Prince Frederik of Hesse-Kassel (1771-1845)
Command Ratings
Commands
- Commands the Danish Auxiliary Corps at Sehested (1813, age 42)
Prince Frederik of Hesse (Landgrave Friedrich of Hesse-Kassel) (24 May 1771 – 24 February 1845) was a Danish-German prince and senior Danish commander whose most consequential military work lay in Denmark–Norway’s Napoleonic crisis years, particularly as vicestatholder in Norway (1810–1813) and as commander of the Danish auxiliærkorps in Holstein during the 1813 retreat and the Battle of Sehested.
Origins and early service
Frederik was born at Gottorp Castle in Schleswig, the eldest surviving son of Landgrave Charles of Hesse-Kassel and Princess Louise of Denmark. In a fashion common to high dynastic circles, his early “promotions” were largely honorific: at the age of seven he received a patent as oberst and nominal regimental chief, and in adolescence he was already being placed in senior appointments that blended court, administration, and military oversight.
Military establishment and high command before the Napoleonic wars (1788–1805)
In 1788 Frederik accompanied his father and the Danish crown prince during the brief campaign associated with Denmark’s posture toward Sweden. By the early 1790s he was integrated into the senior administrative machinery of the Danish army: from 1791 to 1800 he served as a deputy in the Generalitets- og Kommissariatskollegium, and from 1795 as første deputeret; in the same year he received the rank of generalløjtnant. These posts were not merely ceremonial. They placed him at the centre of Danish force-structure, supply, and readiness work during a period when the state was attempting to modernise its military administration without yet being drawn fully into continental war.
In 1800 he was appointed inspector over the infantry in the duchies (infanteriinspektør over infanteriet i hertugdømmerne) and governor of the fortress of Rendsburg (guvernør i Rendsborg fæstning). In 1801 he led the Danish occupation of Lübeck. During the Holstein mobilisation of 1805 he commanded a division, a clear indicator that the court regarded him as a genuine field commander rather than a purely administrative prince.
The 1807 crisis and the Scania project (1807–1809)
When the crown prince moved to Zealand prior to the British attack on Copenhagen in 1807, Frederik received the senior command in Holstein (overkommandoen i Holsten). After Copenhagen’s capitulation he served as presiding officer (præses) of the investigatory commission established in consequence of the surrender, became guvernør i København, and held divisional command; later that same year, while the crown prince was in Kiel, Frederik held the senior command on Zealand (overkommandoen på Sjælland). In contemporary Danish opinion—shared, according to later biographies, by the king—he was already considered the general with the strongest feltherreegenskaber.
In early 1809 he was designated to command the principal force intended to land in Scania, but the operation was abandoned. The cancellation proved a turning point: instead of seeking a dramatic offensive, Denmark’s strategy shifted to holding its own territory and managing Norway under rising Swedish pressure.
Norway: kommanderende general and vicestatholder (1809–1813)
Later in 1809, amid Danish suspicion regarding Governor-General Christian August’s Swedish connections, Frederik was sent to Norway as kommanderende general in the southern district (det søndenfjeldske). When Christian August departed for Sweden in January 1810 as Swedish crown prince, Frederik became vicestatholder and presided over the temporary governing commission (den midlertidige regeringskommission).
His Norwegian tenure was primarily military in character. He worked to sustain the high morale and readiness that had developed in the Norwegian army, strengthened defensive preparations and fortifications, and played a substantial role in the reforms associated with the 1810–1811 hærordning—measures intended to make the army larger, more mobile, and better supplied with light troops. By spring 1813, anticipating the possibility of war with Sweden under Bernadotte, Frederik requested a command in Zealand or Holstein. In May 1813 the Danish heir, Christian Frederik (later Christian VIII), replaced him in Norway as statholder, and Frederik left Kristiania at the end of May.
Holstein and the 1813 retreat: the Danish auxiliærkorps (1813–1814)
In late July 1813 Frederik assumed command of the Danish “mobile army division,” soon strengthened and redesignated the auxiliærkorps, attached to the French 13th Corps under maréchal Louis-Nicolas Davout. His immediate task was as much moral as tactical: he damped unrest within the corps and restored discipline at a moment when Denmark’s alliance obligations and the broader strategic situation were both deteriorating.
After Napoleon’s defeat at Leipzig, Davout withdrew into Hamburg, leaving the Danish corps exposed. Frederik executed a fighting retreat aimed at reaching Rendsburg before an overwhelmingly superior enemy could seal the routes. The corps fought a series of actions—Boden (4 December), Rahlstedt (6 December), Bornhöved (7 December), and Sehested (10 December 1813). Sehested, in particular, was treated in Danish accounts as a “brilliant” success: it broke the immediate pressure and opened the way to Rendsburg, which Frederik reached with the corps intact.
From Rendsburg, Frederik advocated continuing the struggle on the Jutland peninsula, but the political calculus had turned against prolonged resistance. With the Treaty of Kiel (14 January 1814), Denmark’s strategic position changed fundamentally. For his 1813 service he received the Storkommandørkorset af Dannebrog and was appointed kommanderende general i hertugdømmerne.
1815: the post-Elba mobilisation and the Bremen return
In 1815 Frederik received command of the Danish corps mobilised after Napoleon’s return from Elba. The corps moved toward northern Germany but turned back from Bremen after the news of Waterloo. Although Denmark’s direct role in the 1815 campaigning was necessarily limited, the appointment reflected that Frederik remained the crown’s preferred senior field commander for large, politically sensitive deployments.
Later career, rank, and death
After 1815 Frederik commanded the Danish occupation contingent in France (1815–1818), then returned to senior command in the duchies and at Rendsburg. In 1836 he was promoted feltmarskal and later served as governor-general in Schleswig and Holstein. He died at Panker in Holstein in 1845.
Sources
XX 03 Hanover; XXX 08; XXX 13 (@ Hamburg with Davout), Bornhoft (W), W