Talk:Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher

Liebe Kommerade
Would it not be a good addition to include his quote after meeting Wellington at Le Belle Alliance at the end of the battle of Waterloo? It's one of his most famous quotes - "Meine liebe kammerade! Quelle affaire!". I appreciate that it comes in various forms, but a good source would be here - https://exhibitions.lib.cam.ac.uk/waterloo/artifacts/harley-mason-a-78-plate-opposite-p-42/ 2A02:C7D:E014:4D00:81BC:E0DD:D747:5ACB (talk) 11:33, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Anecdote
A good article about a noble fellow. Pity I can't recall the origin of the following anecdote, else I'd add it to the article: Blucher was relatively unlettered in the tradition of the Prussian aristocracy of his time: when, after Waterloo, Blucher was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws, he said, why Gniesenau can be my apothecary, and it appears that the old blood-drinker was unclear on the meaning of the degree.

Edward G. Nilges (spinoza1111@yahoo.com)

3-10-2005: I have tracked down der alte Feld Marschall's innocent expostulation as best I can to a book published in 1883 and reviewed that year by the Nation in America. I have added it for color with NPOV as best as I can: for NPOV doesn't mean we can't make old Blucher appear as he was, a rather colorful old fellow.

Edward G. Nilges (spinoza1111@yahoo.com)


 * While colorful, I suggest it is really apochryphal. The interpretation "Doctor" as a assumption that the holder is a physician instead of an academic is primarily an American custom, and not German. The term for physician in Germany is Arzt, not Doktor. Blücher would associate "Doktor" with a person holding a PhD, not a medical man. The story is an illustration that something is not necessarily true, even thought it appears in print in an old book. The original author obviously had no knowledge of German, Germany, or its culture. --StanZegel 16:23, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, but you are wrong. While the term 'Arzt' is indeed correct for a doctor of medicine, his academic qualification gives him the title 'Doktor' in German. Itzenplitz 13:41, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

That's the point though. He would never have thought that a degree making him a Doktor was in any way making him an Arzt.

bad translation.
Frederick's quote on Blucher appears mis-translated. I know enough German to see the word 'teufel' as devil. A word which does not appear in the English translation. Perhaps a native speaker of German can more properly translate this.
 * The translation was correct as far as I can tell, but I replaced it with one that also refers to the devil/hell aspect. A modern translation would probably be "Rittmeister v. Blücher may FOAD!" --Matthead 17:37, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Frederick the Great's German was famously bad and often riddled with spelling errors, but I've never seen him use the wrong word before. How about "Horsemaster v. Bluecher can go to the devil"?

"Rittmeister" is captain of cavalry in Prussia. Dead-cat 13:29, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

pregnant with an elephant
I recently came across the following story about Bluecher: that at some point, he believed that he was pregant with a baby elephant, fathered by a French grenadier. Some versions suggest that this caused him to be removed from command for a while during the 1815 campaign. I first came across this story in the novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, but I've found other versions of it on various internet sites, some of which purport to discuss actual history. Is there any truth to this story? Is it a story that his contemporaries told about him, to explain his erratic behavior during the Waterloo campaign?

gorlim 05:17, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


 * It appears that this interpretation is based on misunderstanding of Blücher's German. I recall reading (and can try to trace the source if wanted) that 'being pregnant with an elephant by an X' was a way of saying in Berlin vernacular that this 'X' was giving a person headache. IOW, what Blücher meant was something like 'those damn Frech are causing me trouble'. - Mikko H. 19:22, 16 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I would like to see that source - TheTruthWSYF 11:10, 22 November 2012 (UTC)


 * This source maybe? http://brandonthegrey.blogspot.com/2016/11/random-facts-6-madness-of-marshal.html Leongut (talk) 06:01, 17 September 2020 (UTC)


 * The story appears as well in Talk:Helmuth von Moltke the Elder. One discussant mistakenly attributed the delusion to Helmuth von Moltke the Elder and was corrected, to wit that the general who thought himself pregnant with an elephant was von Blücher.  Richard David Ramsey 03:20, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I also heard that he was convinced that his staff were French agents. He believed that they were trying to burn his feet through over-heating his floor and thus took the precaution of either sitting down and raising his feet or jumping from one foot to the other.--Crimzon2283 (talk) 07:54, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I heard that he thought that he had been impregnated by a French soldier which led to his phantom elepahant pregnancy (Fdsdh1 (talk) 23:27, 11 November 2012 (UTC))

See: -- PBS (talk) 21:15, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

His grave today?
In 1945 his grave was destroyed by russian troops, his corpus exhumed and his skull used as football to play soccer/football. Today, now in Poland, his grave looks exactly like the russians left it 60 years ago. Picture: http://wroclaw.hydral.com.pl/67611,foto.html (copyrighted) Should this be mentioned? 84.181.103.30 12:21, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, thanks, both here and in Soviet war crimes where it is likely to gain from more hits. Done.  Richard David Ramsey 04:53, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Please give a source for the information that his skull was used as a football. This information is given nowhere else and I will take out of the article till a source will be given. --Tilman Berger (talk) 07:50, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Idiom
A German idiom "ran wie Blücher" may have existed a long time ago, but is no longer used or understood today. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.52.90.221 (talk) 01:33, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The idiom exists. However, it is not popular any more, I suppose more than half of the Germans under 40 wouldn't even understand it. --Tallyho (talk) 22:39, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

A bit of a revering biography?
The last section, and particularly these sentences, don't seem particularly encyclopaedic to me (especially considering Gneisenau was no fan of Wellington and to some extent delayed the arrival of the Prussians): "He was unable to resume command for some hours, and Gneisenau drew off the defeated army, rallied it and sent it off to join Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo. After bathing his wounds in brandy, and fortified by liberal internal application of the same, the old warrior rejoined his army and led it on an endless, tortuous march along muddy paths, arriving on the field of Waterloo in the late afternoon." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Audigex (talk • contribs) 21:25, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

-I agree with the above, the whole uncited brandy bit reads like a load of bullshit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.210.115.238 (talk) 02:10, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Titles and ranks
The dates of titles and ranks are not clear in the article. In the Battle of Waterloo article he is referred to as "Gephard von Blucher" with no rank or title, which seems a bit casual. Cyclopaedic (talk) 09:04, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Blücher shoe
This article should mention Gebhard von Blücher is known for having thought up, during the Napoleonic wars, a type of shoe for his troops, who wanted active duty footwear that could easily be taken off. It is a half-boot with open lacing and a one-cut vamp. This style is currently used in some boots, and in the Blucher dress shoe.

Definition Explanation Modern Blucher shoe Devolicious77 (talk) 23:23, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikiplagiarism?
John Julius Norwich’s France, a History, from Gaul to de Gaulle,] appears to be borrowing directly from the wiki article regarding Blucher’s appearance still stinking of horse linement. They both also appear to be wrong factually, since more detailed explanations suggest the schnapps was used only externally, champagne, or, more boringly, milk, being for internal use. (Indeed, some tellings suggest, not surprisingly, that he stank of horse liniment from being pinned under a dead horse.) Obviously, there could be yet a third source both drew from, or this might even be coincidence, but it’s certainly a trout in the milk. Qwirkle (talk) 18:15, 29 January 2019 (UTC)