Ettore Perrone di San Martino

Ettore Perrone

Ettore Perrone di San Martino (born January 12, 1789 in Turin , † March 29, 1849 Novara ) was an Italian general and in the autumn of 1848 brief prime minister of the Kingdom of Savoy .

Life

origin

He was the son of Carlo Perrone and Paola Argentero di Bersezio, the latter a member of the Canavese noble family. His brother Vittorio Perrone (1786–1814) died as a squadron captain of the “Hanover Dragoons” in the battle of Fère Champenoise, 14 days before Napoleon Bonaparte's abdication.

Military career

Ettore Perrone left his parents' home at the age of 16 to volunteer as a simple soldier in the French revolutionary army. In 1806 he entered the Saint-Cyr Military School and was retired as a lieutenant the following year . After deployments in 1807, he took part in the 1809 campaign. For his service in the battle of Wagram , where he was also wounded, he received the Star of the Legion of Honor . From 1810 to 1811 he served as a lieutenant in the Young Guard in Spain. On June 24, 1811, he joined the old Imperial Guard as a grenadier . In 1813 he fought at Lützen and Bautzen and during the Battle of Montmirail in 1814 he was wounded by a bayonet . On March 15, 1814, Napoleon appointed him commander of the 24th battalion of the line infantry. During the reign of the Hundred Days in 1815, he was appointed adjutant to General Gérard.

After the defeat of Waterloo , he took leave and remained in the French army for another twenty months before it finally quit in 1817. After a short stay in England he returned to Piedmont. In Perosa Canavese (Turin) he prepared with some nobles in March 1821 the uprising against the Savoy monarchy. After the defeat at Borgo Vercelli and the restoration, he was sentenced to death and his property was confiscated. He escaped execution by fleeing to France in good time, where he found employment again with the army. During his exile on February 2, 1833, he married Loiuse Jenny de Fay de La Tour-Maubourg, a granddaughter of the Marquis de La Fayette . Perrone ran a leased property in the Loire department and his new farming methods became so successful that they soon found imitation.

After the outbreak of the Paris Revolution of 1830, Charles X and the direct line of the Bourbons had to flee. Ettore's career was accelerated under Louis Philip the Citizen King, in 1832 he reached the rank of colonel and in 1839 he became a general. He was given command of the Loire Division, which he successfully led for the following six years.

In March 1848, after the elections, he received a seat in the constituent assembly with 22,330 votes.

In the First War of Independence

The proclamation of the freedom of Italy by King Karl Albert of Savoy on March 23, 1848 ignited the old ideals at Perrone and led to his return home. He wrote to his childhood friend, Minister Cesare Balbo, and offered his help. After a long exile and a death sentence, he was invited by the provisional government in Milan in March 1848 to join the uprising against the occupation of Austria in Lombardy . As inspector general, he helped organize the nascent army of free Lombardy. After the lost campaign of 1848, the Milanese accuse him of leaving the Lombards off Mantua against the Austrians without support. The city of Ivrea nominated him as their political representative for the newly created parliament in Turin. From October 11 to December 16, 1848 he served briefly as Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Sardinia. Because of the opposition of Giuseppe Montanelli and insufficient political competence, he quickly resigned from his post.

After the resumption of the war, the king gave him at least a military command again in March 1849. Under the new Chief of Staff Chrzanowski, he commanded the Savoyard 3rd Division (12,027 men and 16 guns), which was composed of the Savoy Brigade (Major General Molland) and the Savona Brigade (Major General Ansaldi). Lieutenant General Perrone was fatally wounded on March 23rd during the Battle of Novara (1849) . He led on the left wing north of Olengo, opposite troops under FML d'Aspre. An attack by the 15th Infantry Regiment, personally led by Perrone, against the incoming vanguard of the Austrian division under Archduke Albrecht brought him to death. General Marguis di Passalacqua , who had been captured by the Austrian batteries, had also fallen on this section . Perrone was seriously wounded and his agony lasted six long days, ending at 4:00 p.m. on March 29. The funeral in Ivrea took place on April 2, 1849, his bones were buried in the crypt of the local cathedral under the main altar.

literature

• Piero Pieri: Storia militare del Risorgimento. Guerre e insurrezioni, Einaudi, Torino 1962