Jean-Joseph Ange d'Hautpoul
Jean Joseph Ange d'Hautpoul | |
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Général de division | |
Battles/wars | French Revolutionary Wars Napoleonic Wars |
Awards | Member of the Legion of Honour (11 December 1803) Grand Officer of the Légion d'honneur (14 June 1804) Grand Eagle of the Légion d'honneur (8 February 1806) |
Other work | Sénat conservateur |
Signature |
Jean-Joseph Ange d'Hautpoul (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ ʒozɛf ɑ̃ʒ dopul]; 13 May 1754 – 14 February 1807) was a French cavalry general of the Napoleonic Wars. He came from an old noble family of France whose military tradition extended for several centuries.
Efforts by the French Revolutionary government to remove him from his command failed when his soldiers refused to give him up. A big, loud-voiced man, he led from the front of his troops. Although the failure of his cavalry to deploy at the
Early life
Born in an ancient noble family from the Languedoc, he entered the French royal army as a volunteer in 1769. After having served in the Corsican legion, he transferred in 1771 to a Dragoon regiment. From 1777, he served as an officer in the Dragoon Regiment of the Languedoc.[1] By 1792, he had become its colonel.[2]
In 1802, he married Alexandrine Daumy, and they had one child, born 29 May 1806, named Alexandre Joseph Napoléon.
Revolutionary Wars
By contemporary accounts, d'Hautpoul was a big man, possibly taller than Joachim Murat, who was nearly six feet tall. Endowed with broad shoulders and a big voice, he spoke the language of the common soldier, and led from the front.[5] Early in the French Revolution, commissioners visited the various regiments to weed out dangerous, and prospectively traitorous nobles; generally, the commissioners cowed the army into submission, but d'Hautpoul's cavalry regiment refused to be intimidated. When the commissioners came for their colonel, a scion of impoverished nobility, his soldiers refused to give him up: "No d'Hautpoul, no 6th Chasseurs."[6] Thus, despite his noble birth, at the exhortations of his soldiers he remained in the French Revolutionary Army.[7]
d'Hautpoul served in the 1794–1799 campaigns against the armies of the
After his recovery, d'Hautpoul was given command of the heavy cavalry of the
In 1799, d'Hautpoul commanded cavalry brigades under
Napoleonic wars
In July 1801,
In the
Battle of Eylau
When military activity resumed in the winter of 1807, Napoleon hoped to overwhelm a Russian rearguard at
The pursuit of the Russian troops continued. On 7 February 1807, the French arrived outside the village of Eylau, as night was falling. In some confusion, the Imperial coach rumbled into the village, although the Emperor was setting up his camp a few kilometers away. The Russian patrol in the village chased off the coach driver and his men and plundered the Emperor's belongings; in turn, the Imperial escort chased them off. More and more men were sent into the engagement, and in the end the French took the village when the Russians withdrew. Both sides lost 4,000 men in the contest for the village and the Emperor's nightshirt. Settling for the night, they prepared to engage the next day.[12]
The next morning, the two armies of unequal strength faced each other across frozen fields fissured by ice-covered streams and ponds, which were in turn covered by snow and drifts. The snow and gloom meant that neither side was aware of the inequalities of men and artillery. Napoleon opened the
The result was devastating. Five thousand French soldiers fell in a matter of minutes and the entire engagement stood on the brink of disaster. Not only did they face the Russian fire, but the French artillery pounded them as well. Augereau's Corps melted under the withering fire, the bayonets of the Russians, and the onslaught of the cavalry; as they retreated to their own lines, Napoleon was nearly captured at the Eylau churchyard, where he had established a lookout post, but his escort cavalry chased the Russians away.[13]
Charge at Eylau
To fill the breach left by Augereau's decimated corps, Napoleon ordered Murat's cavalry reserve, 80 squadrons of 10,700 cavalrymen, into action at 10:30 in the morning. They had to cover 2,500 yards (2,300 m) of snow-covered, obstacle-filled ground, which they could not do at a gallop. Murat's Reserve charged into the Russian squares in two columns: Grouchy's cavalry, d'Hautpoul's cuirassiers and General
