Joseph Radetzky von Radetz

Joseph Radetzky von Radetz (1766–1858) was a Bohemian-born Austrian field marshal. Orphaned young and schooled at Vienna's Theresa Academy, he entered the army as a cadet in 1784 and fought against the Ottomans and in the Napoleonic Wars.

As chief of the general staff he helped plan the allied victory at Leipzig in 1813 and later drove reforms of the Austrian army. In the 1848–1849 Italian war he defeated Sardinia-Piedmont at Custoza and Novara; his soldiers called him Father Radetzky, and Johann Strauss I wrote the Radetzky March to celebrate Custoza. He died in Milan in 1858.