The Interesting Story of Col. Eugene Lietensdorfer-- Part 1: Member of the Austrian and French Armies

Still from the Small Wars Journal on the First Barbary War.

This was a man of many, many stories indeed.

He was William Eaton's chief of staff during the march on Derna.  Eaton had met Lietensdorfer in Cairo.  But how Lietensdorfer  had come to be in Cairo is an interesting story in itself.

His real name  was Gervasso Prodasio Santuari and he was 33 years old Italian from a village  near Trent in the Tyrol.  His parents had wanted him to become a priest but he quit school at the age of seventeen, got married, and then joined the Austrian Army in its campaign against the Turks.

He fought at Belgrade from 1789 to 1790. and continued serving in the Austrian Army  during the siege of Mantua.  But in 1797, the Austrian collapsed, surrendering to Napoleon.

Santuari did not wish to remain with the losers, so he changed his name to Carlo  Hossando and joined the French Army.

A Man of Two Armies.  --Cooter