Louis Jean Nicolas Abbé
Louis Jean Nicolas Abbé (born August 28, 1764 in Trépail ( Marne ); † April 9, 1834 in Châlons-sur-Marne ) was a French Général de division in the Napoleonic Wars .
Life
Louis Jean Nicolas Abbé was the son of the winemaker Nicolas Abbé and Jeanne Sergent. He began his military career in the service of the French King Louis XVI. by joining the Régiment de Barrois stationed in Corsica on April 14, 1784 as a 19-year-old . When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, he was a sergent in Toulon . On April 29, 1792 he became sergeant major and that year took part in the campaign of the Alpine Army . In 1793 he joined the Armée d'Italie and then fought on the Apennine Peninsula until 1799. Promoted to Sous-lieutenant on September 18, 1793 and to captain in 1796 , he distinguished himself during the crossing over the Mincio , during the conquest of Governolo and in the battle of Castellaro , in which he was wounded. With a coup d'état that he had proposed to Commander -in- Chief Barthélemy-Catherine Joubert , he succeeded on December 5, 1798 in enabling the French to take the city of Novara in Piedmont . Therefore, on January 30, 1799, he was appointed colonel of a dragoon regiment.
Abbé then became aide-de-camp of General Charles Victoire Emmanuel Leclerc and accompanied him to the Army of the Rhine in 1800 , to Portugal in 1801 and in 1801/02 on the expedition to recapture the French colony of Saint-Domingue on the island of Hispaniola , where he was chief de brigade was deployed. After many soldiers, including General Leclerc on November 2, 1802, fell victim to yellow fever , Abbé returned to France and then commanded the 23rd demi-brigade of light infantry in Corsica on Napoleon's orders . He was made a member of the Legion of Honor on December 11, 1803 .
From 1806 to 1809 Abbé was again in military service in Italy. After the battle of Sant'Eufemia in Calabria (July 4, 1806), he secured the retreat of the French from the English troops and was promoted to Général de brigade by King Joseph Bonaparte on March 1, 1807 . On May 28, 1807, he contributed to the French victory won by Commander-in-Chief Jean-Louis-Ebenezer Reynier in the Battle of Mileto in southern Italy against the Anglo-Sicilian troops of Ludwig von Hessen-Philippsthal . He received the title of Commander of the Legion of Honor on October 23, 1808.
The next year Abbé operated as the leader of a brigade, initially in northern Italy. Here he fought, among other things. near Sacile (April 16, 1809) and Caldiero (April 27–30) and also took part in the Battle of the Piave (May 8) and that of Tarvisio (May 16–17). He then fought in what is now Hungary near Raab (June 14) and on July 6, 1809, moved with his brigade behind the artillery of Antoine Drouot to the battlefield of Wagram , in which military conflict Napoleon celebrated a decisive victory against Austria.
In 1810 Abbé was transferred to the theater of war on the Iberian Peninsula . There he was deployed in the 3rd Army Corps and was under the command of the important Napoleonic general Louis Gabriel Suchet . He participated in the siege of Lérida (May 1810), which ended with the capture of this city in Catalonia after the Spanish garrison commanded by Jaime García Conde had to surrender to the French. On July 8, 1810, Abbé defeated the Spanish general Enrique José O'Donnell , took part in the siege of Tortosa , which was successfully completed by Suchet, in December 1810 , and was raised to baron of the First Empire .
Abbé then supported Suchet in May / June 1811 in the siege of Tarragona , which also ended in a French victory, and was personally responsible for the storming of the Montserrat mountain range and the monastery of the same name located on it at the end of July . On July 31, 1811 he was promoted to Général de division. He was then in the military operation in Navarre and was here under Honoré-Charles Reille . On August 22, 1812, he defeated the Spanish guerrilla leader Francisco Espoz y Mina in the Roncal Valley , but did not always fight successfully against him on other occasions.
When the French withdrew from Spain, Abbé had to leave Navarra and returned to France after the decisive victory of the Allies in the Battle of Vitoria (June 21, 1813). He commanded the third division under the supreme command of Marshal Nicolas Jean-de-Dieu Soult . December 1813 fought battles against English, Spanish and Portuguese troops on the Nive near Bayonne . He then reinforced the defense of Bayonne, which was blocked by the English, with his division. On April 14, 1814, on the instructions of the Commander-in-Chief, Pierre Thouvenot , he participated in a loss-making outing from the city for the English.
After Napoleon's abdication at that time, Abbé King Louis XVIII joined. who made him Knight of the Order of Saint-Louis on July 19, 1814 and appointed Commander of Toulon on January 15, 1815 . Napoleon succeeded once again in briefly gaining power in France after having landed near Antibes on March 1, 1815 , after returning from his island of exile, Elba . Abbé found out about Napoleon's landing on March 2nd and maintained order in Toulon. After arriving in Cannes on April 4, he was arrested but released a few days later. On Napoleon's orders on April 23, he took command of the 18th division in Belfort , under the command of General Claude-Jacques Lecourbe , and at the end of June 1815 was involved in the defense of this eastern French city against numerically far superior Austrian troops. Napoleon had already finally abdicated; Louis XVIII took over power again and sent the Abbé on January 1, 1816 with the position of lieutenant-général into retirement.
Abbé now led a civil life in Châlons-sur-Marne. At the beginning of the July monarchy in August 1830 he became the commander of the city's National Guard , but had to resign due to his frailty. In February 1831 he got a position in the reserve cadre of the General Staff, but on May 1, 1832 he retired again into private life. He died on April 9, 1834 at the age of 69 in Châlons-sur-Marne and was buried in a cemetery there. He had received the honor that his name was entered in the 36th column on the triumphal arch in Paris .
literature
- L. Didier: Abbé 5 (Jean-François-Nicolas) . In: Dictionnaire de biographie française . Vol. 1 (1932), Col. 73f.
- Karl Florentin Leidenfrost : French Heldensaal or the life, deeds and current fates of the most memorable heroes of the republic and the empire, especially Napoleon's comrades in arms and marshals , Bernhard Friedrich Voigt , Ilmenau 1828, pp. 5-7.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Abbé, Louis Jean Nicolas |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French general |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 28, 1764 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Trépail |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 9, 1834 |
| Place of death | Châlons-sur-Marne |