Biographie, vol. 3 (Leipzig, 1876), and “Behrenhorst und Bülow” (Historische Zeitschrift, 1861, vi.); Max Jähns, Geschichte der Kriegswissenschaften, vol. iii. pp. 2133-2145 (Munich, 1891); General von Cämmerer (transl. von Donat), Development of Strategical Science (London, 1905), ch. i.
BÜLOW, FRIEDRICH WILHELM, Freiherr von, count of Dennewitz (1755–1816), Prussian general, was born on the 16th of February 1755, at Falkenberg in the Altmark; he was the elder brother of the foregoing. He received an excellent education, and entered the Prussian army in 1768, becoming ensign in 1772, and second lieutenant in 1775. He took part in the “Potato War” of 1778, and subsequently devoted himself to the study of his profession and of the sciences and arts. He was throughout his life devoted to music, his great musical ability bringing him to the notice of Frederick William II., and about 1790 he was conspicuous in the most fashionable circles of Berlin. He did not, however, neglect his military studies, and in 1792 he was made military instructor to the young prince Louis Ferdinand, becoming at the same time full captain. He took part in the campaigns of 1792–93–94 on the Rhine, and received for signal courage during the siege of Mainz the order pour le mérite and promotion to the rank of major. After this he went to garrison duty at Soldau. In 1802 he married the daughter of Colonel v. Auer, and in the following year he became lieutenant-colonel, remaining at Soldau with his corps. The vagaries and misfortunes of his brother Dietrich affected his happiness as well as his fortune. The loss of two of his children was followed in 1806 by the death of his wife, and a further source of disappointment was the exclusion of his regiment from the field army sent against Napoleon in 1806. The disasters of the campaign aroused his energies. He did excellent service under Lestocq’s command in the latter part of the war, was wounded in action, and finally designated for a brigade command in Blücher’s force. In 1808 he married the sister of his first wife, a girl of eighteen. He was made a major-general in the same year, and henceforward he devoted himself wholly to the regeneration of Prussia. The intensity of his patriotism threw him into conflict even with Blücher and led to his temporary retirement; in 1811, however, he was again employed. In the critical days preceding the War of Liberation he kept his troops in hand without committing himself to any irrevocable step until the decision was made. On the 14th of March 1813 he was made a lieutenant-general. He fought against Oudinot in defence of Berlin (see Napoleonic Campaigns), and in the summer came under the command of Bernadotte, crown prince of Sweden. At the head of an army corps Bülow distinguished himself very greatly in the battle of Gross Beeren, a victory which was attributed almost entirely to his leadership. A little later he won the great victory of Dennewitz, which for the third time checked Napoleon’s advance on Berlin. This inspired the greatest enthusiasm in Prussia, as being won by purely Prussian forces, and rendered Bülow’s popularity almost equal to that of Blücher. Bülow’s corps played a conspicuous part in the final overthrow of Napoleon at Leipzig, and he was then entrusted with the task of evicting the French from Holland and Belgium. In an almost uniformly successful campaign he won a signal victory at Hoogstraaten, and in the campaign of 1814 he invaded France from the north-west, joined Blücher, and took part in the brilliant victory of Laon in March. He was now made general of infantry and received the title of Count Bülow von Dennewitz. In the short peace of 1814–1815 he was at Königsberg as commander-in-chief in Prussia proper. He was soon called to the field again, and in the Waterloo campaign commanded the IV. corps of Blücher’s army. He was not present at Ligny, but his corps headed the flank attack upon Napoleon at Waterloo, and bore the heaviest part in the fighting of the Prussian troops. He took part in the invasion of France, but died suddenly on the 25th of February 1816, a month after his return to the Königsberg command.
See General Graf Bülow von Dennewitz, 1813–1814 (Leipzig, 1843); Varnhagen von Ense, Leben des G. Grafen B. von D. (Berlin, 1854).
