Franz Graf von Wimpffen

Franz Emil Lorenz Heeremann Graf von Wimpffen (2 April 1797 – 26 November 1870) was an Austrian General and Admiral who served as Administrative Head of the Austro-Hungarian Navy from 1851 to 1854. Military career Franz von Wimpffen was born in Prague on 2 April 1797, the son of Karl Franz Eduard von Wimpffen (1776–1842), who served as Chief of the Austro-Hungarian General Staff (from 1824 to 1830), and his wife, Princess Victoria von Anhalt-Bernburg-Schaumburg-Hoym (1772-1817), widow of Landgrave Karl of Hesse-Philippsthal (1757-1793). He was the owner of Kainberg, Reitenau and Eichberg castles and estates in Austria and, as a Roman Catholic, was a Knight of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. He was commissioned Unterleutnant in October 1813 and served as an artillery officer during the last three years of the Napoleonic Wars, in the German campaign of 1813, the French campaign of 1814, and the Neapolitan War in 1815. Promoted Generalmajor in 1838, he was given command of a brigade in Trieste. Von Wimpffen was made commander of a division of II Army Corps in Italy in 1846 with the rank of Feldmarschall-leutnant (Lieutenant-Field-Marshal in the Imperial and Royal Austrian Army). He distinguished himself in the 1848 campaign at Vicenza and Custoza. Later, in the Papal States he compelled by bombardment the surrender of Bologna and Ancona. In October 1849 von Wimpffen was named Civil and Military Governor of Trieste and Governor of the Küstenland (Coastal Lands), the region that included the Istrian Peninsula, with the rank of Feldzeugmeister (General of the Artillery in the Austrian Army). Upon the resignation of Hans Birch Dahlerup in August 1851, von Wimpffen was named his successor as Oberkommandant der Marine ('High Commander of the Navy' or Provisional Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial and Royal Navy). During his tenure, the development of the naval base of Pola was accelerated and the naval school at Fiume now Rijeka (Croatia) was converted into the Austrian Naval Academy.