Johann Wilhelm von Archenholtz (1743–1812)

The publicist Johann Wilhelm von Archenholtz (1743–1812) fought for Prussia in the Seven Years War, which he described in his best known work Geschichte des Siebenjährigen Krieges in Deutschland von 1756 bis 1763 (1793). After the Treaty of Hubertusburg (1763) he received an honourable discharge from the army, travelled through Europe and stayed six years in England, as well as other countries. As the writer of a popular travelogue England und Italien (1785) and editor of both Annalen der Brittischen Geschichte (1789–1799) and the British Mercury (1787–1790), Archenholtz was an important mediator between Great Britain and Germany and a prominent representative of Anglophilia, until he started increasingly turning to France under the influence of the French Revolution.

Hugo Bürkner (1818–1897), Johann Wilhelm von Archenholtz (1743–1812), engraving, 1854; source: Bechstein, Ludwig: Zweihundert deutsche Männer in Bildnissen und Lebensbeschreibungen, Leipzig 1854, wikimedia commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Johann_wilhelm_von_archenholz.jpg, public domain.