join the Russians on the Oder. At Kunersdorf he turned defeat into a brilliant victory, and was promoted Feldzeugmeister and made commander-in-chief in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. In 1760 he destroyed a whole corps of Frederick’s army under Fouqué at Landshut and stormed the important fortress of Glatz. In 1760 he sustained a reverse at Frederick’s hands in the battle of Liegnitz (Aug. 15th, 1760), which action led to bitter controversy with Daun and Lacy, the commanders of the main army, who, Loudon claimed, had left his corps unsupported. In 1761 he operated, as usual, in Silesia, but he found his Russian allies as timid as they had been after Kunersdorf, and all attempts against Frederick’s entrenched camp of Bunzelwitz (see Seven Years’ War) failed. He brilliantly seized his one fleeting opportunity, however, and stormed Schweidnitz on the night of Sept. 30/October 1st, 1761. His tireless activity continued to the end of the war, in conspicuous contrast with the temporizing strategy of Daun and Lacy. The student of the later campaigns of the Seven Years’ War will probably admit that there was need of more aggressiveness than Daun displayed, and of more caution than suited Loudon’s genius. But neither recognized this, and the last three years of the war are marked by an ever-increasing friction between the “Fabius” and the “Marcellus,” as they were called, of the Austrian army.
After the peace, therefore, when Daun became the virtual commander-in-chief of the army, Loudon fell into the background. Offers were made, by Frederick the Great amongst others, to induce Loudon to transfer his services elsewhere. Loudon did not entertain these proposals, although negotiations went on for some years, and on Lacy succeeding Daun as president of the council of war Loudon was made inspector-general of infantry. Dissensions, however, continued between Loudon and Lacy, and on the accession of Joseph II., who was intimate with his rival, Loudon retired to his estate near Kuttenberg. Maria Theresa and Kaunitz caused him, however, to be made commander-in-chief in Bohemia and Moravia in 1769. This post he held for three years, and at the end of this time, contemplating retirement from the service, he settled again on his estate. Maria Theresa once more persuaded him to remain in the army, and, as his estate had diminished in value owing to agrarian troubles in Bohemia, she repurchased it from him (1776) on generous terms. Loudon then settled at Hadersdorf near Vienna, and shortly afterwards was made a field-marshal. Of this Carlyle (Frederick the Great) records that when Frederick the Great met Loudon in 1776 he deliberately addressed him in the emperor’s presence as “Herr Feldmarschall.” But the hint was not taken until February 1778.
In 1778 came the War of the Bavarian Succession. Joseph and Lacy were now reconciled to Loudon, and Loudon and Lacy commanded the two armies in the field. On this occasion, however, Loudon seems to have in a measure fallen below his reputation, while Lacy, who was opposed to Frederick’s own army, earned new laurels. For two years after this Loudon lived quietly at Hadersdorf, and then the reverses of other generals in the Turkish War called him for the last time into the field. Though old and broken in health, he was commander-in-chief in fact as well as in name, and he won a last brilliant success by capturing Belgrade in three weeks, 1789. He died within the year, on the 14th of July at Neu-Titschein in Moravia, still on duty. His last appointment was that of commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Austria, which had been created for him by the new emperor Leopold. Loudon was buried in the grounds of Hadersdorf. Eight years before his death the emperor Joseph had caused a marble bust of this great soldier to be placed in the chamber of the council of war.
His son Johann Ludwig Alexius, Freiherr von Loudon (1762–1822) fought in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars with credit, and rose to the rank of lieutenant-field-marshal.
See memoir by v. Arneth in Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, s.v. “Laudon,” and life by G. B. Malleson.
