Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher , Fürst von Wahlstatt ( ; December 16 , 1742 – September 12 , 1819 ) , Graf ( count ) , later elevated to Fürst ( prince ) von Wahlstatt , was a Prussia n Generalfeldmarschall ( field marshal ) who led his army against Napoleon I at the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig in 1813 and at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 with the Duke of Wellington . The honorary citizen of Berlin , Hamburg and Rostock bore the nickname " Marschall Vorwärts " ( " Marshal Forwards " ) because of his approach to warfare . Biography . Early life . Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher was born in Rostock in the Duchy of Mecklenburg - Schwerin , a Baltic port in northern Germany . His family had been landowners in northern Germany since at least the 13th century . He began his military career at sixteen , when he joined the Swedish Army as a Hussar . At the time Sweden was at war with Prussia in the Seven Years ' War . Blücher took part in the Pomeranian campaign of 1760 , where he was captured in a skirmish with Prussian Hussars . The colonel of the Prussian regiment , Wilhelm Sebastian von Belling , was impressed with the young hussar and had him join his regiment . He took part in the later battles of the Seven Years ' War , and as a hussar officer gained much experience of light cavalry work . In peace , however , his ardent spirit led him into excesses of all kinds , such as mock execution of a priest suspected of supporting Polish uprisings in 1772 . Due to this , he was passed over for promotion to Major . Blücher sent in a rude letter of resignation , which Frederick the Great granted in 1773 : " Der Rittmeister von Blücher kann sich zum Teufel scheren " ( Cavalry Captain von Blücher can go to the devil ) . He then settled down to farming , and within fifteen years he had acquired independence and membership in the Freemasons . He was twice married , in 1773 to Karoline Amalie von Mehling ( 1756 – 1791 ) , and in 1795 to Amalie von Colomb ( 1772 – 1850 ) , sister of General Peter von Colomb . By his first marriage , he had seven children , two sons and a daughter surviving infancy . During the lifetime of Frederick the Great , Blücher was unable to return to the army , but after the king ' s death in 1786 , he was reinstated as a major in his old regiment , the Red Hussars in 1787 . Blücher took part in the expedition to the Netherlands in 1787 , and the following year was promoted to lieutenant colonel . In 1789 he received Prussia ' s highest military order , the " Pour le Mérite " , and in 1794 he became colonel of the Red Hussars . In 1793 and 1794 he distinguished himself in cavalry actions against the French , and for his success at Kirrweiler was promoted to major general . In 1801 he was promoted to lieutenant general . Napoleonic Wars . Blücher was one of the leaders of the war party in Prussia in 1805 – 1806 and served as a cavalry general in the disastrous campaign of the latter year . At the double Battle of Jena - Auerstedt , Blücher fought at Auerstedt , repeatedly charging at the head of the Prussian cavalry , but too early and without success . In the retreat of the broken armies he commanded the rearguard of the army of Frederick Louis , Prince of Hohenlohe - Ingelfingen . Upon the capitulation of the main body after the Battle of Prenzlau on 28 October , he found his progress toward the northeast blocked . He led a remnant of the Prussian army away to the northwest , after having secured 34 cannon in co - operation with Gerhard von Scharnhorst . At the Battle of Lübeck his force was defeated by two French corps on 6 November . The next day , trapped against the Danish frontier by 40 , 000 French troops , he was compelled to surrender with 7 , 800 soldiers at Ratekau . Blücher insisted that a clause be written in the capitulation document that he had to surrender due to lack of provisions and ammunition , and that his soldiers be honoured by a French formation along the street . He was allowed to keep his sabre and to move freely , bound only by his word of honour , and soon was exchanged for future Marshal Claude Victor - Perrin , duc de Belluno , and was actively employed in Pomerania , at Berlin , and at Königsberg until the conclusion of the war . After the war , Blücher was looked upon as the natural leader of the Patriot Party , with which he was in close touch during the period of Napoleonic domination . But his hopes of an alliance with Austria in the war of 1809 were disappointed . In this year he was made general of cavalry . In 1812 he expressed himself so openly on the alliance of Russia with France that he was recalled from his military governorship of Pomerania and virtually banished from the court . Following the start of the 1813 War of Liberation , Blücher was again placed in high command , and he was present at Lützen and Bautzen . During the armistice , he worked on the organization of the Prussian forces ; when the war was resumed , he became commander - in - chief of the Army of Silesia , with August von Gneisenau and Muffling as his principal staff officers and 40 , 000 Prussians and 50 , 000 Russians under his command . The irresolution and divergence of interests usual in allied armies found in him a restless opponent . Knowing that if he could not induce others to co - operate he was prepared to attempt the task at hand by himself which often caused other generals to follow his lead . He defeated Marshal MacDonald at the Katzbach , and by his victory over Marshal Marmont at Möckern led the way to the decisive defeat of Napoleon at Leipzig . This was the fourth battle between Napoleon and Blücher and the first that Blücher won . Leipzig was taken by Blücher ' s own army on the evening of the last day of the battle . On the day of Möckern ( October 16 , 1813 ) Blücher was made a field marshal , and after the victory he pursued the French with his accustomed energy . In the winter of 1813 – 1814 Blücher , with his chief staff officers , was mainly instrumental in inducing the allied sovereigns to carry the war into France itself . The Battle of Brienne and