Guido Wald Rüdiger, count of Starhemberg (11 November 1657 – 7 March 1737) was an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n military officer (commander-in-chief) and by birth member of the House of Starhemberg. He was a cousin of

Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg Count Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg (12 January 1638 – 4 January 1701) was military governor of Vienna from 1680, the city's defender during the Battle of Vienna in 1683, Imperial general during the Great Turkish War, and President of th ...

(1638–1701), the famous commander of

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

during the Turkish siege of 1683, and acted as his aide-de-camp during that

siege A siege is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition, or a well-prepared assault. This derives from la, sedere, lit=to sit. Siege warfare is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict characteriz ...

. Guido followed his cousin, and later Prince Eugene of Savoy, in battles against the Turks. In the

War of the Spanish Succession The War of the Spanish Succession was a European great power conflict that took place from 1701 to 1714. The death of childless Charles II of Spain in November 1700 led to a struggle for control of the Spanish Empire between his heirs, Phil ...

, Starhemberg fought in Italy and Spain. Between 1706 and 1708 he was the commander-in-chief of the imperial army in Hungary, leading military operations against the insurgents of

Francis II Rákóczi Francis II Rákóczi ( hu, II. Rákóczi Ferenc, ; 27 March 1676 – 8 April 1735) was a Hungarian nobleman and leader of Rákóczi's War of Independence against the Habsburgs in 1703–11 as the prince ( hu, fejedelem) of the Estates Confeder ...

. In 1708, he was appointed Supreme Commander of the Austrians in Spain. Together with James Stanhope he succeeded in conquering

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

in 1710, after previously gaining victories at

Almenar Almenar is a municipality in the ''comarca'' of the Segrià in Catalonia, Spain. The Battle of Almenar, one of the main battles of the War of the Spanish Succession, was fought in the hills close to this town on 27 July 1710. Demography Se ...

and

Saragossa Zaragoza, also known in English as Saragossa,''Encyclopædia Britannica'"Zaragoza (conventional Saragossa)" is the capital city of the Zaragoza Province and of the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. It lies by the Ebro river and its tributar ...

. In December, however, he was forced to leave the city by the lack of support by its inhabitants for the Habsburg pretender. After the subsequent defeats at the Battle of Brihuega and the Battle of Villaviciosa (1710), he had to pull back to Catalonia, where he was made viceroy when Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, Archduke Charles returned to Austria. After the Peace of Utrecht (1713), archduke Charles, now Emperor Charles VI, ordered him to abandon Catalonia. He pulled back with his troops to Genoa on English ships. When he died in 1737, he was Governor of Slavonia.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Starhemberg, Guido 1657 births 1742 deaths 17th-century Austrian people 18th-century Austrian people Viceroys of Catalonia Austrian army commanders in the War of the Spanish Succession Field marshals of Austria Military personnel from Graz Starhemberg family, Guido People of the Great Turkish War Generals of the Holy Roman Empire Rákóczi's War of Independence