Jean François Cornu de Lapoype

Jean François Cornu de Lapoype (also: La Poype ; born May 31, 1758 in Lyon , † January 27, 1851 in Brosses ) was a French general .

Life

Lapoype, who came from a noble family as a baron , had already opted for military service at an early age. As Marquis he was Général de brigade before 1789 and was promoted to Général de division on May 15, 1793 . He was moved by the ideas of the French Revolution and married the sister of Louis-Marie Stanislas Fréron . In 1793 he took part in the siege of Toulon , for which he received much praise. After the National Convention from July 27, 1794 to October 26, 1795 he remained without a post during the Directory and served in Italy after the coup d'état of 18th Brumaire VIII .

In 1802 he was sent to Saint-Domingue , where he participated in the subjugation of the island at the side of Charles Victoire Emmanuel Leclerc and signed a treaty with James I (Haiti) . He embarked for France again in 1803, but fell into the hands of the English on the return journey, who brought him to Portsmouth . He was released from captivity through an exchange of people, but remained without a function until 1813. During the wars of liberation he was given command of the Saxon fortress town of Wittenberg .

As governor , he arrived in Wittenberg on March 20 and found a town that was suffering from the benefits for the French troops. As the enemy was advancing, he made the decision on April 4th to tear down the houses in the suburbs, the trees and fences that surrounded the fortress city to 900 paces in order to create a clear field of fire. The residents were partly forcibly evicted on April 5th.

In the days that followed, the houses were burned down and the trees felled. After the Battle of Wartenburg the pressure of the opposing allies increased on the fortress, on September 25th the city was hit by the largest bombardment by the Prussians . While the commandant had capitulated in Torgau , Lapoype refused in Wittenberg. In the city itself there was increasing need, the water supply was destroyed and Lapoype had to ration the food. Destruction, hardship, misery, disease and hunger were the order of the day due to the siege.

After the governor had been offered to surrender again on February 12, 1814 , which he again refused, the city was again intensely bombarded from 12 noon to 1 a.m. During this time, 2477 cannon shots were fired. Under the eyes of General Bogislav Friedrich Emanuel von Tauentzien and Prince August of Prussia , as well as the direction of the Prussian General Leopold Wilhelm von Dobschütz , the fortress was stormed after the cannonade. After losing only 100 men and 8 officers, the Prussians had conquered the city and imprisoned Lapoype in the basement of the castle .

The Wittenberg garrison suffered great losses. In October 1813, the troops were 3,000 men, but after the conquest only 2,000 men were fit to fight and 800 men were in the hospitals. On the same day, Lapoype was brought to Tauentzien's headquarters in Coswig and interrogated there.

As a result of these disputes, all 259 houses in the suburbs and 37 houses in the city were destroyed in Wittenberg. Several thousand trees fell victim to the measures of Lapoype, the mortality in the city was four times higher than usual since October 1813, so that the population decreased by a third.

After he returned to France in 1814, he received from King Louis XVIII. awarded the Ordre royal et militaire de Saint-Louis and he was given an assignment in Agen . During the rule of the hundred days he was appointed in 1815 by Napoléon Bonaparte as the commander of Lille in order to assert the imperial interests against the population loyal to the king. Therefore, he was retired during the Restoration . In 1822 he is mentioned as a member of the Chamber of Deputies , where he belonged to the extreme left, and in 1824 he was sentenced to several months in prison because his political statements did not match the picture given.

Honors

His name is entered on the triumphal arch in Paris in the 24th column.

literature

• Wilhelm Bernhardt: Wittenberg fifty years ago. The story of his siege and capture . Association for local history, Wittenberg 1864.
• Charles Mullie: Biography of the célèbrites militaires des armées de terre et de mer de 1789 à 1850 . Poignavant, Paris 1852 (2 vols.).

Web links

• Biographical index of famous French people