Clerfayt, Charles de Croix, Count von

▪ Austrian field marshal

in full  Charles Joseph De Croix, Count Von Clerfayt, Clerfayt  also spelled  Clairfait 

born Oct. 14, 1733, Bruille, Austrian Netherlands [now in Belgium]

died July 19, 1798, Vienna, Austria

      Austrian field marshal who was one of the more successful of the Allied generals campaigning against Revolutionary France in the early 1790s.

      Clerfayt entered the Austrian army in 1753, distinguished himself during the Seven Years' War (1756–63), and also took part in the Turkish War of 1787. In 1792, at the outset of the War of the First Coalition against France, he was given command of the Austrian contingent in the Duke of Brunswick's army. His corps was conspicuously successful at Croix-sous-Bois and inflicted a heavy defeat on the French.

      In the Netherlands in 1793 he had initial successes at Aldenhoven (March 1) and at the siege of Maastricht, and he won a decisive victory at Neerwinden (March 18). After that, his fortunes changed; he was defeated at Wattignies (Oct. 15–16, 1793), and his campaign in West Flanders in the following year was also unsuccessful. Clerfayt succeeded the Duke of Saxe-Coburg as commander in chief, but his troops were outclassed by the French and withdrew east of the Rhine.

      By 1795 Clerfayt had become a field marshal and was commanding on the middle Rhine against the French commander Jean-Baptiste Jourdan, whom he defeated at Höchst (Oct. 11, 1795) and Mainz (October 29). The armistice terms that Clerfayt concluded were badly received in Vienna, and he resigned. Thereupon he became a member of the imperial court known as the Aulic Council.

* * *