Adolphe Édouard Casimir Joseph Mortier

Edouard Adolphe Mortier.

Édouard Adolphe Casimir Joseph Mortier , Duke of Treviso (born February 13, 1768 in Le Cateau-Cambrésis , Département Nord , † July 28, 1835 in Paris ) was a Maréchal d'Empire .

Life

In the early coalition wars

Édouard Mortier served in the National Guard of Dunkirk and Le Cateau from 1789 to 1791 . In the course of the changes of the French Revolution , which did not stop at the army, he was elected captain of the 1st Battalion of the Volontaires du Nord on September 1, 1791 . The First Coalition War began in April 1792 and Mortier took part in the battle near Quiévrain (April 28-30). This was followed by the battles at Jemappes on November 6, 1792, Neerwind on March 18, 1793 and Wattignies on 15/16. October 1793, in which he was wounded. He also took part in the sieges of Namur , Maastricht and Hondschoote . The following year, on June 26, he took part in the Battle of Fleurus .

For his services on the battlefield, Mortier was promoted to Colonel on June 13, 1795 . In 1796 he distinguished himself under François-Joseph Lefebvre and Jean-Baptiste Kléber in the battle of Altenkirchen and Friedberg . On December 30th, he took part in the reoccupation of Mainz . In 1797 he was to be promoted to Général de brigade in recognition of his previous services , which Mortier refused. In Koblenz , he married Anne-Eve Himmies on January 25, 1799 and was promoted on February 23, 1799. In the same year he fought near Liptingen and Stockach (March 25, 1799) and was transferred to the French Army in Switzerland , which was under the command of General André Masséna . His new post was that of the commander of the 4th Division. In 1800 Mortier became commander of the 17th military district (Paris). He was promoted to general de division on May 3, 1803. In the same year he occupied the Electorate of Braunschweig-Lüneburg ("Kurhannover"), which is linked to England in personal union

Information board about Mortier's stay at Hardenberg's house

On June 5, 1803, Mortier and his troops entered Hanover . On the same day he closed the convention of Sulingen in preparation for the took place on July 5, 1803 the formal surrender of the Hanoverian troops at Artlenburg .

Elevation to Marshal

Mortier was on February 2, 1804 Colonel général of the artillery and marine infantry and on May 19, 1804 was appointed Marshal of the Empire . The marshals of the empire were showered with honors, which is why Mortier received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor on February 2, 1805 and some time later became Chevalier of the Order of Christ of Portugal. On August 30, 1805, he was appointed Colonel-General of the Imperial Infantry. In September of the same year war broke out with Austria . With effect from November 7, 1805, Mortier became commander of the II. Army Corps of the Grande Armée during the campaign against Austria. On November 11, he met 24,000 Russians at Dürnstein with only 12,000 men under the command of General Kutuzov . Although he managed to slow the advance of the Russians, he was ultimately defeated by Kutuzov. During the battle of Austerlitz he was ordered to cover Vienna . On December 16, 1805 he was appointed commander of the 5th Army Corps of the Grande Armée.

During the war against Prussia, on October 1, 1806, he became the commandant of the VIII Army Corps, with which he occupied the Electorate of Hesse on November 1, 1806 , then the Hanseatic cities and on November 19, 1806 Hamburg. On January 28, 1807, the invasion of Swedish Western Pomerania began and Stralsund was besieged. Mortier defeated his Swedish opponent in the battle near Anklam on 16./17. April 1807, followed a day later by the Schlatkow armistice . The Kingdom of Prussia continued to fight despite the loss of its ally, and so the battle of Friedland took place on June 14, 1807 , in which Mortier commanded the left wing of the French army. After the successful conclusion of the campaign against Prussia, Mortier was made governor of Silesia in 1807 and made Duke of Treviso on July 2, 1808 .

Meanwhile, the war in Spain demanded the attention of the Emperor, who on October 2, 1808 appointed Mortier to command the V Army Corps of the Armée d'Espagne. His first task was the siege of Valencia . On November 30, 1808 he took part in the Battle of Somosierra and appeared on December 16 with 16,000 men reinforcement at the siege of Saragossa , which could not be taken in street combat until February 21, 1809. Together with Marshal Soult , he delivered the battle of Arzobispo on August 8, 1809 . In the Battle of Ocaña on November 18, 1809, he defeated his Spanish opponent, but was wounded. In 1810 he conquered Andalusia and took part in the battles of Badajoz and Fuentes de Cantos . He was victorious again in the Battle of Gévora and was ordered back to France in May 1811. In the same year he became commander of the Young Guard, with whom he took part in the campaign against Russia , where he fought in the Battle of Borodino . After the capture of Moscow , he became governor of the city on September 14th, until October 24th, 1812, when he took over command of the rearguard of the army that had to cover the retreat. On November 17, he fought near Krasnoye and distinguished himself again at the crossing over the Berezina .