the Battle of La Rothière were the chief incidents of the first stage of the celebrated campaign of 1814 , and they were quickly followed by victories of Napoleon over Blücher at Champaubert , Vauchamps , and Montmirail . But the courage of the Prussian leader was undiminished , and his victory against the vastly outnumbered French , at Laon ( March 9 and 10 ) practically decided the fate of the campaign . After this , Blücher infused some of his energy into the operations of the Prince Schwarzenberg ' s Army of Bohemia , and at last this army and the Army of Silesia marched in one body directly towards Paris . The victory of Montmartre , the entry of the allies into the French capital , and the overthrow of the First Empire were the direct consequences . Blücher was inclined to punish the city of Paris severely for the sufferings of Prussia at the hands of the French armies , but the allied commanders intervened . Blowing up the Jena Bridge near the Champ de Mars was said to have been one of his contemplated acts . In gratitude for his victories in 1814 , Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III created Blücher Prince of Wahlstatt and awarded him estates near Krieblowitz ( now Krobielowice , Poland ) in Lower Silesia . Soon afterward he paid a visit to England , where he was received with royal honors and cheered enthusiastically everywhere he went . Hundred Days and later life . After the war he retired to Silesia , but the return of Napoleon from Elba soon called him back to service . He was put in command of the Army of the Lower Rhine , with General August von Gneisenau as his chief of staff . In the campaign of 1815 , the Prussians sustained a serious defeat at the outset at Ligny ( June 16 ) , in the course of which the old field marshal was repeatedly ridden over by cavalry and lay trapped under his dead horse for several hours , his life saved only by the devotion of his aide - de - camp , Count Nostitz . He was unable to resume command for some hours , and Gneisenau drew off the defeated army and rallied it . After bathing his wounds in brandy , and fortified by liberal internal application of the same , Blücher rejoined his army . Gneisenau feared that the British had reneged on their earlier agreements and favored a withdrawal , but Blücher convinced him to send two Corps to join Wellington at Waterloo . He then led his army on a tortuous march along muddy paths , arriving on the field of Waterloo in the late afternoon . With the battle hanging in the balance Blücher ' s army intervened with decisive and crushing effect , his vanguard drawing off Napoleon ' s badly needed reserves , and his main body being instrumental in crushing French resistance . This victory led the way to a decisive victory through the relentless pursuit of the French by the Prussians . The allies re - entered Paris on July 7 . Prince Blücher remained in the French capital for a few months , but his age and infirmities compelled him to retire to his Silesian residence at Krieblowitz , where he died on September 12 , 1819 , aged 76 . After his death , an imposing mausoleum was built for his remains . Blücher retained to the end of his life the wildness and tendency to excesses which had caused his dismissal from the army in his youth , but these faults sprang from an ardent and vivid temperament which made him a leader of people . While by no means a military genius , his sheer determination and ability to spring back from errors made him a competent leader . Legacy . Upon his death , statues were erected to his memory at Berlin , Breslau , Rostock and Kaub . In gratitude for his service , George Stephenson , the pioneering British locomotive engineer , named a locomotive after him , and Oxford University granted him an honorary doctorate ( Doctor of Laws ) , about which he is supposed to have said that if he was made a doctor they should at least make Gneisenau an apothecary . Three ships of the German navy have been named in honour of Blücher . The first to be so named was a corvette built at Kiel ' s " Norddeutsche Schiffbau AG " ( later renamed the " Krupp - Germaniawerft " ) and launched 20 March 1877 . Taken out of service after a boiler explosion in 1907 , she ended her days as a coal freighter in Vigo , Spain . On 11 April 1908 , the " Panzerkreuzer " SMS " Blücher " was launched from the Imperial Shipyard in Kiel . This ship was sunk on 24 January 1915 in WWI at the Battle of Dogger Bank . The World War II German heavy cruiser " Blücher " was completed in September 1939 , and pronounced ready for service on 5 April 1940 after completing a series of sea trials and training exercises . The vessel was sunk four days later near Oslo during the invasion of Norway . When Krieblowitz was conquered by the Red Army in 1945 , Soviet soldiers broke into the Blücher mausoleum and scattered the remains — despite the fact that Blücher had been instrumental in the final defeat of Napoleon , the would - be conqueror of Russia . Soviet troops reportedly used his skull as a football . After 1989 , his profaned remains were taken from the desecrated grave by a priest and buried in the catacomb of the church in Sośnica ( German : Schosnitz ) , 3 km from the now Polish Krobielowice . Blücher is honoured with a bust in the Walhalla temple near Regensburg . Blücher also has a boarding house named after him at Berkshire based Wellington College . The Blucher , as it is known , is a boys house renowned for sporting and academic prowess . A popular German idiom , " ran wie Blücher " ( " charge like Blücher " ) , meaning that someone is taking very direct and aggressive action , in war or otherwise , refers to Blücher . Works . His collected writings and letters ( together with those of Yorck and Gneisenau ) appeared in 1932 : His campaign journal covering the years 1793 to 1794 was published in 1796 : A second edition of this diary , together with some of Blücher ' s letters , was published in 1914 : An account of his life , with his death at Krieblowitz and family history , was written by Gebhard Leberecht , the fourth Prince Blücher , and edited by his wife Evelyn Princess Blücher with Desmond Chapman - Huston :