ABSTRACT
Commander of the Prussian III Corps during the Waterloo campaign. Saxon by birth, Thielemann (sometimes the name is spelt Thielmann in the literature) was one of those men – like Alava and Chassé – who fought against Napoleon in 1815, having fought for him in previous years. Indeed, Thielemann had served with the Emperor’s Grand Army as recently as 1812, distinguishing himself at the Battle of Borodino. Commanding the 1st Brigade of the 7th Cuirassier Division, part of IV Cavalry Corps, Thielemann led his Poles and Saxons in a celebrated charge against the Raevsky Redoubt. The capture of this formidable Russian battery was a brilliant feat, but Thielemann was robbed of the credit, as Napoleon always maintained the bastion had been taken by French troops. The kingdom of Saxony was allied to Napoleon from 1807 to 1814, but Thielemann defected to the Allies on 12 May 1813. At first he commanded a force of Cossacks, defeating Napoleon’s cavalry supremo, Lefebvre-Desnouëttes at Altenburg on 28 September 1813. At the beginning of 1815, however, Thielemann entered the Prussian service with the rank of Generalleutnant.
