Ernst Gideon von Laudon Baron Ernst Gideon von Laudon ( German : " Ernst Gideon Freiherr von Laudon " ( originally " Laudohn " or " Loudon " ) ( February 2 , 1717 – July 14 , 1790 ) was an Austrian generalisimo , one of the most successful opponents of the Prussian king Frederick the Great , allegedly lauded by Alexander Suvorov as his teacher . He served the position of military governorship of the Kingdom of Serbia from his capture of Belgrade in 1789 until his death , cooperating with the resistance fighters of Koča Anđelković . Background and early career . The Laudohn family , of mixed German and Latgalian origin , had been settled in the estate of Tootzen , near Ļaudona in Eastern Livonia ( present - day Latvia ) before 1432 . Laudon himself claimed a kinship with the Scottish Earls of Loudoun , which could not be established . His father Otto Gerhard von Laudohn was a lieutenant - colonel , retired on a meagre pension from the Swedish service . As upon the Great Northern War Livonia had been ceded to Russia according to the 1721 Treaty of Nystad , the boy was sent to the Imperial Russian Army as a cadet in 1732 . During the War of the Polish Succession he took part in the 1734 Siege of Danzig led by Field Marshal Burkhard Christoph von Münnich , he marched against French troops up to the Rhine in 1735 and back to the Dnieper River into the Turkish campaign . After the 1739 Treaty of Belgrade he returned to the Russian court at Saint Petersburg . Dissatisfied with his prospects and the conditions in the Russian Army , he finally resigned in 1741 and sought military employment elsewhere . He applied first to King Frederick the Great , who however declined his services . At Vienna he had better fortune , being made a captain in the " Freikorps " of Franz von der Trenck . During the War of the Austrian Succession , he took part in its forays and marches , though not in its atrocities , until wounded and taken prisoner in Alsace . He was shortly released by the advance of the main Austrian army . Seven Years ' War . His next active service , still under Trenck , was in the Silesian mountains in 1745 , in which campaign he greatly distinguished himself as a leader of light troops . He was present also at the Battle of Soor . He retired shortly afterwards , owing to his distaste for the lawless habits of his comrades in the irregulars , and after long waiting in poverty for a regular commission he was at last made a captain in one of the frontier regiments , spending the next ten years in half - military , half - administrative work in the Karlovac district on the Military Frontier . At Bunić , where he was stationed , he built a church and planted an oak forest now called by his name . He had reached the rank of lieutenant - colonel when the outbreak of the Seven Years ' War called him again into the field . From this point began his fame as a soldier . At first rejected by General Wilhelm Reinhard von Neipperg , he soon was promoted colonel at the behest of Chancellor Wenzel Anton Kaunitz and distinguished himself repeatedly . In 1757 he fought in Bohemia and Saxony under Field Marshal Maximilian Ulysses Browne and became a " Generalfeldwachtmeister " ( equivalent to major - general ) of cavalry as well as a knight of the newly founded Maria Theresa Military Order . In the campaign of 1758 came his first opportunity for fighting an action as a commander - in - chief , and he used it so well that Frederick the Great was obliged to give up the siege of Olomouc and retire into Bohemia ( Battle of Domašov , June 30 ) . He was rewarded with the grade of lieutenant - field - marshal and having again shown himself an active and daring commander in the campaign of Hochkirch , he was created a Freiherr in the Austrian nobility by Maria Theresa and in the peerage of the Holy Roman Empire by her husband the emperor Francis . Maria Theresa gave him , further , the grand cross of the order she had founded and an estate near Kutná Hora in Bohemia . He was placed in command of the Austrian contingent sent to join the Russians on the Oder , and participated in Kunersdorf under Pyotr Saltykov where a joint Russo - Austrian contingent won a great victory . As a result Laudon was promoted Feldzeugmeister and made commander - in - chief in Bohemia , Moravia and Silesia . In 1760 he destroyed a whole corps of Frederick ' s army under Fouqué at Landshut and stormed the important fortress of