In February 1813 Mortier was again in command of the Young Guard, with whom he took part in the Battle of Großgörschen , the Battle of Bautzen , the Battle of Dresden , the Battle of Leipzig and the Battle of Hanau . After the Battle of Hanau, he again commanded the rearguard of the army and in December became commander of the Old Guard. The campaign in France followed with the battles at Montmirail , Château-Thierry , Craonne , Laon and Fère-Champenoise , in which he was defeated by FM Prince Schwarzenberg together with Marshal Marmont . On March 30, 1814, he defended Paris with Marshal Marmont, but stopped fighting in April and ran to King Louis XVIII on April 8 . over. In return, Mortier was appointed Chevalier of the Order of Saint Louis on June 1, 1814, made Peer of France on June 4 and appointed commander of the 14th Military District ( Lille ) on June 21 .

When Napoleon returned , Mortier rendered considerable services to the king when he withdrew to Ghent and was released from his oath. In March 1815, Mortier rejoined Napoleon I and was commissioned by him to inspect the fortresses on the northern and western borders of France. On June 14, 1815, the emperor appointed him commander of the Guard Impériale , but Mortier fell ill and did not take part in the subsequent campaign.

After the restoration

Mortier as Marshal

After the Second Restoration in 1815, he lost his dignity as peer of the kingdom on July 24th because he had been appointed a member of the court martial over Marshal Michel Ney and had refused. On December 27th, he was relieved of his position as commander of the 16th Military District. However, on January 10, 1816, he was appointed commander of the 15th military district ( Rouen ). On October 4, 1816, he was elected a member of the Département du Nord , in which he remained until the end of 1818, only to be reinstated as a peer in March 1819. Since February 1, 1828, he was also a member of the royal council of war and in 1830 took over from Marshal MacDonald the dignity of Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honor.

After Louis-Philippe I ascended the throne , he went to St. Petersburg as ambassador for a short time on December 6, 1830 , which was followed by a further interlude in 1832. On November 18, 1834, he succeeded Marshal Soult as Minister of War and President of the Council of Ministers, but was dismissed on February 20, 1835.

Édouard Adolphe Mortier died on July 28, 1835 at the age of 67 in an assassination attempt on King Louis-Philip on the Boulevard du Temple . He rests with fourteen other victims of the explosion of Joseph Fieschi's infernal machine in the Invalides in the so-called Crypte Fieschi under the Chapelle Saint-Grégoire ; the heart was buried in the family crypt in the Père-Lachaise cemetery (28th division).

Honors

• His name is on the Arc de Triomphe in the 13th column in Paris entered .
• His portrait bust (1835) of Théophile Bra (1797–1863) is in the Battle Gallery in Versailles Palace . The bust was commissioned in 1833, completed in 1835, exhibited in the salon in 1836 and purchased by the state.
• After he had not yet allowed this in 1805, his hometown Le Cateau-Cambrésis posthumously erected a monument to him.
• Other monuments were erected in Lille and in Le Plessis-Trévise . The latter comes from Claude André Deseine (1740–1823), the lesser known brother of Louis-Pierre Deseine .

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  Portrait bust of Théophile Bra in Versailles

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  Monument in Le Cateau-Cambrésis

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  Entry at the triumphal arch (center left)

literature

• Désiré Lacroix: The marshals of Napoleon I. Transferred by Oskar Marschall von Bieberstein. Published by Heinrich Schmidt & Carl Günther, 1898
• Carl Bleibtreu: Marshals, generals, soldiers of Napoleon I. 2nd edition. Alfred Schall, Berlin undated (before 1911)
• Klaus Mlynek : Mortier, Edouard Adolphe Casimir Joseph. In: Dirk Böttcher , Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein, Hugo Thielen: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2002, ISBN 3-87706-706-9 , p. 260 and others, preview in the Google book search
• Mortier . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 4th edition. Volume 11, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892, p. 816.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mlynek
2. ^ Édouard Adolphe Mortier on the website napoleon-munuments.eu
3. ↑ École du Louvre: La Sculpture du XIXe siècle, une mémoire retrouvée: les fonds de sculpture , Documentation française, 1986, p. 156
4. ↑ Photothèque de la RMN
5. ↑ Marshal Mortier In: Extraordinary supplement to the Allgemeine Zeitung , Münchner Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 313 and 314, August 8, 1835, full text in the Google book search
6. ↑ statue de mortier au plessis , napoleon1er.org, accessed on August 11, 2013

Web links

Commons : Édouard Adolphe Casimir Joseph Mortier  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

predecessor	Office	successor
Simon Bernard	Minister of War of France November 18, 1834-12. March 1835	Henri Gauthier, comte de Rigny