LOUDOUN, JOHN CAMPBELL, 1st Earl of (1598–1663), Scottish politician, eldest son of Sir James Campbell of Lawers, became Baron Loudoun in right of his wife Margaret, granddaughter of Hugh Campbell, 1st Baron Loudoun (d. 1622). He was created earl on the 12th of May 1633, but in consequence of his opposition to Charles I.’s church policy in Scotland the patent was stopped in Chancery. In 1637 he was one of the supplicants against the introduction of the English liturgy; and with John Leslie, 6th earl of Rothes, he took a leading part in the promulgation of the Covenant and in the General Assembly which met at Glasgow in the autumn of 1638. He served under General Leslie, and was one of the Scottish commissioners at the Pacification of Berwick in June 1639. In November of that year and again in 1640 the Scottish estates sent Loudoun with Charles Seton, 2nd earl of Dunfermline, to London on an embassy to Charles I. Loudoun intrigued with the French ambassador and with Thomas Savile, afterwards earl of Sussex, but without much success. He was in London when John Stewart, earl of Traquair, placed in Charles’s hands a letter signed by Loudoun and six others and addressed to Louis XIII. In spite of his protest that the letter was never sent, and that it would in any case be covered by the amnesty granted at Berwick, he was sent to the Tower. He was released in June, and two months later he re-entered England with the Scottish invading army, and was one of the commissioners at Ripon in October. In the following August (1641) Charles opened parliament at Edinburgh in person, and in pursuance of a policy of conciliation towards the leaders of the Covenant Loudoun was made lord chancellor of Scotland, and his title of earl of Loudoun was allowed. He also became first commissioner of the treasury. In 1642 he was sent by the Scottish council to York to offer to mediate in the dispute between Charles and the parliament, and later on to Oxford, but in the second of these instances Charles refused to accept his authority. He was constantly employed in subsequent negotiations, and in 1647 was sent to Charles at Carisbrooke Castle, but the “Engagement” to assist the king there made displeased the extreme Covenanters, and Loudoun was obliged to retract his support of it. He was now entirely on the side of the duke of Argyll and the preachers. He assisted in the capacity of lord chancellor at Charles II.’s coronation at Scone, and was present at Dunbar. He joined in the royalist rising of 1653, but eventually surrendered to General Monk. His estates were forfeited by Cromwell, and a sum of money settled on the countess and her heirs. At the Restoration he was removed from the chancellorship, but a pension of £1000 granted him by Charles I. in 1643 was still allowed him. In 1662 he was heavily fined. He died in Edinburgh on the 15th of March 1663.
The earl’s elder son, James (d. 1684), 2nd earl of Loudoun, passed his life out of Great Britain, and when he died at Leiden was succeeded by his son Hugh (d. 1731). The 3rd earl held various high positions in England and Scotland, being chosen one of the representative peers for Scotland at the union of the parliaments in 1707. He rendered good service to the government during the rising of 1715, especially at the battle of Sheriffmuir, and was succeeded as 4th earl by his son John (1705–1782), who fought against the Jacobites in 1745, was commander-in-chief of the British force in America in 1756 and died unmarried. The title then passed to James Mure Campbell (d. 1786), a grandson of the 2nd earl, and was afterwards borne by the marquesses of Hastings, descendants of the 5th earl’s daughter and heiress, Flora (1780–1840). Again reverting to a female on the death of Henry, 4th marquess of Hastings, in 1868, it came afterwards to Charles (b. 1855), a nephew of this marquess, who became 11th earl of Loudoun.
LOUDUN, a town of western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Vienne, on an eminence overlooking a fertile plain, 45 m. by rail S.W. of Tours. Pop. (1906) 3931.
It was formerly surrounded by walls, of which a single gateway and two towers remain. Of the old castle of the counts of Anjou which was destroyed under Richelieu, the site now forming a
public promenade, a fine rectangular donjon of the 12th century is preserved; at its base traces of Roman constructions have been found, with fragments of porphyry pavement, mosaics and mural paintings. The Carmelite convent was the scene of the trial of Urban Grandier, who was burnt alive for witchcraft in 1634; the old Romanesque church of Sainte Croix, of which he was curé, is now used as a market. The church of St Pierre-du-Marché, Gothic in style with a Renaissance portal, has a lofty stone spire. There are several curious old houses in the town.
