Karl von Schmidt

Who was Karl von Schmidt?

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Karl von Schmidt was a Prussian cavalry general.

Schmidt was born at Schwedt on the Oder in the Province of Brandenburg, and entered the 4th Ulans as a second lieutenant in 1834.

Schmidt's long regimental service was varied by staff service and instructional work, and in the mobilization of 1859 he had the command of a landwehr cavalry regiment. In 1863 he was made colonel of the 4th Cuirassiers, which he commanded in the, for the cavalry arm, uneventful campaigns in the Second Schleswig War of 1864 and the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. He then commanded a newly raised regiment of Schleswig-Holstein troops, the 16th Hussars, but at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War he was still an obscure and perhaps a mistrusted officer, though his grasp of every detail of cavalry work was admitted. But an opportunity for distinction was grasped in the cavalry fighting around Mars-la-Tour, in which he temporarily led a brigade and was severely wounded. He was soon promoted major-general and succecded to the temporary command of his division on the disablement of its leader.