Michael Kováts de Fabriczy (Fabriczi Kováts Mihály) was born in 1724 in Karcag, in Habsburg-ruled Hungary. He was a nobleman, orphaned at a very young age, who started his military career in the Hungarian cavalry under Maria Theresa. During the AustrianWar of Succession (1740–1748), he fought as a common hussar for the Habsburg dynasty, in the cavalry regiment of free Jazygs and Cumans. In the years following the War of Succession, his awakening love of freedom and his belief in the self-determination of nations caused him to turn against Habsburg rule in Hungary. In the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), he joined the Prussian Army to fight against the Austrians. He started off as a cornet in Frederick the Great’s army, but was later promoted to the rank of lieutenant and then of captain in the Prussian cavalry. His unit, the Kováts Corps, served in the region between Mainz and Dresden during the Seven Years’ War.¹ To honour his bravery and service in war, he was awarded the highest distinction in the Prussian Army, the Pour le Mérite.

After retiring from the Prussian Army, in 1761 he was captured by the Austrians and charged with high treason. After a year in prison, Maria Theresa pardoned him and ordered the return of his confiscated possessions. He married and had a son who died at the age of three. Subsequently he was separated from his wife, as he left Hungary to serve the cause of the Bar Confederation to liberate the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from foreign, mainly Russian domination. Answering the call of Casimir Pulaski, one of the leading military commanders for the Bar Confederation, Kováts trained fifteen thousand Polish men to fight for the freedom and independence of their country against Imperial Russia.² After the Bar Confederation’s revolutionary struggle was suppressed by the Russians, both Pulaski and Kováts were forced into exile.

The defeat in Poland did not discourage Kováts from fighting for his ideals of freedom and self-determination against oppressive monarchs. After learning about the revolution in America, in an emotional letter addressed to Benjamin Franklin, then American ambassador to Paris, he offered his sword in the fight for the freedom and independence of the thirteen colonies of America. Kováts’s commitment to join the struggle for liberty would not let him rest and wait for a reply— without Franklin’s recommendation letter or response, he swiftly travelled to America at his own expense. He was right not to waste any time waiting—unfortunately, the recipient never read the letter, which was discovered only in 1939. The letter (originally written in Latin) by Kováts to Franklin reads as follows: