Louis Audouin-Dubreuil

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Louis Audouin-Dubreuil

Louis Audouin-Dubreuil (born August 2, 1887 in Saint-Jean-d'Angély , † February 12, 1960 ) was a French officer who became known nationwide as the deputy head of Georges-Marie Haardts . Together they organized the first automotive expeditions to the Sahara. The implementation of the Croisière Noire became particularly well known .

family

Audouin-Dubreuil's father was a liquor dealer specializing in cognac and head of the Louis XV. founded company Enterprises Audouin-Frères . His mother came from a long-established family from the Saintonge . She was a flower painter.

Soldier career

At the age of 20, Audouin-Dubreuil did his military service in the 10th Hussar Regiment and later earned the Cross of Merit as a liaison officer in the Battle of the Marne (1914) . He then took part in the race to the sea and fought in the trenches of Arras near the front during the First World War . Audouin-Dubreuil took part in other battles, for example in 1915 in the Argonne , a scene of heavy fighting between Germans and French, and later also Americans (autumn / winter 1914, summer 1915) and in 1916 on the left wing of Verdun . The cavalry was wiped out, which is why Audouin-Dubreuil withdrew to Belgium.

In 1917 he acquired his pilot's license in Chartres . He then went to Tunisia, where he submitted himself to the command of the Sahara fighter La Fargue . He founded the airbase Zarzis and participated in the battles against the Senussi at the Libyan-Tunisian border. A pioneering achievement is that he built up a gun vehicle department (STAM) that was able to operate in any terrain.

In 1919 he was in charge of the fleet of vehicles on the Saoura-Tidikelt expedition , a purely military expedition to the Sahara .

Croisière Noire

In 1920 there was a meeting with André Citroën , the automobile designer and founder of the French brand Citroën, and its general manager Georges-Marie Haardt. The three of them prepared the first crossing of Africa by car. The first Sahara tour was planned and carried out in December 1922. The start was in Touggourt , Algeria in mid-December of that year. After the first week of January 1923, i.e. within just three weeks, the expedition reached Timbuktu in Mali . Five half-track vehicles from the Citroën brand were used. It was in a pioneering race with the competitor Peugeot . For its part, Peugeot had sent vehicles suitable for the desert into the race in order to gain recognition and international recognition.

In the years 1924 to 1925 there was the great Croisière Noire expedition , which was designed as a Trans-Africa expedition and led by eight half-track vehicles from Colomb-Béchar in Algeria via Timbuktu to Antananarivo (Tananarive) in Madagascar .

literature

personal data
SURNAME Audouin-Dubreuil, Louis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French soldier and expedition member
DATE OF BIRTH August 2, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Saint-Jean-d'Angély
DATE OF DEATH February 12, 1960