Otto Arnold von Paykull

Otto Arnold von Paykull (c.1662 – 4 February 1707) was a Livonian officer in the service of the Electorate of Saxony.

Early life

Otto Arnold von Paykull was born around 1662 in Swedish Livonia. He was a page at the Royal Court of Saxony in 1677 and in 1678 he joined the Saxonian Guard.

Military career
See also: Campaign of Grodno

After some years in French service von Paykull returned to Saxony where he eventually became Lieutenant General around 1700. He was part of the Saxonian army that tried to stop the Swedish Crossing of the Daugava in 1701. He was injured during this fight and left the service for some years, but returned in 1704 to command a cavalry regiment.

Execution of Otto Arnold von Paykull in Stockholm, 1707 (Neu-eröffneter Historischer Bilder-Saal, volume 7, p. 213, 1719)

In 1705, von Paykull was captured by the Swedes at the Battle of Warsaw. He was brought to Stockholm where he was executed on 4 February 1707 for high treason due to his service for Saxony, though being born in a Swedish province. Known as an alchemist, he tried to escape execution by promising annual deliverance of gold to king Charles XII of Sweden but was rebuffed.

gollark: My laptop has, for some intensely bizarre reason, 4GB soldered, and an empty slot which I added 4GB to.
gollark: I don't have that much RAM so I have to resort to manually suspending tabs when I run low.
gollark: 80-ish on my phone.
gollark: I'm at 380 open tabs on my laptop alone.
gollark: Why close tabs when you could *not* close tabs?

See also

Johann Patkul

References
  • Svenskt Biografiskt Lexikon. 28. Stockholm. 1992–94.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.