Auguste de Marmont
Army | |
---|---|
Rank | Marshal of the Empire |
Battles/wars | French Revolutionary Wars, Napoleonic Wars |
Awards | Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour |
Auguste Frédéric Louis Viesse de Marmont (20 July 1774 – 22 March 1852) was a French general and nobleman who rose to the rank of Marshal of the Empire and was awarded the title Duke of Ragusa (French: duc de Raguse). In the Peninsular War Marmont succeeded the disgraced André Masséna in the command of the French army in northern Spain, but lost decisively at the Battle of Salamanca as France ultimately lost the war in Spain.
At the close of the War of the Sixth Coalition, Marmont went over to the Restoration and remained loyal to the Bourbons through the Hundred Days. This gave Marmont a reputation as a traitor among the remaining Bonapartists, and in French society more broadly. He led the royalist Paris garrison during the July Revolution in 1830, but his efforts proved incapable of quelling the revolution, leading King Charles X to accuse Marmont of betraying the Bourbons as he had betrayed the Bonapartes.
Marmont departed France with Charles's entourage and never returned to France. Spending his exile mostly in Vienna and other lands of the Austrian Empire, he died in Venice in 1852.
Early life and career
Marmont was born at
The acquaintance ripened into intimacy; Marmont became General Bonaparte's
Napoleonic Wars
In 1805, he received the command of a corps, with which he did good service at Ulm. He was then directed to take possession of Dalmatia with his army and occupied the Republic of Ragusa. For the next five years, he was military and civil governor of Dalmatia, and traces of his beneficent régime still survive both in great public works and in the memories of the people. In 1808, he was made Duke of Ragusa.[1]
In the
Marmont was appointed governor-general of all the
In April 1813, Napoleon again gave Marmont the command of a corps, which he led at the battles of Lützen, Bautzen and Dresden. He then fought throughout the great defensive campaign of 1814 until the last battle before Paris. Marmont's forces fought a fighting retreat back to the commanding position of Essonne, inflicting high casualties on the enemy.[citation needed]
Marmont then took upon himself a political role, seeking to halt what he now saw as a pointless prolonging of a war that France would now assuredly lose. Marmont contacted the Allies and reached a secret agreement with them. As the Allies closed on Montmartre, Marmont—together with marshals
Bourbon service
Marmont stayed loyal to the restored
He was made a
Will you betray us, as you betrayed him?
Marmont accompanied the king into exile and forfeited his marshalate. His desire to return to France was never gratified and he wandered in central and eastern Europe, settling finally in Vienna, where he was well received by the Austrian government. Strangely, he was made tutor to the
Works
In his last years, Marmont spent much of his time working on his Mémoires, which are of great value to the military history of the time.[1]
His works are:
- Voyage en Hongrie, etc. (4 vols., 1837)
- Voyage en Sicile (1838); trans. it., Milan, 1840
- Esprit des institutions militaires (1845)
- Cesar; Xenophon; and Mémoires (8 vols., published after his death in 1856)
Family
In 1798, Marmont married Anne-Marie-Hortense Perregaux, the daughter of Jean-Frédéric Perregaux, a Swiss (and Protestant) banker, later a founder and regent of the Banque de France, and Adélaïde de Praël de Surville, herself the natural daughter of the banker to the court of Louis XV, Nicolas Beaujon. They had no children and were divorced in 1817. She outlived him by five years, dying in Paris in 1857.
Evaluation
Marmont is perhaps one of the most controversial marshals created under the Empire. His reputation, like many French generals in Spain, was tarnished by his defeats in the Peninsular War. However, on the whole, Marmont's military career was quite impressive. He was perhaps the most educated of the marshals and one of the few to write a thesis on the art of war. He was a talented strategist, understanding the art of command and the movement of troops. He performed wonderfully in Dalmatia making what John Elting calls "a remarkable 300-mile march through frequently roadless country, scattering two Austrian forces, but clinging to his independent status..."[7] Perhaps even more impressive is his study and evaluation of the Spanish theater of the war. He studied Wellington's nature of war, refusing to give battle against the British unless the ground was of Marmont's choosing.[citation needed] This led to a series of manoeuvres where Marmont frequently had the upper hand. Marmont understood the importance of cooperation in the Peninsula by supporting his fellow marshals. Tactically Marmont was deadly and quick to strike, but prone to sloppiness which caused him his two defeats.[citation needed]
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Marmont, Auguste Frédéric Louis Viesse de". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 17 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 744–745. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
- ^ Arnold, 113-115
- ^ Arnold, 116
- ^ Arnold, 174
- ^ Arnold, 176
- ^ Steven Englund, Napoleon: A Political Life (2005) p 415-6
- ^ Eltling, John R. Swords Around a Throne: Napoleon's Grande Armee. New York: The Free Press, copyright 1988. 140.
Sources
- Arnold, James R. Napoleon Conquers Austria. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 1995. ISBN 0-275-94694-0
- Chandler, David The Campaigns of Napoleon. Macmillan, New York, 1966.
- Hamilton-Williams, David The Fall of Napoleon. John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1994. ISBN 0-471-11862-1
External links
- Works by Auguste Frédéric Louis Viesse de Marmont at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Auguste de Marmont at Internet Archive