Alfred Windisch-Grätz

Austria state institutions Counter-revolutionary forces 1787–1862 ○ Natural causes

Austrian field marshal who crushed the 1848 risings in Prague and Vienna by bombardment and took Buda-Pest, then lost his command

Born in Brussels in 1787 into the Austro-Bohemian house of Windischgrätz, he joined the Habsburg imperial army in 1804, fought in every war against Napoleon and distinguished himself at Leipzig. He became military commander of Prague in 1840, and when his wife was killed by a stray shot on the first day of the Prague rising of June 1848 he shelled the Old Town, crushed the rising and declared martial law throughout Bohemia. In October he bombarded Vienna with Jelačić and put down the October Uprising. As commander-in-chief against Hungary he occupied Buda and Pest in January 1849, but his slow pursuit let the Hungarians rally, and after defeat by Görgei at Isaszeg in April he was relieved of command and withdrew from public life. "They do not want to hear about the Grace of God? They will hear the grace of the cannon," he said of the constitutionalists.

Also known as: Alfred zu Windischgrätz · Prince Windischgrätz · Alfred Windischgraetz