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FIELD MARSHAL JOSIAS SAXE-COBURG STATUE
War and Apple Strudel

Field Marshal Frederick Josia Saxe-Coburg SatueAs I write this, there is much discussion and consternation in the US about monument statues to long gone military men and their meaning and history. America in general is not really all that big on public statues of generals, (see Patton ), tending more to monument plaques at places where the slept. and other symbolic markers. In Europe, where generals tended to be of noble houses, princes and counts of one sort or another, statues in town squares are more common, in assorted poses and often astride horses. In the central a square of Coburg Germany is a monumental figure of Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg, who married Queen Victoria and fathered the current line of English monarchy.

A few blocks away near the Ehrenberg Palace, watching over the busy comings and goings of city busses, is a less familiar figure, but one of the more interesting of statuary poses, in military dress, in green patina colored bronze, with a laconic outstretched pointing finger, as if suggesting, rather than commanding, a march to some far off battlefield. And in a curious reference, a city guide, tells that this fellow is the man who brought the dessert of Apple Strudel (Apfelstrudle) to Germany.

Apple Strudel, really!

Prinz Freidrich Josias Saxe-CoburgPrince Frederick Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld was born at the Ehrenburg Palace in Coburg in 1737, the youngest son of Duke Francis Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and Anna Sophie, Princess of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt (see Freidrich Schiller House Weimar). He was the great-uncle of King Leopold I of Belgium and great-great-uncle of Queen Victoria. He joined the military during the Seven Years War of Succession as a colonel in 1759 and rose to the rank of Lt. Field Marshal. In the Russian-Turkish-Austrian war of 1788 he commanded a corps of the Hapsburg army occupying Moldavia, and defeated the Ottoman Army of the Grand Vizer Yusef Pasha at the Battle of Rymnik, capturing Bucharest and facilitating the joining of Hungary to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

ApfelstrudleField Marshal Frederick Josias brought two things back home with him to Saxon Germany and the Hapsburg Empire from the east. He had a fathered a love child with a local commoner in Moldavia, Therese Stroffeck, whom he brought to Coburg with him to marry - and he brought a passion for the sweet dessert he enjoyed in the eastern service, a variation of the Turkish Baklava, a filo dough pastry, which in Hungary by the late 17th Century had been transformed into a layered pastry with fruit, especially apples, then rolled into a “strudel” in German meaning “whirlpool” for its shape of layers when cut. The dessert’s popularity would spread with the growth of Austrian café society (see Cafes of Vienna), and throughout the reaches of the German language countries, especially the Hapsburg influenced Austria and Bavaria.

Battle of FleurusPrince Josias went on to command the Austrian-Netherlands army during the Campaign of Flanders against the French Revolutionary forces in the War of the First Coalition, with a victory at Neerwinden in 1793. He fought into France, taking Valenciennes (see Valenciennes Cathedral) but ran into a setback defeat against French general Jean Baptiste Jourdan along the Sambra River at the Battle of Fleurus near Charleroi in 1794. The field marshal would draw his forces back to Waterloo, where the more famous battle defeat of Napoleon would take place about 20 years later.  The Fleurus battle was costly in men for the French, but their success caused the Austrian coalition allies to withdraw back across the Rhine, allowing the French to push into the Rhineland and the collapse of the Dutch republic in Flanders (see Rhine Castle Frankenstein).

It was the first of the Napoleonic Wars but might be more commonly framed as the War of the Pastries. The Germans wanted to introduce strudel to the French, but they had their own idea about desserts and this struggle over who had the better sweets would define Europe through a century of two World Wars. Thanks Josias! Now, if Napoleon had not been defeated by the Prussians at Leipzig (see Battle of Nations Monument), and Coburg was French, the debate might be should the Josias statue be taken down because he fought for Strudel rather than Éclair? © Bargain Travel Europe

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See Also:

CALLENBERG CASTLE - PRINCE ALBERT & VICTORIA

MOZARTHAUS LEOPOLD BIRTHHOUSE - AUGSBURG

FUGGER & WELSER MUSEUM - AUGSBURG

WILHELMSBURG CASTLE - SCHMALKALDEN