François Pierre Amey

François Pierre Amey , actually François Pierre Joseph Amey (born October 2, 1768 in Sélestat , Alsace , † November 16, 1850 in Strasbourg ) was a French Général de division of the infantry .

Life

Amey was a son of the physician François-Pierre Amey, the surgeon in the Swiss Régiment de Waldner (a French foreign regiment ) and his wife Ursule Collignon. He joined the army as enfant de troupe in 1774 and was enrolled as a cadet in 1783 at the age of 15 .

During the French Revolution , Amery continued to make a career under the generals Jacques-François Menou Jean-Baptiste Kléber and François Séverin Marceau . He and his de Châteauvieux were involved in the Nancy revolt . After the dismissal of his regiment on October 7, 1792, Amey changed to the rank of captain in 1793 for the Rhine Army and stayed there until 1799. During this time he fought against the Vendée uprising and was then promoted to Général de brigade for his services .

As Napoleon at 18 Brumaire the First Consul and in fact made the autocrat, Amey was stationed at Saint-Cloud.

In 1801 Amey was placed under the command of General Charles Victoire Emmanuel Leclerc , who sailed on behalf of Napoleon with an expeditionary army to Saint-Domingue to fight Toussaint Louverture . Hardly back, in 1802 he was sent to the canton of Léman, where he successfully put down the Bourla Papey uprising . Subsequently, he took over the management of the military command in the Ardennes department.

He fought in the French intervention in Spain ; from autumn 1808 in Catalonia under the command of Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr and in the following year under Pierre Augereau . From May 1809 he took part in the Pino division in the siege of Gerona . The Amey Brigade led on December 7th against an attempted breakout by the Spaniards under General Alvarez de Castro a decisive flank thrust and stormed the Cabildo-Redoute , which forced the fall of Gerona on December 11th, 1809.

In the summer of 1812 Amey took part in the Russian campaign and commanded the Battle of Polotsk . In the corps of Marshal Gouvion Saint-Cyr he was wounded in the battle of the Beresina (November 26-28, 1812). On November 19, 1812, he was promoted from the emperor to lieutenant-général .

He took part in the Wars of Liberation in the campaign year 1813 and was captured at the Battle of Fère-Champenoise (March 25, 1814) together with General Michel-Marie Pacthod . After Napoleon's abdication, Amey joined the Bourbons and served in King Louis XVIII's army . The Bourbone appointed him in command of Bourges and transferred him to a brigade of the 21st Military Division under the command of the Duke of Taranto . But when Napoleon returned from the island of Elba and the rule of the Hundred Days began, Amey immediately went back to Napoleon.

With effect from November 9, 1815, Amey took his leave and left the army. He settled in his hometown of Sélestat and worked there between February 11, 1820 and August 9, 1830 as mayor. He then moved to Strasbourg, where he spent his old age. He died on November 16, 1850 at the age of 82 and found his final resting place in the Sainte-Hélène cemetery.

Honors

• 1803 Chevalier of the Legion of Honor
• Grand officier of the Legion of Honor
• June 8, 1814 Ordre royal et militaire de Saint-Louis
• March 19, 1808 baron de l'Émpire
• His name can be found on the north pillar (1st column) of the triumphal arch on Place Charles-de-Gaulle (Paris).

literature

• Gerard Beaud-Chollet: Un officier comblé d'Honneurs. Le général François Pierre Joseph Amey (1768–1850). Ses origins et son destin . Editions du Vanil Blanc, Albeuve 1991.
• Kevin F Kiley: Once there were titans. Napoleon's general and theis battles 1792–1815 . Greenhill, London 2007, ISBN 978-1-85367-710-6 .
• Charles Mullié: Biography of the célébrités militaires des armées de terre et de mer de 1789 à 1850 . Poignavant, Paris 1852 (2 vols.).
• Dominic Pedrazzini / KMG: Amey, Francois Pierre Joseph. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Georges Six: Dictionnaire biographique des généraux & amiraux français de la révolution et de l'émpire. 1792-1814 . Saffroy, Paris 1999, ISBN 2-901541-06-2 (reprint of the Paris 1934 edition).
• Digby Smith : Napoleonic wars data book . Greenhill, London 1998, ISBN 1-85367-276-9 .