Prince Felix of Salm-Salm

Prince Felix Constantin Alexander Johann Nepomuk of Salm-Salm (25 December 1828 – 18 August 1870) was a Prussian military officer of princely birth and a soldier of fortune. Salm-Salm served in the Schleswig-Holstein Army (Prussian Army), Austrian Army, the Union Army during the American Civil War, the army of Emperor Maximilian in Mexico and thereafter in the Prussian Army. He was killed in action during the Franco-Prussian War. Life Prince Felix Constantin Alexander Johann Nepomuk of Salm-Salm, was born at Anholt Castle, the Residenz of the former Principality of Salm, which had been incorporated into the Prussian Province of Westphalia by 1815. He was the third and youngest son of Prince Florentin, the formerly reigning Prince of Salm-Salm (1786–1846), and his wife Flaminia di Rossi (1795-1840), a Corsican noblewoman and niece of Prince Felice Pasquale Baciocchi. The 1815 Congress of Vienna confirmed the Salm dynasty's loss of sovereignty but recognized the retention of royal privileges of the Princes of Salm-Salm as a Mediatized House in the German Confederation. Felix grew up training to be a soldier at a cadet-school in Berlin and became an officer in the Prussian 11th Hussar Regiment in 1846. Early on he participated in the First Schleswig War between northern Germany and Denmark. Severely wounded in a skirmish near Aarhus on 18 May 1849, he demonstrated bravery in battle. After the war he joined the Austrian army, serving in the Austro-Sardinian War of 1859. However, his erratic way of life alienated his family; substantial gambling debts as well as several scandals and duels finally forced him to emigrate.