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The Most Famous

MILITARY PERSONNELS from Belgium

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This page contains a list of the greatest Belgian Military Personnels. The pantheon dataset contains 1,468 Military Personnels, 8 of which were born in Belgium. This makes Belgium the birth place of the 23rd most number of Military Personnels behind Sweden and Ireland.

Top 8

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Belgian Military Personnels of all time. This list of famous Belgian Military Personnels is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

Photo of Charles Martel

1. Charles Martel (688 - 741)

With an HPI of 80.65, Charles Martel is the most famous Belgian Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 77 different languages on wikipedia.

Charles Martel (c. 688 – 22 October 741), Martel being a sobriquet in Old French for "The Hammer", was a Frankish political and military leader who, as Duke and Prince of the Franks and Mayor of the Palace to the Merovingian kings of the Franks, was the de facto ruler of the Franks from 718 until his death. He was a son of the Frankish statesman Pepin of Herstal and a noblewoman named Alpaida. Charles successfully asserted his claims to power as successor to his father as the power behind the throne in Frankish politics. Continuing and building on his father's work, he restored centralized government in Francia and began the series of military campaigns that re-established the Franks as the undisputed masters of all Gaul. According to a near-contemporary source, the Liber Historiae Francorum, Charles was "a warrior who was uncommonly ... effective in battle".Charles gained a very consequential victory against an Umayyad invasion of Aquitaine at the Battle of Tours, at a time when the Umayyad Caliphate controlled most of the Iberian Peninsula. Alongside his military endeavours, Charles has been traditionally credited with an influential role in the development of the Frankish system of feudalism.At the end of his reign, Charles divided Francia between his sons, Carloman and Pepin. The latter became the first king of the Carolingian dynasty. Pepin's son Charlemagne, grandson of Charles, extended the Frankish realms and became the first emperor in the West since the Fall of the Western Roman Empire.

Photo of Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly

2. Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly (1559 - 1632)

With an HPI of 66.43, Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly is the 2nd most famous Belgian Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 37 different languages.

Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly (Dutch: Johan t'Serclaes Graaf van Tilly; German: Johann t'Serclaes Graf von Tilly; French: Jean t'Serclaes de Tilly ; February 1559 – 30 April 1632) was a field marshal who commanded the Catholic League's forces in the Thirty Years' War. From 1620–31, he had an unmatched and demoralizing string of important victories against the Protestants, including White Mountain, Wimpfen, Höchst, Stadtlohn and the Conquest of the Palatinate. He destroyed a Danish army at Lutter and sacked the Protestant city of Magdeburg, which caused the death of some 20,000 of the city's inhabitants, both defenders and non-combatants, out of a total population of 25,000. Tilly was then crushed at Breitenfeld in 1631 by the Swedish army of King Gustavus Adolphus. A Swedish arquebus bullet wounded him severely at the Battle of Rain, and he died two weeks later in Ingolstadt. Along with Duke Albrecht von Wallenstein of Friedland and Mecklenburg, he was one of two chief commanders of the Holy Roman Empire’s forces in the first half of the war.

Photo of Maxime Weygand

3. Maxime Weygand (1867 - 1965)

With an HPI of 66.21, Maxime Weygand is the 3rd most famous Belgian Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 38 different languages.

Maxime Weygand (French pronunciation: [vɛɡɑ̃]; 21 January 1867 – 28 January 1965) was a French military commander in World War I and World War II, as well as a high ranking member of the Vichy regime. Born in Belgium, Weygand was raised in France and educated at the Saint-Cyr military academy in Paris. After graduating in 1887, he went on to become an instructor at the Cavalry School at Saumur. During World War I, Weygand served as a staff officer to General (later Marshal) Ferdinand Foch. He then served as an advisor to Poland in the Polish–Soviet War and later High Commissioner of the Levant. In 1931, Weygand was appointed Chief of Staff of the French Army, a position he served until his retirement in 1935 at the age of 68. In May 1940, Weygand was recalled for active duty and assumed command of the French Army during the German invasion. Following a series of military setbacks, Weygand advised armistice and France subsequently capitulated. He joined Philippe Pétain's Vichy regime as Minister for Defence and served until September 1940, when he was appointed Delegate-General in French North Africa. He was noted for exceptionally harsh implementation of German Anti-Semitic policies while in this position. Despite this, Weygand favoured only limited collaboration with Germany and was dismissed from his post in November 1941 on Adolf Hitler's demand. Following the Allied invasion of North Africa in November 1942, Weygand was arrested by the Germans and imprisoned at Itter Castle in Austria until May 1945. After returning to France, he was held as a collaborator at the Val-de-Grâce but was released in 1946 and cleared of charges in 1948. He died in January 1965 in Paris at the age of 98.

