Louis Charles Antoine Desaix

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Louis Charles Antoine Desaix , chevalier de Veygoux, (born August 17, 1768 in Saint-Hilaire d'Ayat, today Ayat-sur-Sioule , Auvergne ; † June 14, 1800 at Marengo ) was a French Général de division , who was before distinguished especially in the Rhine Army and in Egypt . Napoleon owed his victory over the Austrians to his intervention in the Battle of Marengo , in which he fell on June 14, 1800 - in addition to Kellermann's cavalry attack .

Life

General Desaix

Desaix, son of Gilbert-Antoine des Aix, chevalier, seigneur de Veygoux , and the Amable de Beaufranchet, came from a noble family from the Auvergne . He grew up with his siblings on their parents' estate in Veygoux and entered the Royal Military School of Effiat at the age of seven. At the age of 15, he entered the Régiment de Bretagne as a sous-lieutenant against the will of his family and was appointed adjutant to General de Broglie in 1791 , whose overthrow almost carried him away.

Affectionate with the original ideas of the French Revolution , he disapproved of the atrocities of August 10, 1792 and the reign of terror , but remained in France . Ordered with his regiment in Alsace to join the Rhine Army in 1792 , he distinguished himself through bravery and circumspection. Promoted to General de brigade in 1793 for brave defense of the Weißenburg lines against the Austrians , he occupied Lauterbourg on December 30, 1793 in the Second Battle of Weissenburg . In 1794 he commanded the right wing of the Rhine Army under General Claude Michaud as Général de division , fought with distinction near Kaiserslautern and took part in the siege of Mainz , after which he covered the retreat to Landau and Pirmasens with the vanguard .

In 1796, after Jean-Victor Moreau's retreat , he defended the Kehl bridgehead and only handed it over to the Austrians on January 9, 1797 after a stubborn battle with Archduke Karl - on condition that he could withdraw freely with all military honors. When Moreau received the order to cross the Rhine again with his troops , Desaix managed this crossing under extremely difficult conditions on the night of 19-20 January 1797 against enemy resistance, but was wounded by a shot in the thigh.

After the preliminary peace in Leoben (April 17, 1797) he went to Italy to see Bonaparte, who entrusted him with leading the vanguard for the expedition to Egypt . During the capture of Malta , Desaix captured Fort St. Julien on July 10, 1798 and then fought in the Battle of Chebrisseh at the pyramids and in the battles with the Mamluks under Murad Bey Muhammad . He and his troops conquered the south of Egypt against an enemy that was far superior in terms of armed forces and, through his mildness and justice, won the respect of the inhabitants and the honorable nickname " le Sultan juste ", the just sultan.

After the English and Turks landed at Abukir , he was commissioned by Jean-Baptiste Kléber , Bonaparte's successor in the supreme command, to carry out the Al-Arish Convention (January 24, 1800). When he left Alexandria on March 3 to deliver the treaty to the French government , he was seized by an English frigate while on the voyage and held prisoner in Livorno by Admiral George Elphinstone, 1st Viscount Keith .

After his liberation he hurried to Italy , where Bonaparte gave him command of the reserve. On June 14, 1800, when he was at the head of a division in the swaying battle line of Bonaparte near Marengo and opposed the pursuing Austrians, he was fatally shot in the chest.

The body was embalmed and buried in Milan . In 1804 Napoleon had him transferred to the church of the hospice on the Great St. Bernhard . Bonaparte, who had intended to bind Desaix to him by marrying his stepdaughter Hortense , had a monument erected on his burial site in 1805; Another monument was erected to him by subscription in Paris on the Place Dauphine (1802-1906, then in Riom ), a third was erected on the Place des Victoires after a state decision , but was removed again in 1814.

Honors

Fontaine Desaix , built in 1802 on Place Dauphine , lithograph by Féodor Hoffbauer

His name is entered on the triumphal arch in Paris in the 23rd column.

Napoléon had five bronze medals minted in honor of Desaix between 1800 and 1810:

  1. 1800 in memory of his death,
  2. on the occasion of the naming of Quai Desaix on the Parisian Seine (today Quai Branly),
  3. 1805 first medal for the erection of the tomb in the church of the Great St. Bernhard monastery (Switzerland)
  4. 1805 second medal for the erection of the tomb in the church of the Great St. Bernhard monastery (Switzerland)
  5. for the erection of the monument on the Place des Victoires (Paris)> 
  6. At the direction of Napoléon Fort de Bourbon was in Martinique in 1800 in Fort Desaix renamed

In 1800 a monument was erected to the general in Strasbourg , and also in 1802 on the Place Dauphine in Paris.

Web links

Commons : Desaix  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lisa Zeitz and Joachim Zeitz, Napoleon's medals , Petersberg 2003, ISBN 3-935590-25-3 . P. 120
  2. ↑ L. Zeitz u. J. Zeitz, Napoleon's medals , pp. 58,120,121,210
  3. ^ Marie-Louise Biver, Le Paris de Napoléon , 'Editions d'Histoire et d'Art Paris 1963, pp. 151-161
  4. ↑ http://weinbrenner-gesellschaft.de/index.php/sein-werk/
personal data
SURNAME Desaix, Louis Charles Antoine
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Veygoux, Louis-Charles-Antoine des Aix chevalier de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French general
DATE OF BIRTH 17th August 1768
PLACE OF BIRTH Saint-Hilaire d'Ayat, today Ayat-sur-Sioule , Auvergne
DATE OF DEATH June 14, 1800
Place of death Marengo