A professional soldier and lieutenant colonel in the Austrian army, he fought against Habsburg pressure. He became a honvéd colonel on October 24, 1848, and was named General at Kápolna. He was a strict disciplinarian: when Lajos Kossuth sent him requests, he answered: "please work through Görgey." He suffered from gout, and relieved of field duty, he was appointed Minister of War on July 14, 1849 and executed less than three months later.