Early Life and Service
De Rottenburg was raised in what is now Gdańsk in Poland. He spent almost a decade in the French army which came to an end with the French Revolution. In 1795, de Rottenburg joined the British army, serving in Hompesch's Hussars, a unit of foreign-born troops. This unit later became part of the 5th Battalion of the 60th Regiment of Foot, the first rifle-armed unit of the British Army. De Rottenburg rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the unit, and commanded it during the Irish Rebellion of 1798 and the capture of Suriname in 1799.
De Rottenburg wrote a series of manuals (initially in German) which became the basis for the training of riflemen and light infantry under Sir John Moore. He later commanded a brigade of light troops in the Walcheren Campaign.
Read more about this topic: Francis De Rottenburg
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or service:
“Foolish prater, What dost thou
So early at my window do?
Cruel bird, thou’st ta’en away
A dream out of my arms to-day;
A dream that ne’er must equall’d be
By all that waking eyes may see.
Thou this damage to repair
Nothing half so sweet and fair,
Nothing half so good, canst bring,
Tho’ men say thou bring’st the Spring.”
—Abraham Cowley (1618–1667)
“But one sound always rose above the clamor of busy life and, no matter how much of a tintinnabulation, was never confused and, for a moment lifted everything into an ordered sphere: that of the bells.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“The service a man renders his friend is trivial and selfish, compared with the service he knows his friend stood in readiness to yield him, alike before he had begun to serve his friend, and now also. Compared with that good-will I bear my friend, the benefit it is in my power to render him seems small.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)