Command in Vienna formulated a strategy to launch an attack on two fronts against the revolutionary forces entrenched in the heartland of Hungary. As part of this plan, Colonel Urban was ordered to cross the challenging Ciucea Pass (Csucsa/Tschetsch Pass) that traditionally served as a divider between Transylvania and the expansive Great Hungarian Plains.[12]
Simultaneously, the new leader of the revolutionary government Lajos Kossuth, recognizing the threat posed by Urban, decided to form a new army aimed at destroying Urban’s forces and retaking Transylvania.[8] Kossuth entrusted the new army to the Polish general József Bem, who promtly organized his heavily armed force of 12,150 infantry, 2,385 cavalry and 24 cannons in three columns. He then set to invade the Principality on December 20.[6][14]
This situation led to the Battle of the Ciucea Pass, where Urban's contingent, consisting of 1,200 men, faced the daunting task of forcing their way through a significantly larger Hungarian column led by the Colonel Károly Riczkó, which boasted 4,000 soldiers.[6]
The battle, marked by its intensity and scale, spanned two consecutive days - December 18 and 19. Despite a monumental and valiant effort, Urban’s forces were unable to break through the formidable enemy lines in the narrow pass. Realizing the futility of continued combat under these circumstances, Urban made the decision to retreat to Klausenburg. However, before withdrawing, he achieved a significant feat by capturing the treasury of the Hungarian army, marking a strategic victory despite the tactical retreat.[12]
Urban now faced the threat of encirclement and destruction by Bem's three army columns that advanced rapidly in his direction. He managed to deceive this fate by employing audacious flanking movements and breaking through the enemy's encirclement at Apahida, then retreating north-eastwards in a forced march to the province of Bukovina.[15] Klausenburg fell on the 25th December.[8]
During the forced march, Von Urban fought an exhilarating series of consecutive defensive battles: at Bethlen (Beclean) on December 29, at Szeretfalva (Sărățel) on January 1, 1849, at Bistritz (Bistrița) on January 2, at the Borgo Pass (Pasul Tihuța) on January 4, and finally at Vátra-Dorna (Vatra Dornei) on January 5.[8][15]
Urban consistently defended himself against significant superiority in numbers and fire power. Avoiding encirclement and capture, he finally reached Bukovina successfully and received, as his new mission under the command of Field Marshal-Lieutenant Ignaz Malkowsky, the defense of this province from enemy invasion.[15]
Notwithstanding being denied reinforcements after repeated requests to Malkowsky, Karl von Urban challenged explicit orders to the contrary and decided to launch an audacious surprise attack on the revolutionary forces, in order to boost the morale of his troops and in preparation for a larger offensive. The revolutionary outpost in Marossény (Marosborgó / Mureșenii Bârgăului), deep inside enemy's territory in Transylvania, was chosen as target for the dangerous mission.[16][15]
On February 4, Colonel Urban assembled a force of 900 men, most of them volunteers, in Poiana Stampei (Pojana-Stampi) and at 7 o'clock in the morning of February 5, Urban departed from Bukovina leading his men to cross the Carpathian Mountains. The journey was a challenging endeavor, with the troops crossing through deep snow covered unmarked paths, steep mountain terrain and virgin forests, amidst temperatures as low as 24 Celsius below freezing. After a grueling 20-hour day and night march, Urban reached the road between Borgótiha and Marossény on the morning of February 6.[15][17][16]
Approaching Marossény, the Austrians managed to take successive sentries by surprise and disarm them. Colonel Urban, leading at the front, directed the surprise attack in complete silence, encircling the Revolutionary forces under the command of Captain Kofler. Within 15 minutes of entering the village, the mission was accomplished; the surprise attack succeeded without noise or a single shot being fired.[17][15]
With no losses, the Austrian force captured the outpost commander, 11 officers, 3 infantry battalions, 44 hussars, two cannons and 74 horses with all the enemy's baggage, ammunition and weapons. Following the successful completion of his mission, Urban returned to Poiana Stampei on the same day.[15][17][16]
For this heroic act, Urban was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Military Order of Maria Theresa, Austria's highest honour, at the 153rd promotion of the Order on July 29, 1849.[18][10]
In the fledgling Summer campaign of 1849 initiated in June, Russia aligned with Austria to defeat the Revolution in Hungary and Transylvania. In the scope of the offensive to reconquer Transylvania led by the Russian General Alexander von Lüders, Colonel Karl Urban assumed the pivotal role of vanguard commander alongside the Russian army corps of General Magnus Johann von Grotenhjelm.[19]
