Jean-Joseph Ange d'Hautpoul

Jean-Joseph Ange d'Hautpoul

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Jean-Joseph Ange d'Hautpoul (born May 13, 1754 at Château de Salette, Cahuzac-sur-Vère, † February 14, 1807 at Prussian Eylau ) was a French cavalry general of the coalition wars .

Life

Origin and family

His ancestors came from a noble family from Languedoc with an old military tradition. His cousin Alphonse Henri d'Hautpoul served as a lieutenant in the Napoleonic Wars and became Prime Minister of France in 1849 .

Military career

Jean-Joseph Ange d'Hautpoul joined the royal army as a volunteer in 1769. After serving in the Corsican Legion , he moved to a dragoon regiment in 1771. In 1777 he served as an officer in the Dragoon Regiment du Languedoc , and in 1792 he was promoted to Colonel .

Revolutionary Wars

He served in Flanders and on the Rhine between 1794 and 1799. In April 1794 he was promoted to Général de brigade , received his own command of the troops and was assigned to the corps under Desjardin and his successor Marceau . After participating in the Battle of Fleurus in 1794, his unit was transferred to the Rhine Army under Lefebvre . On September 13, 1795, he distinguished himself in the battles for Blankenberge . In June 1796, d'Hautpoul was promoted to Général de division and inspector of the cavalry. During the Second Battle of Altenkirchen with the Kleber Army , he was wounded in the shoulder by a shotgun bullet on September 19, 1796. After his recovery, d'Hautpoul became the commander of the heavy cavalry division of the Sambre Army under General Grenier . Detached in the Neuwied area , his dragoons were transferred to the expedition army directed against England under General Hoche . After the battle of Ostrach (March 21, 1799), his cavalry reserve covered the French retreat from Pfullendorf . After the Battle of Stockach , which followed on March 25, he was blamed for the defeat by the army commander Jourdan , but acquitted by a court martial in Strasbourg and quickly reactivated with the army. In early July 1799, he missed active participation in the fighting at the First Battle of Zurich . As a result, he led the cavalry under Lecourbe and Baraguey d'Hilliers in northeast Switzerland . In the Rhine campaign of 1800 he served in the Moreau army and distinguished himself in the battle of Biberach and Hohenlinden . In July 1801 he was appointed inspector general of the cavalry by the first consul Bonaparte and organized the cavalry garrisons in Compiègne and Saint-Omer . In 1802 he married Alexandrine Daumy, the son born out of the marriage on May 29, 1806, was named Alexandre Joseph Napoléon after the emperor.

Fourth coalition war

Le général d'Hautpoul à cheval after Édouard Detaille, 1912

After participating in the campaign to Bavaria, he received command of the 2nd Cuirassier Division of the Cavalry Corps under Murat in August 1805 . In the Battle of Austerlitz in December 1805 he distinguished himself with his heavy cavalry in the center during the attack of Soult against the heights of Pratzen. In 1804, Napoleon made him a grand officer (grand cordon) of the Legion of Honor and appointed him senator, with an annual salary of 20,000 francs. In the 1806 campaign, d'Hautpoul fought in the Battle of Jena and pursued the Prussians to Lübeck . Subordinated to Marshal Bessières' corps in December 1806, his cuirassiers covered Murat's winter campaign in East Prussia .

Battle death

In the winter of 1807, Napoleon tried to attack the Russian rearguard near Eylau. D'Hautpoul ordered his dragoons to take the bridge there and suffered heavy losses. On February 7, 1807, there was a meeting with the Russians in the Battle of Preussisch Eylau . The next morning the two armies of unequal strength faced each other. Napoleon opened the attack by urging Soult's corps to attack the right wing of the Russians. When Augereau also launched an attack in the center , a sudden snowstorm confused the attack formations. In order to prevent Augereau's troops, which had been greatly decimated, from getting stuck, Napoleon ordered the deployment of Murat's cavalry reserve, which had 80 squadrons with 10,700 riders. Murat's cavalry attacks brought heavy losses, d'Hautpoul himself led three cuirassier brigades against the solid Russian infantry squad and was seriously wounded in the process.

D'Hautpoul refused the necessary amputation of his shattered leg and died on February 14, 1807 of his severe wounds. His son Alexandre Joseph Napoléon brought his remains to France in 1840 and had them buried in the family vault in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris.

His name was engraved in honor on the 16th column of the list of people at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris .

Awards

• Member of the Legion of Honor (December 11, 1803)
• Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor (June 14, 1804)
• Great Eagle of the Legion of Honor (February 8, 1806)

literature

Charles Mullié: Biography of the célébrités militaires des armées de terre et de mer de 1789 à 1850 , Paris 1851