FERDINAND, duke of Brunswick (1721—I 792) , Prussian general field marshal, was the fourth son of Ferdinand Albert, duke of Brunswick, and was born at Wolfenbiittel on Jan. 12, 1721. In his twentieth year he was made chief of a newly-raised Brunswick regiment in the Prussian service. He was present in the battles of Mollwitz and Chotusitz. In succession to Margrave Wilhelm of Brandenburg, killed at Prague (1744), Ferdinand received the command of Frederick the Great's Leibgarde bat talion, and distinguished himself at Sohr (1745). During the ten years' peace he was in the closest touch with the military work of Frederick the Great, who sought to make the guards battalion a model of the whole Prussian army. Ferdinand became one of the king's most intimate friends. In the first campaign of the Seven Years' War Ferdinand commanded one of the Prussian columns which converged upon Dresden, and in the operations which led up to the surrender of the Saxon army at Pirna (1756), and at the battle of Lobositz, he led the right wing of the Prussian infan try. In 1757 he distinguished himself at Prague, and he served also in the campaign of Rossbach. Shortly after this he was appointed to command the allied forces which were being organ ized for the war in western Germany. He found this army dejected by a reverse and a capitulation, yet within a week of his taking up the command he assumed the offensive, and thus began the career of victory which made his European reputation as a soldier. His conduct of the five campaigns which followed (see SEVEN YEARS' WAR) was naturally influenced by the teach ings of Frederick, whose pupil the duke had been for so many years. Ferdinand, indeed, approximated more closely to Frederick in his method of making war than any other general of the time. Yet his task was in many respects far more difficult than that of the king. Frederick was the absolute master of his own homo geneous army, Ferdinand merely the commander of a group of contingents, and answerable to several princes for the troops placed under his control. In 1758 he fought and won the battle of Crefeld, several marches beyond the Rhine, but so advanced a position he could not well maintain, and he fell back to the Lippe. He resumed a bold offensive in 1759, only to be repulsed at Bergen (near Frankfort-on-Main). On Aug. 1 of this year Ferdinand won the brilliant victory of Minden (q.v.). Velling hausen, Wilhelmsthal, Warburg and other victories followed, and Frederick, hard pressed in the eastern theatre of war, owed much of his success in an almost hopeless task to the continued pres sure exerted by Ferdinand in the west. He was promoted field marshal in November 1758.
Ferdinand exerted himself to compensate those who had suffered by the Seven Years' War, devoting to this purpose most of the small income he received from his various offices and the rewards given to him by the allied princes. The estrangement of Frederick and Ferdinand in 1766 led to the duke's retirement from Prussian service, but there was no open breach between the old friends, and Ferdinand visited the king in 1772, 1777, 1779 and 1782. After 1766 he passed the remainder of his life at his castle of Veschelde, where he became a patron of learning and art, and a great benefactor of the poor. He died on July 3, 1792.
See Von Westphalen, Geschichte der Feldziige des Herzogs Ferdi nands von Braunschweig-Luneburg (5 vols., Berlin, 1859-1872) ; also authorities for SEVEN YEARS' WAR.