Friedrich Heinrich Von Seckendorff - Early Military Career

Early Military Career

In 1693, Seckendorff served in the allied army commanded by William III of England, and in 1694 became a cornet in a Gotha cavalry regiment in Austrian pay. Leaving the cavalry, he became an infantry officer in the service of Venice, and in 1697 in that of the Margrave of Ansbach, who in 1698 transferred the regiment in which Seckendorff was serving to the Imperial army. He served under Prince Eugene of Savoy in the Great Turkish War.

In 1699, Seckendorff married and returned to Ansbach as a court officer, but the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession called him into the field again as lieutenant-colonel of an Ansbach regiment, which was taken into the Dutch service. During the War of the Spanish Succession, Seckendorff led Ansbach's regiment and, at the head of his dragoons, conquered 16 standards in the Battle of Blenheim. Promoted to Oberst, Seckendorff participated in the battles of Ramillies and Oudenaarde and the siege of Ryssel.

Disappointed with his lack of promotion in the Netherlands and Austria, Seckendorff entered the service of King Augustus II of Poland as a Generalmajor and commanded the king's auxiliary Saxon troops in Flanders, fighting in the siege of Tournai and the battle of Malplaquet. As the Polish envoy to the Hague, he participated in the negotiations of the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht; in the same year he suppressed an insurrection in Poland. As a lieutenant general, Seckendorff commanded Saxon troops in the 1715 siege of Stralsund against King Charles XII of Sweden.

Seckendorff reentered imperial service as a Feldmarschallleutnant in 1717. Under the command of Eugene of Savoy, Seckendorff led two Ansbach regiments against the Ottoman Turks at Belgrade. In 1718 he successfully fought against Spain in Sicily. Granted the title of Reichsgraf in 1719, Seckendorff was named Feldzeugmeister two years later.