Jacob Eggers

Jacob von Eggers was a military engineer and Swedish friherre (baron). He was born in a German-speaking family in present-day Tartu, then known as Dorpat, in Russian-occupied Swedish Livonia, during the Great Northern War. Around the age of four he was deported together with his mother to Russia, where in 1713 she remarried a Swedish baron who was a prisoner of war there. After the war, the family moved to Sweden where Jacob pursued studies in fortification. He became an officer in the Swedish military in 1729. Following his stepfather's death in 1733, he sought opportunities to further his career abroad as well as in Sweden. In 1734 he accompanied the troops of Stanisław Leszczyński during the War of the Polish Succession and participated in the siege of Danzig. He then spent some time as a volunteer in imperial, Saxon and French service, as well as making study trips around Europe. From 1737 he formed a more lasting link with the Electorate of Saxony, and was formally employed both by the Swedish and Saxon militaries until 1758.