Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Groups, Theory of" to "Gwyniad": Volume 12, Slice 6Various
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Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Groups, Theory of" to "Gwyniad": Volume 12, Slice 6
Various
Encyclopedias and dictionaries
GUICHARD, KARL GOTTLIEB (1724-1775), soldier and military writer, known
as QUINTUS ICILIUS, was born at Magdeburg in 1724, of a family of French
refugees. He was educated for the Church, and at Leiden actually
preached a sermon as a candidate for the pastorate. But he abandoned
theology for more secular studies, especially that of ancient history,
in which his learning attracted the notice of the prince of Orange, who
promised him a vacant professorship at Utrecht. On his arrival, however,
he found that another scholar had been elected by the local authorities,
and he thereupon sought and obtained a commission in the Dutch army. He
made the campaigns of 1747-48 in the Low Countries. In the peace which
followed, his combined military and classical training turned his
thoughts in the direction of ancient military history. His notes on this
subject grew into a treatise, and in 1754 he went over to England in
order to consult various libraries. In 1757 his _Memoires militaires sur
les Grecs et les Romains_ appeared at the Hague, and when Carlyle wrote
his _Frederick the Great_ it had reached its fifth edition. Coming back,
with English introductions, to the Continent, he sought service with
Ferdinand of Brunswick, who sent him on to Frederick the Great, whom he
joined in January 1758 at Breslau. The king was very favourably
impressed with Guichard and his works, and he remained for nearly 18
months in the royal suite. His Prussian official name of Quintus Icilius
was the outcome of a friendly dispute with the king (see Nikolai,
_Anekdoten_, vi. 129-145; Carlyle, _Frederick the Great_, viii.
113-114). Frederick in discussing the battle of Pharsalia spoke of a
centurion Quintus Caecilius as Q. Icilius. Guichard ventured to correct
him, whereupon the king said, "_You_ shall be Quintus Icilius," and as
Major Quintus Icilius he was forthwith gazetted to the command of a free
battalion. This corps he commanded throughout the later stages of the
Seven Years' War, his battalion, as time went on, becoming a regiment of
three battalions, and Quintus himself recruited seven more battalions of
the same kind of troops. His command was almost always with the king's
own army in these campaigns, but for a short time it fought in the
western theatre under Prince Henry. When not on the march he was always
at the royal headquarters, and it was he who brought about the famous
interview between the king and Gellert (see Carlyle, _Frederick the
Great_, ix. 109; Gellert, _Briefwechsel mit Demoiselle Lucius_, ed.
Ebert, Leipzig, 1823, pp. 629-631) on the subject of national German
literature. On 22nd January 1761 Quintus was ordered to sack the castle
of Hubertusburg (a task which Major-General Saldern had point-blank
refused to undertake, from motives of conscience), and carried out his
task, it is said, to his own very considerable profit. The place cannot
have been seriously injured, as it was soon afterwards the meeting-place
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