Heinrich Julius Alexander von Kalb or Henry Jules Alexandre de Kalb (25 November 1752 – 8 April 1806) was a German-born officer in the French Army.

Life

He was born in Jena, the son of Karl Alexander von Kalb, chamber-president of

Saxe-Weimar Saxe-Weimar (german: Sachsen-Weimar) was one of the Saxon duchies held by the Ernestine branch of the Wettin dynasty in present-day Thuringia. The chief town and capital was Weimar. The Weimar branch was the most genealogically senior extant bra ...

. His brother was Johann August Alexander von Kalb, who succeeded their father as chamber-president (11 June 1776 to 7 June 1782) and was caricatured by

Friedrich Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, and philosopher. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller developed a productive, if complicated, friends ...

in his tragedy '' Intrigue and Love''. On 15 August 1770, aged 16, von Kalb became a lieutenant in the Royal Deux-Ponts Regiment of the French Army. Aged 24 he rose to second lieutenant and two years later to first lieutenant. His regiment formed part of the 5,000-strong force sent by the Kingdom of France to fight for the United States in the American Revolutionary War. He was honoured for his achievements by

George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...

, then general of the

Continental Army The Continental Army was the army of the United Colonies (the Thirteen Colonies) in the Revolutionary-era United States. It was formed by the Second Continental Congress after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, and was establis ...

, though he is often confused with Baron Johann von Kalb, also known as Johann de Kalb, who also fought in the war as a major. On his return to Germany his brother forced him to marry Charlotte von Marschalk und Ostheim. Since he was soldiering for the rest of the year he could only spend the winter months with his wife and so the marriage proved an unhappy one, with her taking refuge in affairs with Schiller and later with Jean Paul. Divorce was soon discussed, but they had had a son together and so (formally at least) they remained married, even after unofficially separating in 1800. The French Revolution ended his career in the French Army – he took part in Louis XVI's

flight to Varennes The royal Flight to Varennes (french: Fuite à Varennes) during the night of 20–21 June 1791 was a significant event in the French Revolution in which King Louis XVI of France, Queen Marie Antoinette, and their immediate family unsuccessfull ...

in 1791 and was sent back to Thuringia without a pension. He tried in vain to join the army of one of the German states and in the meantime his brother had wasted the family fortune. Heinrich retired to his estate near Trabelsdorf, where he began an affair with his cook, Barbara Tod, a teacher's daughter, with whom he had three children. In 1806 he shot himself in the "Zum Goldenen Hahn" guesthouse in Munich.

External links

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Heinrich Julius Alexander von Kalb on www.waltershausen-grabfeld.de
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kalb, Heinrich Julius Alexander von 1752 births 1806 deaths Military personnel from Jena People from Saxe-Weimar French people of German descent 18th-century French military personnel French military personnel of the American Revolutionary War Suicides by firearm in Germany Suicides in Germany