Daniël Wolf baron van Dopff ( Hanau , 10 January 1650 - Maastricht , 15 April 1718 ) was a prominent soldier in the Dutch Republic. He was, among other things, general of the cavalry of the Dutch States Army in the War of the Spanish Succession, Quartermaster general of that army, and later commander and governor of the fortress of Maastricht.
Life
Personal life
Daniel Wolfgang ("Wolf") Dopff hailed from a non-noble family from Hesse . His father was employed as a bailiff and toll collector of the County of Hanau-Münzenberg. Daniel was educated in Hanau at the Count's gymnasium illustre. He was married with Catharina Maria van Volckershoven. They had a son: Fredrik Karel. In 1709 he bought Ruyff Castle in Hendrik-Kapelle, but it is not known whether he renovated or added anything to it. In 1716 he sold the castle again. About the same time he bought the Hartelstein estate near Itteren , which he bequeathed to his son Frederik Karel. Van Dopff was also the builder of the Neercanne Castle , which he had erected near the village of Kanne after his appointment as commander. Van Dopff had the old Agimont Castle largely demolished on site and built a pleasure castle in the style of Dutch classicism, modeled on the Johanniter castle Sonnenburg near Kostrzyn nad Odrą, designed by Pieter Post.
Career
At the age of 16 Dopff entered the service of the count's army. He later transferred to the army of Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg . In the disaster year of 1672 he fought on the side of the Dutch Republic against the French armies in the Franco-Dutch war. For his gallantry he was decorated with a Brandenburg knighthood, the Ordre de la Générosité . Van Dopff would later include the black, eight-pointed star from this order in his family coat of arms . After this he transferred to the Dutch States Army. In 1675 he was appointed engineer-fortification master of the Maastricht fortress; in 1679 he was already an ordinaris-engineer, one of the highest ranks of military engineer.
In 1683, under the command of Prince Georg Friedrich of Waldeck, he joined the Imperial troops, who managed to lift the Siege of Vienna by the Turks . On 17 October 1685, the emperor granted him the noble title of Reichsfreiherr (baron) for this. The Prince of Waldeck emerged as his lifelong patron. He appointed Van Dopff as his chamberlain, who then regularly stayed in Maastricht, where the prince had been appointed governor of the fortress . Van Dopff was put in charge of the fortifications.
Between 1688 and 1690, Van Dopff had four new bastions built on the southwest side of Maastricht to better protect the city against a possible attack by the French during the Nine Years' War. After Waldeck's death, Van Dopff remained in Maastricht and was even promoted to commander of the fortress in 1694 by the new governor John Adolphus, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Plön. From 1701 to 1702, just before the start of the War of the Spanish Succession, Fort Sint-Pieter was built on the northern flank of Sint-Pietersberg under the leadership of Van Dopff.
Under Waldeck's tutelage Van Dopff built up a vast expertise in the field of military logistics, and he developed a great knowledge of the terrain in the Southern Netherlands, the new theater of operations in the Nine Years' War. King William III of England put great store in his advice. He appointed Van Dopff Quartermaster general, or Chief of staff of the Dutch States Army in 1694. He played the same role for king William as Jules Louis Bolé, marquis de Chamlay and Jacques de Chastenet, Marquis of Puységur played for Louis XIV of France. At the Battle of Fleurus (1690) he accompanied Waldeck as his chief of staff. On the eve of the Battle of Steenkerque in 1692 he was among the generals king William asked for advice on the strategy to follow in a council of war.