Friedrich Heinrich von Seckendorff

Friedrich Heinrich Reichsgraf von Seckendorff[1] (5 July 1673 – 23 November 1763, aged 90) was a Franconian field marshal and diplomat, in the service of the imperial Habsburg monarchy of Austria.

In 1693, Seckendorff served in the allied army commanded by William III of England, and in 1694 became a cornet in a Gotha cavalry regiment in Austrian pay.

Leaving the cavalry, he became an infantry officer in the service of Venice, and in 1697 in that of the Margrave of Ansbach, who in 1698 transferred the regiment in which Seckendorff was serving to the Imperial army.

During the War of the Spanish Succession, Seckendorff led Ansbach's regiment and, at the head of his dragoons, conquered 16 standards in the Battle of Blenheim.

As a lieutenant general, Seckendorff commanded Saxon troops in the 1715 siege of Stralsund against King Charles XII of Sweden.

[3] In order to avoid a potential marriage between Crown Prince Frederick and a princess of the House of Hanover that would have allied Prussia and Great Britain, Seckendorff manipulated Frederick William and his son so that the crown prince instead married Elizabeth Christina of Brunswick-Bevern, a marriage more favorable to Austria.

Seckendorff's diplomatic skill also led to recognition of the Pragmatic Sanction by the courts of numerous German principalities, Denmark, and the Dutch Republic.

Regarding Seckendorff, Frederick wrote, "He was sordidly scheming; his manners were crude and rustic; lying had become so much second nature to him that he had lost the use of the truth.