Augustin de Lespinasse

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Augustin de Lespinasse
General of Division
Battles/wars
Awards
Count of the Empire, 1808
Chamber of Peers
, 1814

Augustin de Lespinasse (8 October 1737 – 23 November 1816) commanded French artillery during the

general of division
but the Minister of War blocked his continued employment.

Lespinasse transferred to the

Mantua. Thereafter he published a treatise on the organization of artillery. After becoming emperor Napoleon appointed Lespinasse to the Senate and gave him other honors. LESPINASSE is one of the names inscribed under the Arc de Triomphe
, on Column 35.

Early career

Lespinasse was born in

Étienne François, duc de Choiseul, noting Lespinasse's intelligence, assigned him to write a treatise on practical trigonometry and leveling. This paper was published in 1768.[1]

Lespinasse had been promoted to captain on 24 March 1767. Other officers were jealous of his promotion and he was obliged to fight a number of duels in which he showed himself courageous and generous. He was attached to the fortress of Strasbourg and became inspector of the weapons manufacturers at Saint-Étienne and Maubeuge. On 25 May 1788 he received promotion to major and put in charge of setting up an artillery depot on the Loire River, but the French Revolution ended that project.[1]

French Revolution

On 1 January 1791 Lespinasse was promoted colonel of the 5th Foot Artillery Regiment. On 26 March 1793 he became

Army of the Rhine. He subsequently transferred to the Army of the Western Pyrenees.[1] In 1793 this army had 15 artillery companies[3] with Lespinasse as chief of artillery. The army's artillery establishment needed to be set up from "almost nothing" according to one historian. Besides receiving field guns from the interior, 535 pieces were seized from the Spanish over the course of the War of the Pyrenees. Most of the captured guns lacked carriages, but Lespinasse managed to provide carriages for the pieces. He also equipped a pontoon train and a siege train, though a severe shortage of draft horses limited their usefulness. His fertile mind came up with the idea of forming armorer companies to repair the stockpile of captured Spanish muskets.[4]

Photo of stone columns 35 and 36 under the Arc de Triomphe.
Lespinasse is at the top of Column 35.

The French built the Sans Culottes Camp covering the village of Urrugne near the Bay of Biscay.[5] The camp was used as a place to train new conscripts.[6] One notable feature of the Sans Culottes Camp was that the soldiers lived in huts instead of tents. Jacques Léonard Muller organized his army into 40 battalions in five divisions, despite having to send 8,000 troops to other armies in January 1794. The 26 best battalions were distributed among the front-line divisions of Jean Henri Guy Nicolas de Frégeville, Bon-Adrien Jeannot de Moncey and Henri François Delaborde while the remaining 14 were parceled out to the divisions of Jean-Antoine Marbot and Jean Mauco.[7] Lespinasse was in charge of building fortifications during the winter. These earthworks consisted of forts connected by breastworks. The entire front from Hendaye to the sources of the Nive River was covered by mutually-supporting redoubts.[6]

The Spanish army consisted of 20,000 troops of whom half were militia.

Burguete, the center under José de Urrutia y de las Casas was in the Baztan Valley and the left wing under General Gil was near Irun.[6] On 5 February 1794, 13,000 Spanish infantry and 700 cavalry and gunners under Urrutia attacked the French defenses in the Battle of Sans Culottes Camp.[8]

The Spanish columns carried the Croix des Bouquets and the Calvaire in their initial rush. From the Croix they took the Sans Culottes Camp under artillery fire. The local French commander Frégeville was not present but Lespinasse took charge. Sacrificing his outlying positions he concentrated his strength at the Redoubt de la Liberté and a bitter fight ensued. A unit of French marines suffered heavy losses while on the other side the Irish Regiment of Ultonia was roughly handled. With the Spanish advance checked, Frégeville arrived on the scene

general of brigade on 18 February 1794.[2] He was briefly suspended from command before being restored to duty.[1]

At the insistence of the

general of division in June 1794.[2] The Battle of the Baztan Valley began on 23 July.[10] Muller sent Moncey's 10,000-man division into the Baztan over the Maya Pass while Delaborde struck south from Biriatou toward Bera with 6,000. The Baztan was quickly overrun and soon a 12,000-man force at Lesaka threatened the right rear of the Spanish positions on the lower Bidasoa. Frégeville's 6,000 troops attacked across the river on 1 August.[11] The Spanish retreated so hurriedly that 2,000 soldiers and 300 cannons fell into French hands.[10] Lespinasse secured the abandoned Spanish artillery park.[1] In the aftermath of their victory, the French bluffed their adversaries into surrendering both the fortresses of Fuenterrabia[12] and San Sebastián.[11]

The Minister of War did not recognize Lespinasse's rank and refused to employ him for a time. Ultimately he transferred to the

Gabriel Marie Joseph, comte d'Hédouville conducted negotiations with the rebels in Brittany.[1]

Empire

Emperor Napoleon named Lespinasse a Grand Officer of the

Order of Saint-Louis. Lespinasse designed some features in the Jardin du Luxembourg.[1] He died at Paris on 23 November 1816.[2] He is buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in the 10th Division, 2nd Line.[15]

Notes

Sketch of an army camp with tents. In the background is a bay and mountains.
Army camp at Urrugne, c. 1814
Footnotes
  1. ^ Mullié gave the year 1769 but the chronology suggested this is certainly a misprint for 1759.
Citations
  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Mullié 1852, pp. 217–218.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Broughton 2007.
  3. ^ Smith 1998, p. 41.
  4. ^ Phipps 2011a, p. 135.
  5. ^ Cust 1859, p. 172.
  6. ^ a b c d Cust 1859, p. 233.
  7. ^ a b Phipps 2011a, p. 149.
  8. ^ a b Smith 1998, p. 72.
  9. ^ Cust 1859, p. 234.
  10. ^ a b Smith 1998, p. 88.
  11. ^ a b Phipps 2011a, pp. 186–187.
  12. ^ Cust 1859, p. 266.
  13. ^ Phipps 2011b, p. 59.
  14. ^ Phipps 2011b, p. 220.
  15. ^ Association du Père-Lachaise 2008.

References

  • Broughton, Tony (2007). "Generals Who Served in the French Army during the Period: 1789-1814, Lemaire to Lynch". The Napoleon Series. Retrieved 11 May 2015.
  • Cust, Edward (1859). "Annals of the Wars: 1783-1795". Retrieved 11 May 2015.
  • "LESPINASSE Augustin, comte de (1736-1816)" (in French). Association des Amis et Passionnés du Père-Lachaise. 2008. Retrieved 16 May 2015.
  • Mullié, Charles (1852). Biographie des célébrités militaires des armées de terre et de mer de 1789 a 1850 (in French). Paris. Retrieved 13 May 2015.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • ISBN 978-1-908692-26-9
    .
  • ISBN 978-1-908692-27-6
    .
  • ISBN 1-85367-276-9
    .
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