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Concept
Victor Valois
Summary
Victor Valois (1841–1924), also called Anton Friedrich Victor Valois, was a vice-admiral (Vizeadmiral) in the German Imperial Navy. He graduated from the post-graduate Naval War College, the Imperial Naval Academy (Marineakademie) in 1874 in a class with three other future admirals: Otto von Diederichs, Felix von Bendemann, Gustav von Senden-Bibran.
Commissioned into the Prussian navy in 1857, Valois fought at the Battle of Jasmund in 1864. Between 1865 and 1868 he circumnavigated the world and later served in the Franco-Prussian War as captain of . He sank or captured several French ships before being blockaded in Vigo until the end of the war. In 1890 he became commander of the German East Asia Squadron. Towards the end of his naval career and in retirement he was active in the debate regarding the role of the German navy. Valois supported creating a fleet of light commerce raiders, as opposed to the orthodoxy of building up a battleship force for a decisive fleet action. He wrote several influential books and pamphlets.
According to family legend, Valois' great-grandfather was lured from France to Switzerland during the Seven Years' War, where he was conscripted into Habsburg service. During the Prussian victory at Liegnitz he was among the 4,700 Austrian prisoners, and was persuaded to join the Prussian military. After the war he settled in the town of Prussian Holland, a village settled by Dutch refugees during the fourteenth century. (The town is now called Pasłęk and is part of modern-day Poland.) The son of the erstwhile prisoner became a merchant, and his son, while studying to be a justice, married the daughter of one of the deputies of the Prussian Parliament, Antonie Pohl-Senslau. Victor Valois, born in 1841 to this couple, married Minna von Behrendt. He was generally reckoned by other naval officers to be a pleasant man who spoke perfect English.
Valois entered the Prussian naval academy and was commissioned on 18 June 1857 and passed his naval exams that year.
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