At this point, the horses were nearly blown, but d'Hautpoul's cuirassiers charged the third line, which they also broke. The Russian Cossacks, assembled in the reserve, entered the melee, but their light horses were no match for the French mounts, big horses confiscated from the Prussians the previous year.[14] The Russian infantry had started to reform their squares behind d'Hautpoul's men. During this charge, d'Hautpoul was struck by artillery grapeshot and badly wounded.[16] Several of his men managed to carry or drag him back to French lines.[17]
Napoleon's valet recounted:
... I seem still to hear the brave d'Hautpoul saying to His Majesty, just as he was galloping off to charge the enemy: "Sire, I am going to show you my big heels; they will go into the enemies' squares as if they were made of butter!" An hour later he was dead. One of his regiments while fighting in an interval of the Russian army, was shot down and cut to pieces by the Cossacks; only eighteen of them escaped. General d'Hautpoul, three times forced to recoil with his division, thrice rallied them to the charge; the third time, he again rushed on the enemy, crying in a loud voice: "Cuirassiers, forward, in the name of God! [F]orward, my brave cuirassiers!" But grapeshot had mowed down too many of these heroes. Very few of them were in condition to follow their leader, who fell, covered with wounds, in the middle of a Russian square into which he had flung himself almost alone.[18]
The Emperor ordered the best surgeons to attend to d'Hautpoul, but they disagreed on the best method of treatment.[17] Against the advice of the military surgeon, Larrey, d'Hautpoul refused to have his leg amputated and died not long afterwards.[19]
There is some disagreement in the records about his actual date of death: the original death record of the parish at Eylau indicates he died of wounds on 1 February 1807, but this was before the battle, and it is possible that the pastor simply left off a digit in his record, or, more likely, that the record was transcribed incorrectly. Other records suggest that he died the day after the battle (8 February), on 11 February, or on 14 February. Originally buried at Worienen,[20] His son, Alexandre Joseph Napoléon, brought his remains to France in 1840 to be buried in the family crypt at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. D'Hautpoul's heart is conserved in a vault in Les Invalides, and his name is inscribed on Column 16 of the Arc de Triomphe,[21] among the first 384 names to be inscribed on it.[3]
See also
- Names inscribed under the Arc de Triomphe, Eastern pillar, column 16
References
Notes and citations
- ^ This regiment was created in 1676 as the Languedoc-Dragons, becoming the Chasseurs du Languedoc in 1788, and the 6e Régiment de Chasseurs in 1791. Terry J. Senior. The Top Twenty French Cavalry Commanders: #4 General Jean-Joseph Ange d'Hautpoul. Napoleon Series. Robert Burnham, editor in chief. 2002. Accessed 30 January 2010.
- ^ (in French) Charles Mullie, Biographie des célébrités militaires des armées de terre et de mer de 1789 à 1850. Jean Joseph Hautpoul. Poignavant et Compagnie, 1851.
- ^ a b Jean Joseph d'Hautpoul Archived 3 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine. In: 7th Cuirassiers Archived 3 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed 31 January 2010.
- ^ P. Caron. "Review of: Mémoires du géneral marquis Alphonse d'Hautpoul, pair de France (1789-1865) by Alphonse d'Hautpoul. Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine (1899-1914), Vol. 7, No. 7 (1905/1906), pp. 560–561, cited p. 560.
- ^ Robert B. Bruce, Iain Dickie, Kevin Kiley. Fighting techniques of the Age of Napoleon. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin's Press, 2008, p. 79; Philip J. Haythornthwaite. Napoleon's commanders. London: Osprey Military, 2001–2002, p. 27.
- ISBN 0-02-909501-8, p. 38.
- ^ Bruce, 79.
- ^ a b Haythornthwaite, p. 27.
- ^ a b Haythornthwaite, p. 28.
- ^ Tony Broughton, French Chasseur-à-Cheval Regiments and the Colonels Who Led Them 1791–1815: 6e Regiment de Chasseurs-à-Cheval. Napoleon Series. Robert Burnham, editor in chief. 2002. Accessed 30 January 2010.
