(T. H. H.*)
KALAT-I-GHILZAI, a fort in Afghanistan. It is situated on an isolated rocky eminence 5543 ft. above sea-level and 200 ft. above the plain, on the right bank of the river Tarnak, on the road between Kabul and Kandahar, 87 m. from Kandahar and 229 m. from Kabul. It is celebrated for its gallant defence by Captain Craigie and a sepoy garrison against the Afghans in the first Afghan War of 1842. In memory of this feat of arms, the 12th Pioneers still bear the name of “The Kalat-i-Ghilzai Regiment,” and carry a special colour with the motto “Invicta.”
KALB, JOHANN (“Baron de Kalb”) (1721-1780), German soldier in the American War of Independence, was born in Hüttendorf, near Bayreuth, on the 29th of June 1721. He was of peasant parentage, and left home when he was sixteen to become a butler; in 1743 he was a lieutenant in a German regiment in the French service, calling himself at this time Jean de Kalb. He served with the French in the War of the Austrian Succession, becoming captain in 1747 and major in 1756; in the Seven Years’ War he was in the corps of the comte de Broglie, rendering great assistance to the French after Rossbach (November 1757) and showing great bravery at Bergen (April 1759); and in 1763 he resigned his commission. As secret agent, appointed by Choiseul, he visited America in 1768-1769 to inquire into the feeling of the colonists toward Great Britain. From his retirement at Milon la Chapelle, Kalb went to Metz for garrison duty under de Broglie in 1775. Soon afterwards he received permission to volunteer in the army of the American colonies, in which the rank of major-general was promised to him by Silas Deane. After many delays he sailed with eleven other officers on the ship fitted out by Lafayette and arrived at Philadelphia in July 1777. His commission from Deane was disallowed, but the Continental Congress granted him the rank of major-general (dating from the 15th of September 1777), and in October he joined the army, where his growing admiration for Washington soon led him to view with disfavour de Broglie’s scheme for putting a European officer in chief command. Early in 1778, as second in command to Lafayette for the proposed expedition against Canada, he accompanied Lafayette to Albany; but no adequate preparations had been made, and the expedition was abandoned. In April 1780, he was sent from Morristown, New Jersey, with his division of Maryland men, his Delaware regiment and the 1st artillery, to relieve Charleston, but on arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, he learned that Charleston had already fallen. In his camp at Buffalo Ford and Deep River, General Horatio Gates joined him on the 25th of July; and next day Gates led the army by the short and desolate road directly towards Camden. On the 11th-13th of August, when Kalb advised an immediate attack on Rawdon, Gates hesitated and then marched to a position on the Salisbury-Charlotte road which he had previously refused to take. On the 14th Cornwallis had occupied Camden, and a battle took place there on the 16th when, the other American troops having broken and fled, Kalb, unhorsed and fighting fiercely at the head of his right wing, was wounded eleven times. He was taken prisoner and died on the 19th of August 1780 in Camden. Here in 1825 Lafayette laid the corner-stone of a monument to him. In 1887 a statue of him by Ephraim Keyser was dedicated in Annapolis, Maryland.
See Friedrich Kapp, Leben des amerikanischen Generals Johann Kalb (Stuttgart, 1862; English version, privately printed, New York, 1870), which is summarized in George W. Greene’s The German Element in the War of American Independence (New York, 1876).
KALCKREUTH (or Kalkreuth), FRIEDRICH ADOLF, Count von (1737-1818), Prussian soldier, entered the regiment of Gardes du Corps in 1752, and in 1758 was adjutant or aide de camp to Frederick the Great’s brother, Prince Henry, with whom he served throughout the later stages of the Seven Years’ War. He won special distinction at the battle of Freiberg (Sept. 29, 1762), for which Frederick promoted him major. Personal differences with Prince Henry severed their connexion in 1766, and for many years Kalckreuth lived in comparative retirement. But he made the campaign of the War of the Bavarian Succession as a colonel, and on the accession of Frederick William II. was restored to favour. He greatly distinguished himself as a major-general in the invasion of Holland in 1787, and by 1792 had become count and lieutenant-general. Under Brunswick he took a conspicuous part in the campaign of Valmy in 1792, the siege and capture of Mainz in 1793, and the battle of Kaiserslautern in 1794. In the campaigns against Napoleon in 1806 he played a marked part for good or evil, both at Auerstädt and in the miserable retreat of the beaten Prussians. In 1807 he defended Danzig for 78 days against the French under Marshal Lefebvre, with far greater skill and energy than he had shown in the previous year. He was promoted field marshal soon afterwards, and conducted many of the negotiations at Tilsit. He died as governor of Berlin in 1818.
The Dictées du Feldmaréchal Kalckreuth were published by his son (Paris, 1844).