BÜLOW, HANS GUIDO VON (1830–1894), German pianist and conductor, was born at Dresden, on the 8th of January 1830. At the age of nine he began to study music under Friedrich Wieck as part of a genteel education. It was only after an illness while studying law at Leipzig University in 1848 that he determined upon music as a career. At this time he was a pupil of Moritz Hauptmann. In 1849 revolutionary politics took possession of him. In the Berlin Abendpost, a democratic journal, the young aristocrat poured forth his opinions, which were strongly coloured by Wagner’s Art and Revolution. Wagner’s influence was musical no less than political, for a performance of Lohengrin under Liszt at Weimar in 1850 completed von Bülow’s determination to abandon a legal career. From Weimar he went to Zürich, where the exile Wagner instructed him in the elements of conducting. But he soon returned to Weimar and Liszt; and in 1853 he made his first concert tour, which extended from Vienna to Berlin. Next he became principal professor of the piano at the Stern Academy, and married in his twenty-eighth year Liszt’s daughter Cosima. For the following nine years von Bülow laboured incessantly in Berlin as pianist, conductor and writer of musical and political articles. Thence he removed to Munich, where, thanks to Wagner, he had been appointed Hofkapellmeister to Louis II., and chief of the Conservatorium. There, too, he organized model performances of Tristan and Die Meistersinger. In 1869 his marriage was dissolved, his wife subsequently marrying Wagner, an incident which, while preventing Bülow from revisiting Bayreuth, never dimmed his enthusiasm for Wagner’s dramas. After a temporary stay in Florence, Bülow set out on tour again as a pianist, visiting most European countries as well as the United States of America, before taking up the post of conductor at Hanover, and, later, at Meiningen, where he raised the orchestra to a pitch of excellence till then unparalleled. In 1885 he resigned the Meiningen office, and conducted a number of concerts in Russia and Germany. At Frankfort he held classes for the higher development of piano-playing. He constantly visited England, for the last time in 1888, in which year he went to live in Hamburg. Nevertheless he continued to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic Concerts. He died at Cairo, on the 13th of February 1894. Bülow was a pianist of the highest order of intellectual attainment, an artist of remarkably catholic tastes, and a great conductor. A passionate hater of humbug and affectation, he had a ready pen, and a biting, sometimes almost rude wit, yet of his kindness and generosity countless tales were told. His compositions are few and unimportant, but his annotated editions of the classical masters are of great value. Bülow’s writings and letters (Briefe und Schriften), edited by his widow, have been published in 8 vols. (Leipzig, 1895–1908).
BULRUSH, a name now generally given to Typha latifolia, the reed-mace or club-rush, a plant growing in lakes, by edges of rivers and similar localities, with a creeping underground stem, narrow, nearly flat leaves, 3 to 6 ft. long, arranged in opposite rows, and a tall stem ending in a cylindrical spike, half to one foot long, of closely packed male (above) and female (below) flowers. The familiar brown spike is a dense mass of minute one-seeded fruits, each on a long hair-like stalk and covered with long downy hairs, which render the fruits very light and readily carried by the wind. The name bulrush is more correctly applied to Scirpus lacustris, a member of a different family (Cyperaceae), a common plant in wet places, with tall spongy, usually leafless stems, bearing a tuft of many-flowered spikelets. The stems are used for matting, &c. The bulrush of Scripture, associated with the hiding of Moses, was the Papyrus (q.v.), also a member of the order Cyperaceae, which was abundant in the Nile.
BULSTRODE, SIR RICHARD (1610–1711), English author and soldier, was a son of Edward Bulstrode (1588–1659), and was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge; after studying law in London he joined the army of Charles I. on the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642. In 1673 he became a resident agent of Charles II. at Brussels; in 1675 he was knighted; then following James II. into exile he died at St Germain on the 3rd of October 1711. Bulstrode is chiefly known by his Memoirs and Reflections upon the Reign and Government of King Charles I. and King Charles II., published after his death in 1721. He also