Photo of Alfred I, Prince of Windisch-Grätz

4. Alfred I, Prince of Windisch-Grätz (1787 - 1862)

With an HPI of 61.53, Alfred I, Prince of Windisch-Grätz is the 4th most famous Belgian Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 24 different languages.

General Alfred Candidus Ferdinand, Prince of Windischgrätz (German: Alfred Candidus Ferdinand Fürst zu Windischgrätz; 11 May 1787 – 21 March 1862), a member of an old Austro-Bohemian House of Windischgrätz, was a Field Marshal in the Austrian army. He is most noted for his service during the Napoleonic Wars and for his role in suppressing the Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire.

Photo of Adrian Carton de Wiart

5. Adrian Carton de Wiart (1880 - 1963)

With an HPI of 57.22, Adrian Carton de Wiart is the 5th most famous Belgian Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Lieutenant-General Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart, (; 5 May 1880 – 5 June 1963) was a British Army officer. He was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" in various Commonwealth countries. He served in the Boer War, First World War, and Second World War. He was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip, and ear; was blinded in his left eye; survived two plane crashes; tunnelled out of a prisoner-of-war camp; and tore off his own fingers when a doctor declined to amputate them. Describing his experiences in the First World War, he wrote, "Frankly, I had enjoyed the war." After returning home from service (including a period as a prisoner-of-war) in the Second World War, he was sent to China as Winston Churchill's personal representative. While en route he attended the Cairo Conference. In his memoirs, Carton de Wiart wrote, "Governments may think and say as they like, but force cannot be eliminated, and it is the only real and unanswerable power. We are told that the pen is mightier than the sword, but I know which of these weapons I would choose." Carton de Wiart was thought to be a model for the character of Brigadier Ben Ritchie-Hook in Evelyn Waugh's trilogy Sword of Honour. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography described him thus: "With his black eyepatch and empty sleeve, Carton de Wiart looked like an elegant pirate, and became a figure of legend."

Photo of Charles Eugène de Croÿ

6. Charles Eugène de Croÿ (1651 - )

With an HPI of 54.29, Charles Eugène de Croÿ is the 6th most famous Belgian Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Charles Eugène de Croÿ (pronounced [ʃaʁl øʒɛn də kʁwi]; German: Herzog Carl Eugen de Croÿ; Russian: Карл Евгений де Круа, tr. Karl Evgenij de Krua; 1651 – 30 January [O.S. 20] 1702) was a German and Russian Field Marshal and nobleman from the French noble House of Croÿ.

Photo of William FitzOsbern, 1st Earl of Hereford

7. William FitzOsbern, 1st Earl of Hereford (1020 - 1071)

With an HPI of 49.93, William FitzOsbern, 1st Earl of Hereford is the 7th most famous Belgian Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

William FitzOsbern, 1st Earl of Hereford, Lord of Breteuil (c. 1011 – 22 February 1071), was a relative and close counsellor of William the Conqueror and one of the great magnates of early Norman England. FitzOsbern was created Earl of Hereford in 1067, one of the first peerage titles in the English peerage. He is one of the very few proven companions of William the Conqueror known to have fought at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. His chief residence was Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight, one of many castles he built in England.

Photo of Gérard Leman

8. Gérard Leman (1851 - 1920)

With an HPI of 47.11, Gérard Leman is the 8th most famous Belgian Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Gerard Mathieu Joseph Georges, count Leman (8 January 1851 – 17 October 1920) was a Belgian general. He was responsible for the military education of King Albert I of Belgium. During World War I he was the commander of the forts surrounding the Belgian city of Liège. The German Forces had to use heavy artillery to break through the defences and capture Leman as a prisoner of War. He was released at the end of the war and died a hero, in 1920.

People

Pantheon has 8 people classified as military personnels born between 688 and 1880. Of these 8, none of them are still alive today. The most famous deceased military personnels include Charles Martel, Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly, and Maxime Weygand. As of April 2022, 3 new military personnels have been added to Pantheon including Charles Eugène de Croÿ, William FitzOsbern, 1st Earl of Hereford, and Gérard Leman.

Deceased Military Personnels

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Newly Added Military Personnels (2022)

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Overlapping Lives

Which Military Personnels were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 4 most globally memorable Military Personnels since 1700.

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