Jacques Mesnage

Jacques Mesnage (born April 15, 1759 in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés , today in the Val-de-Marne department , † October 20, 1798 off the coast of Ireland ) was a French Général de brigade of the infantry in the army of the French Revolution .

period of service

He began his military service on November 18, 1776 in the Régiment des Gardes françaises , was promoted to Caporal on December 21, 1780 and on December 29, 1783 to Sergent . On July 31, 1789, he and his unit were dismissed from service.

He then resigned as Sous-lieutenant one in their lineup in the National Guard in Paris and changed on August 3, 1791 in the 104 ^e régiment d'infantry .

On November 13, 1792 he was promoted to Capitaine and took part in the campaigns of 1792 and 1793 with the Armée du Nord. On 12 May 1793, he was in the Vendée offset to the uprising there to fight.

On May 23, 1793 he was appointed commander of the "6 ^e bataillon de la formation d'Orléans" of the National Volunteers and was able to distinguish himself on October 11 of the same year in the battle of Châtillon , in which he himself wore the tricolor and in which he succeeded in capturing the opposing commander Jean-Nicolas Stofflet .

On July 16, 1795 he was promoted to Chef de brigade and contributed decisively to the victory over the army of the emigrants in the Battle of Quiberon . In addition, he was able to take the Fort de Penthièvre . The latter earned him the provisional promotion to the Général de brigade by the commander-in-chief Lazare Hoche on the same day . This promotion was confirmed on January 1, 1796.

In 1797 he moved first to the Armée de Sambre-et-Meuse and then to the Armée de Mayence (Mainz Army).

The Irish independence fighter Theobald Wolfe Tone managed to get the Directory to send small contingents of troops in France to support the fight against the British. Mesnage was assigned to a 3,000-strong expeditionary force in August to land at Lough Swilly in County Donegal . He boarded the frigate l'Immortalité and left Brest on September 16 with Admiral Bompard's squadron .

However, the troops were intercepted by a British squadron before landing on October 12, 1798 and had to turn back without even having set foot on Ireland's soil.

After Mesnage escaped this disaster, his ship was seized by the British frigate Fish Guard on October 20th . He was killed in the process.

literature

• Tony Broughton: Generals Who Served in the French Army During the Period 1789-1814. The Napoleon Series, Eberle to Exelmans .
• Jacques Charavay: Les généraux morts pour la patrie 1792–1871. Société de l'histoire de la Révolution française, Paris 1893.