In this role, Karl von Urban conquered Târgu Mureș (Maros-vásárhely) on August 2 and, on August 15, he achieved the capture of Klausenburg for the second and final time. After this triumph, Urban launched on the following day a concerted offensive westwards, taking Gyalu (Gilău), Szárvásár (Izvoru Crișului) and Bánffy-Hunyad (Huedin) on the same day.[19]
Urban then led his forces in an endeavor to traverse the Ciucea Pass (Csúcsa Pass) on August 17. This time he successfully defeated the enemy and crossed into the Great Hungarian Plain.[19]
August 18 marked Urban's advance on Zsibó (Jibou), where he relentlessly pursued the 6,000 insurgents who had not yet surrendered in that vicinity. While swiftly pursuing the enemy, Urban also captured the cities of Nagy-Bánya (Baia Mare) and Sziget, preserving their treasuries from the threat of looting.[20]
Upon the conclusion of the campaign in Hungary, Urban served as the Military Commander of Transylvania for over a year, with his headquarters in Klausenburg, the city he had captured two times. He was promoted to Major-General on June 1850.[3][21][10]
Von Urban distinguished himself as the Military Commander by vigorously protecting the Hungarian population and settlements, previously supporters of the Revolution, from the excesses of a Romanian peasant uprising that targeted them. In this role he saved Dés (Dej), Szamos-Ujvár (Gherla), and Klausenburg from the threat of destruction.[21]
His commitment to reestablish the rule of law across the country and to protect Magyars against reprisals marked the beginning of the reconciliation between the Transylvanian Hungarians and the Empire.[4] For these actions of valour and in recognition of his efforts to preserve their city and their rights, he was granted the Honorary Citizenship by the citizens of Klausenburg, which at the time was majoritarily ethnic Hungarian.[6][21]
On November 1853, he was appointed the Adlatus (adjutant) to the Gendarmerie Commander of Austria[10] and, on April 1854, Urban became brigadier of infantry, a position he held for three and half years.[3][22]
Von Urban was promoted to the rank of Feldmarschall-leutnant (Field Marshal-Lieutenant) on September 1857,[3][22] becoming a division commander in the 7th Army Corps.[21]
During the Italian Campaign of 1859, Karl von Urban commanded the IX. Army Corps, an independent mobile division also known as Division Urban or Urban' Flying Corps, consisting of 11.500 men organized in three brigades (Rupprecht, Augustin and Schaffgotsche). His initial mission was to guarantee the order in Lombardy behind the frontlines and his division was ready to be deployed anywhere in the province within 24 hours.[23][24]
Urban was responsible for the only Austrian victories in this war and in no less than four occasions the Austrian Garibaldi[25] fought against the Italian Garibaldi, resulting in a draw of two victories for each commander.
At the reconnaissance Battle of Montebello on May 20, the first in the conflict, Urban faced the French and Sardinian Armies. Despite being outnumbered in men and firepower, he managed to resist the enemy's assaults for nine hours, only retreating with the arrival of the Sardinian Cavalry.[26]
For his bravery and great ability displayed during this battle, Karl von Urban was distinguished with the highest honour: the expression of the utmost satisfaction by the Emperor Franz Joseph, conveyed to him on June 2.[3][27][22]
After Montebello, Urban was sent with his Flying Corps by Count Ferenc Gyulay, the Imperial Regent of Lombardy, to the city of Varese, which had been occupied by Giuseppe Garibaldi's Hunters of the Alps (Cacciatori delle Alpi) on May 23. Urban's task was to check Garibaldi's advance, which threatened the Austrian right flank.[28]
Before proceeding to Varese, Urban divided his forces at the city of Como. Two columns were dispatched northward while other two under his command approached Varese from the south. The envisaged tactical objective was to encircle and launch a coordinated attack upon the Hunters of the Alps from two directions.
In the early hours of May 26 he arrived in the vicinity of Varese. However, the northern force failed to arrive timely and Urban was compelled to attack 3.000 Alpine Hunters - further reinforced by the Civil Guard - with a comparatively modest column of mere 2.000 men.[25][29] After three days of preparations, Garibaldi's force was by this time well entrenched in two robust defensive lines. At the ensuing Battle of Varese, the Austrian's initial attack was repulsed and Urban quickly realized that he was facing a well defended and numerically superior enemy. Prudently he decided to execute a tactical retreat to Como via the villages of Malnate and Binago.[30]
The Hunter of the Alps, motivated by the initial victory at Varese, started a relentless pursuit of the retreating Austrian contingent. At the elevated San Salvatore hights, near Binago, Von Urban deployed his units in a formidable barrier across a deep gorge to confront the impending assault. The resultant engagement was a victory for Urban.[31] The Austrians successfully rebuffed two determined infantry charges launched by Garibaldi, compelling the later to withdraw to Varese with his men. Subsequent to the battle, Urban continued his orderly retreat to the city of Como.
