The Saxon Hercules: August the Strong, Elector of Saxony, King of Poland

Abstract

In 1680 Johann Georg III (1647–91) succeeded his father. He had taken part in the war against France before his succession; as Elector he fought on the victorious side at the siege of Vienna in 1683; and campaigned against France in the Low Countries in 1688 and on the Rhine in 1689. He died on campaign in 1691 at the age of forty-four. It was he who created a standing army in Saxony and he who conceived the idea for a cadet school, which came into being after his death in 1692. His wife, Anna Sophia, Princess of Denmark, bore him two sons, who succeeded him in turn. The eldest, Johann Georg IV (1668–1694), died in July 1694 of smallpox contracted from his mistress Magdalena Sibylla von Neitschütz (1675–94). He had reigned for only two and a half years and had no heir by his wife Eleonore of Saxony-Eisenach (1662–96), the widowed Margravine of Brandenburg-Ansbach.