Glatz . In 1760 he sustained a severe reverse at Frederick ' s hands in the Battle of Liegnitz ( August 15 , 1760 ) , which action led to bitter controversy with Daun and Lacy , the commanders of the main army , who , Laudon claimed , had left his corps unsupported . In 1761 he operated , as usual , in Silesia , but he found his Russian allies as timid as they had been after Kunersdorf , and all attempts against Frederick ' s entrenched camp of Bunzelwitz failed . He brilliantly seized his one fleeting opportunity , however , and stormed Schweidnitz on the night of September 30 / October 1 , 1761 . His tireless activity continued to the end of the war , in conspicuous contrast with the temporizing strategy of Daun and Lacy . The student of the later campaigns of the Seven Years ' War will probably admit that there was need of more aggressiveness than Daun displayed , and of more caution than suited Laudon ' s genius . But neither recognized this , and the last three years of the war are marked by an ever - increasing friction between the " Fabius " and the " Marcellus , " as they were called , of the Austrian army . Later career . After the peace , therefore , when Daun became the virtual commander - in - chief of the army , Laudon fell into the background . Offers were made , by Frederick the Great amongst others , to induce Laudon to transfer his services elsewhere . Laudon did not entertain these proposals , although negotiations went on for some years , and on Lacy succeeding Daun as president of the council of war Laudon was made inspector - general of infantry . Dissensions , however , continued between Laudon and Lacy , and on the accession of Joseph II , who was intimate with his rival , Laudon retired to his estate near Kutná Hora . Maria Theresa and Kaunitz caused him , however , to be made commander - in - chief in Bohemia and Moravia in 1769 . This post he held for three years , and at the end of this time , contemplating retirement from the service , he settled again on his estate . Maria Theresa once more persuaded him to remain in the army , and , as his estate had diminished in value owing to agrarian troubles in Bohemia , she repurchased it from him , in 1776 , on generous terms . Laudon then settled at Hadersdorf near Vienna , and shortly afterwards was made a field - marshal . Of this Carlyle ( " Frederick the Great " ) records that when Frederick the Great met Laudon in 1776 he deliberately addressed him in the emperor ' s presence as " Herr Feldmarschall " , but the hint was not taken until February 1778 . In 1778 came the War of the Bavarian Succession . Joseph and Lacy were now reconciled to Laudon and Laudon and Lacy commanded the two armies in the field . On this occasion , however , Laudon seems to have in a measure fallen below his reputation , while Lacy , who was opposed to Frederick ' s own army , earned new laurels . For two years after this Laudon lived quietly at Hadersdorf . A new war , with Turkey , broke out in 1787 ( see Austro - Turkish War ( 1787 - 1791 ) The generals charged with prosecuting this war did badly , and Laudon was thus called for the last time into the field . Though old and broken in health , he was commander - in - chief in fact as well as in name , and in 1789 he won a last brilliant success by capturing Belgrade in three weeks . He died within the year , at Nový Jičín ( Neu - Titschein ) in Moravia , still on duty . His last appointment was that of commander - in - chief of the armed forces of Austria , which had been created for him by the new emperor Leopold . Laudon was buried in the grounds of Hadersdorf . Eight years before his death the emperor Joseph had caused a marble bust of this great soldier to be placed in the chamber of the council of war . His nephew Johann Ludwig Alexius von Loudon ( 1762 – 1822 ) fought in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars with credit , and rose to the rank of Feldmarschall - Leutnant . Notes . The first battleship of the " Ersatz Monarch " class of the Austro - Hungarian Navy ( officially known as " Schiff VIII " ) was to be named " Laudon " . The ship was never completed due to the outbreak of World War I which interrupted all major warship construction in Austria - Hungary . The phrase " fix Laudon " is a light curse sometimes used in Austria . It is said that it was first uttered by Maria Theresa upon her hearing of the loss of Silesia to Frederick the Great .