- ^ a b c Bruce, p. 77.
- ^ Digby Smith. Charge: Great Cavalry Charges of the Napoleonic Wars. London: Greenhill, 2007, p. 66.
- ^ a b Smith, p. 70.
- ^ a b c Smith, p. 71.
- ^ Bruce, pp. 86–88; Terry J. Senior. The Top Twenty French Cavalry Commanders: #16 General Louis Lepic. Napoleon Series. Robert Burnham, editor in chief. 2002. Accessed 30 January 2010.
- ^ Bruce, pp. 77–78.
- ^ a b (in French) Jean Joseph d'Hautpoul Archived 3 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine. In: 7th Cuirassiers Archived 3 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed 31 January 2010.
- ^ Louis Constant Wairy. Memoirs of Constant, Vol. II. Chapter XIV. New York, Century Co., 1895. Etext, unnumbered pages.
- ^ Terry J. Senior. The Top Twenty French Cavalry Commanders: #4 General Jean-Joseph Ange d'Hautpoul. Napoleon Series. Robert Burnham (editor in chief). 2002. Accessed 30 January 2010.
- ^ (in German) Ernst Wilhelm Gegner (Pfarrar). Sterbregister 1807 Archived 13 January 2010 at the Wayback Machine. Preus. Eylau. Full text: Den 1. [sic] Februar 1807 starb in dem Hofe Worienen an seinen Wunden, welche er in der Schlacht b. Pr. Eylau empfangen hatte, der französische General Hautpoult, und wurde in dem Worienschen Hofgarten begraben.
- ^ List of the 660 names inscribed at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris
Bibliography
- Broughton, Tony. French Chasseur-à-Cheval Regiments and the Colonels Who Led Them 1791–1815: 6e Regiment de Chasseurs-à-Cheval. Napoleon Series. Robert Burnham, editor in chief. 2002. Accessed 30 January 2010.
- Bruce, Robert B. Iain Dickie, Kevin Kiley. Fighting techniques of the Age of Napoleon. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin's Press, 2008. ISBN 0-312-37587-5.
- (in French) Caron, P. "Review of: Mémoires du général marquis Alphonse d'Hautpoul, pair de France (1789–1865) by Alphonse d'Hautpoul. Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine (1899–1914), Vol. 7, No. 7 (1905/1906), pp. 560–561.
- Clausewitz, Carl von (2020). Napoleon Absent, Coalition Ascendant: The 1799 Campaign in Italy and Switzerland, Volume 1. Trans and ed. Nicholas Murray and Christopher Pringle. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-3025-7
- Elting, John Robert. Swords around the Throne: Napoleon's Grande Armée. New York: Da Capo Press, 1997, ISBN 0-02-909501-8,
- (in German) Gegner, Ernst Wilhelm, (Pfarrar). Sterbregister 1807. Preus. Eylau.
- Haythornthwaite, Philip J. Napoleon's commanders. London: Osprey Military, 2001-2002. ISBN 1-84176-055-2.
- Senior, Terry J. The Top Twenty French Cavalry Commanders: #4 General Jean-Joseph Ange d'Hautpoul. Napoleon Series. Robert Burnham, editor in chief. 2002. Accessed 30 January 2010.
- Senior, Terry J. The Top Twenty French Cavalry Commanders: #16 General Louis Lepic. Napoleon Series. Robert Burnham, editor in chief. 2002. Accessed 30 January 2010.
- Wairy, Louis Constant. Memoirs of Constant, Vol. II. Chapter XIV. New York, Century Co., 1895. Etext.
- (in French) Jean Joseph d'Hautpoul. In: 7th Cuirassiers. Extracted from Général Charles Thoumas, Les Grands Cavaliers du Premier Empire, volume 3, Nancy: Berger-Levrault, 1890, and Charles Théodore Beauvais de Préau, Victoires conquêtes désastres revers et guerres civiles des français depuis 1792 Paris: Didot Frères, 1856. Accessed 31 January 2010.