In order to defend Como from the expected attack by the Hunters of the Alps, Urban concentrated most of his forces in Camerlata, a suburb of Como on the main road from Varese, and deployed two Hungarian battalions at the elevated pass of San Fermo, which overlooked the city.[30]
On May 27, however, Garibaldi attacked with the bulk of his forces through San Fermo, overrunning the Hungarian defenses. The Field Marshal ordered counter-attacks to regain the position, but the troops were unable to dislodge the enemy positioned on higher ground.[32]
Von Urban then decided to leave Como and retreat to Monza, in order to assemble the entirety of his regiments. Great part of his forces were absent, thus unable to take part in the Battles of Varese and San Fermo. The regroupment of the Division would provide him numerical superiority.[33]
After reuniting his three regiments Rupprecht, Augustin and Schaffgotsche at Monza, Urban marched again on Varese on May 31 with a force of 4.000 men, captured the city and encircled Garibaldi. However Garibaldi refused to give combat, preferring to escape to the security of mount Campo dei Fiori, from where he overlooked Urban and his troops amassed in Varese without interfering.[30]
On May 1st, however, Von Urban was recalled by Gyulay and had to cease his pursuit of the Hunters of the Alps.[29] After Gyulay's defeat at the Battle of Palestro the previous day, the advance of the Franco-Sardinian armies put Urban at risk of being cut off.[13]
In the aftermath of the Battle of Magenta on June 5, Von Urban was charged with the rear-guard defense of the retreating Austrian Army, which was falling back to the defensive position of the River Mincio and the fortresses of the Quadrilatero. Urban eluded the threat to his flank by conducting a forced march and successfully reached the Mincio through arduous and bloody rear-guard actions.[34]
The Battle of Treponti (also known as Battle of Castenedolo), on June 15, was the fourth and final encounter between Karl von Urban and Giuseppe Garibaldi during the conflict. Urban employed a cunning stratagem that led to his victory over Garibaldi. At this juncture, Garibaldi was pursuing the retreating Austrian forces with a formidable contingent that had increased from 3.000 to around 12,000 volunteers.[30]
Field Marshal Von Urban orchestrated a sequence of events designed to entice Garibaldi into a trap, with an attack on the Italian positions at Treponti executed by elements of the Rupprecht Brigade. The Hunters of the Alps, eager to confront the challenge, took the bait and launched an assault en force against the Division Urban, strategically positioned in proximity to Castenedolo.[35]
Having successfully breached the initial Austrian lines of defense, the Italian forces soon found themselves entrapped, surrounded from three directions, and subjected to relentless and withering enemy fire. Von Urban had strategically positioned his central forces upon a plateau, in an impregnable fortified semi-circular formation. As the Italian forces discovered themselves entrapped within this intricate web, Von Urban executed a meticulously coordinated maneuver, ordering an attack in pincers by his right and left flanks.[35]
Confronted by this relentless onslaught and entrapped within the tactical scheme, the Italian forces were compelled to retreat in a disorderly rout, retracing their steps in a desperate effort to regain their initial positions. Despite Garibaldi's energetic efforts to quell the rout and reorganize the remnants of his forces for a renewed offensive, his second attack met again with failure and he executed a retreat to Brescia[35][36]
After the triumph of Treponti, Von Urban was appointed supreme commander over Verona,[13] the Imperial Headquarters and main fortress of the Quadrilateral, the Austrian strategic defensive system in Italy. He kept this command until July 13, after the war had ended.[3][22]
Following the Battle of Solferino and the Peace of Villafranca, Field Marshal Karl von Urban was assigned commander of the 4th Army Corps in Brünn, Bohemia.[34] He was then commissioned to the Military General-Command for Moravia and Silesia on February 1862, a post he held until his retirement on 1 May 1865.[10]
On January 1, 1877, in the late morning hours, Karl von Urban requisitioned a carriage and directed the coachman to transport him to the garrison hospital. As the carriage was passing under the Obrowitz Bridge during the journey, a gunshot was discerned by the coachman, who, however, did not accord it significant attention. Upon arrival at the hospital and subsequent opening of the carriage, it was discovered that the 74-year-old Field Marshal had passed away. Speculations circulated that intense physical distress might have compelled Karl von Urban to end his own life.[34]
