Jean-Auguste Margueritte
Jean-Auguste Margueritte (born January 15, 1823 in Manheulles , Département Meuse , France , † September 6, 1870 in Belgium ) was a French Général de division . He was the son of gendarme Antoine Margueritte.
Live and act
Margueritte never went to school and had no education. He learned to read and write in his father's office. As a child he played a lot with the Arabs of his homeland and learned to know the customs of this people and to understand and speak the Arabic language very well.
Margueritte went to Algeria with his father in 1831 at the age of eight . Three years later, in 1834, he became an official interpreter for the gendarmerie . After basic training, he committed himself there. In 1840 he became a Brigadier, soon afterwards Sous-lieutenant and earned his first award. Margueritte turned down four other awards and a scholarship because of the dissolution of his division in Algeria and decided to start over.
He signed up as a simple soldier in the 4th Division of the African Hunters in Toulon in order to be ordered back to Algeria as soon as possible. In 1843, at the age of 20, he was accepted into the Legion of Honor . From 1850 he was stationed in Sedan .
In October 1862 Margueritte was temporarily sent to Mexico , but he had to break off this mission in May 1864 for health reasons and return to France. There he was promoted to colonel and received five awards. He returned to Algeria healthy again. At the age of 44, in 1867, he became general de brigade .
Margueritte took part in several military campaigns in Algeria and supported the officers during the colonial conquest in personal and technical administrative matters through his excellent knowledge of the Arabic language and local customs. In his free time he was busy with Arabic poetry and wanted to spend the rest of his life in Algeria.
In 1870, however, he was ordered back to France to take part in the war against Prussia . On August 16, he was commissioned to emperor Napoléon III. (1808–1873) to accompany them to Verdun . But on September 1, when he was promoted to Général de division on the battlefield and his division began building up Sedan's defenses, he was shot in the head.
Five days later, on September 6, 1870, Margueritte succumbed to his injuries in Belgium. He left two sons, Victor (1866–1942) and Paul Margueritte (1860–1918), both of whom wrote a life story about him.
A grammar school and the Lycée Jean Auguste Margueritte bears his name in his honor. In the region around Illy , a village north of Sedan, where Margueritte was wounded, there is a simple stone cross in his memory. In Verdun and Fresnes-en-Woëvre , a community neighboring his birthplace, there are statues of him that were erected after his death.
Works
- Chasses de l'Algérie et notes sur les Arabes du sud. Furne & Jouvet, Paris 1869.
literature
- Paul Margueritte: Mon père. Dentu, Paris 1896.
- Victor Margueritte: Un grand Français, le général Margueritte. Flammarion, Paris 1930.
- Margueritte, Paul and Viktor: Die Kommune , German, soon to be republished by Gutenberg-DE
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Margueritte, Jean-Auguste |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French division general |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 15, 1823 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Manheulles , France |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 6, 1870 |
| Place of death | Belgium |