Claude-Jacques Lecourbe

General Claude-Jacques Lecourbe

Count Claude-Jacques Lecourbe (also: Claude Joseph L.) (born February 22, 1759 in Ruffey-sur-Seille , † October 22, 1815 in Belfort ) was a French Général de division .

Life

Lecourbe was born in 1759 to Claude Guillaume Lecourbe and Marie Valette and was baptized on February 23 as an illegitimate child without naming his father in the Madeleine Church of Besançon . As a teenager he studied at the colleges in Poligny and Lons-le-Saunier .

Early military career

In May 1777 he volunteered in the royal regiment d'Aquitaine , became chaplain in 1785 and, after the outbreak of the French Revolution in August 1789, took over command of the national guard in Ruffey-sur-Seille . In August 1791 he was appointed captain in the "7e bataillon de volontaires du Jura" (7th volunteer battalion of the Jura department). In April 1792 he took part in the siege of Pruntrut as a lieutenant colonel . In 1794 he was promoted to Général de brigade and took part in the operations of the Northern and Ardennes Army. Subordinated to Mayer's Division from June 12th, his brigade proved its worth in the Battle of Fleurus on June 26th, 1794 under General Marceau . On July 7th, 1794 he threw the Austrians back under FML Beaulieu at Sombreffe and the deployment of his troops during the fighting on the Ourthe (September 18, 1794) enabled the French to take Namur . In July 1795 he took over a brigade of the Reneauld division during the siege of Mainz . In April 1796 assigned to the Rhine-Moselle Army under General Moreau , he led a brigade of the Taponier division and took part in the Battle of Ettlingen . Under General Saint-Cyr , his troops distinguished themselves on August 11 at the Battle of Neresheim .

At the beginning of the Second Coalition War promoted to Général de division in 1799 , he commanded the right wing of the Armée d'Helvétie under General Masséna . Lecourbe fought with his troops in the Engadin and Valtellina in spring and withdrew behind the Reuss in late summer . On September 25, 1799, he stopped the advance of the Russians under General Suworow from the Gotthard Pass through the Schöllenen Gorge and thus secured the victory of the French in the Second Battle of Zurich .

Statue of General Claude-Jacques Lecourbe in Belfort

On November 28, 1799 he took command of the right wing of the Army du Rhin , forced the passage between Basel and Schaffhausen (April 29, 1800), took the enemy fortress at Hohentwiel (May 2, 1800) and then fought in battle at Stockach . Subsequently again subordinate to General Moreau, he and his troops fought in the battle of Meßkirch and occupied Memmingen (May 10th) and Augsburg (May 28th). He then took part in the battle of Höchstädt and in the battles near Nördlingen (June 23) and Neuburg an der Donau (June 27, 1800). During these years his nickname "General Fisch" arose because he used combat swimmers several times (and with success) at river crossings .

Exile and Restoration

Lecourbe moved to Paris in 1802 after the Peace of Amiens . In 1799 he was suspected by the former board of directors of supporting the conspiratorial goals of General Jean-Charles Pichegru and Cadoudal . Because of his close proximity to Moreau, he fell out of favor with the First Consul Bonaparte and after his coronation as emperor in September 1805 he had to retire to his castle in Château Ruffey in the Jura.

After Napoleon's overthrow, it was rehabilitated on April 15, 1814 at the instigation of the Count of Artois , and from April 24 on it was used again in the royalist army. On August 23, Louis XVIII awarded him . the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor . On January 3, 1815, he was appointed Inspector General of the Infantry and received the 6th Military Division under. During the reign of the Hundred Days he went over to Napoleon and on March 27, 1815 received the 18th Military Division under the command. In Belfort a statue commemorates the “glorious defender of the city”, whom he defended with only 8,000 soldiers for 15 days from a superior force of 40,000 Austrians. It was not until July 11, 1815 that he signed an armistice with the Austrian General Colloredo-Mansfeld . With this act, Lecourbe wrote himself in the French school books.

General Claude-Jacques Lecourbe died in Belfort on October 22, 1815 at the age of 56. He was buried in Ruffey-sur-Seille.

Honors

His name is entered on the triumphal arch in Paris in the 14th column.

literature

• Yvette Baradel and others: Histoire de Belfort . Éditions Horvath, Roanne / Le Coteau 1985, pp. 207ff. ISBN 2-7171-0369-4
• Jules Poirier: Lecourbe (1759-1815) . Albin Michel, Paris 1905

Web links

Commons : Claude-Jacques Lecourbe  - Collection of Images

• Hervé de Weck : Lecourbe, Claude-Jacques. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Official website Musee Le Huy with bust of General Lecourbe (Ruxtheil)
• Official website of Schloss Ruffey (French)
• Website about General Comte Claude-Jacques Lecourbe