36. A Lunatic Ascends the Ranks
Blucher was a head case – a clear-cut lunatic – and everybody knew it. However, he was still a great fighting officer for all that, so his superiors put up with the crazy and kept on promoting him up the ranks. After fighting in the Netherlands in 1787, he was a made a lieutenant colonel the following year. The year after that, he was awarded the Pour le Merite, Prussia’s then-highest military award.
In the early 1790s, he distinguished himself as a cavalry officer in fighting against the armies of Revolutionary France, and by 1794, he was colonel of his regiment, the Red Hussars. That same year he made another jump up the ranks to major general, and in 1801, he was promoted to lieutenant general.