Franz Moritz, count von Lacy

Franz Moritz, count von Lacy (born Oct. 21, 1725, St. Petersburg, Russia—died Nov. 24, 1801, Vienna, Austria) was a field marshal who served under the empress Maria Theresa and her successors and who reorganized the Austrian army.

Lacy’s Irish father had served as a Russian officer. Lacy was educated in Germany and entered the Austrian service in 1743. During the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48) he served in Italy, Bohemia, Silesia, and the Low Countries and during the Seven Years’ War (1756–63) rose rapidly in rank. He was a field marshal by 1765 and then president of the supreme army council (1766–73). In the War of the Bavarian Succession (1778–79), Lacy and Gideon Ernst von Laudon were the chief Austrian commanders against Prussia, and, when Joseph II came to the throne (1765), Lacy became his most trusted associate. He was an excellent military administrator. Prematurely aged (perhaps because of numerous wounds), he was unsuccessful in the Turkish War of 1787–92 and had to hand over the command to his rival Laudon.