Jean Augustin Ernouf

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Jean Auguste Ernouf
General of Division
Battles/wars
Awards1804: Grand Officer,
Chamber of Deputies (elected by Department of the Moselle
)

Jean Augustin Ernouf (Manuel Louis Jean Augustin or Auguste Ernouf) (29 August 1753 – 12 September 1827) was a French general and colonial administrator of the

Napoleonic wars
. He demonstrated moderate abilities as a combat commander; his real strength lay in his organizational and logistical talents. He held several posts as chief-of-staff and in military administration.

He joined the military in 1791, as a private in the

Napoleon I appointed him as governor general of the French colony in Saint-Domingue and Guadeloupe
, following the suppression of a widespread slave insurrection. Although he was able to reestablish some semblance of order and agricultural production, the British overwhelmed the colony in 1810 and, after a brief engagement, forced him to capitulate.

He returned to France on a prisoner exchange, but was charged with treason by

Chamber of Deputies of France
.

Military career

Further information: French Revolutionary Army

After completing school, Ernouf received entered military service as a private in the Revolutionary army. He was commissioned as a

captain on 22 March 1792, and 5 May 1793 he became an aide-de-camp of General Barthel's Army of the North. On 30 July 1793, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel.[1]

Initial successes in the Lowlands and the lower Rhine

In 1793, during the War of the First Coalition, Ernouf was sent to Cassel to strengthen the French position. The Duke of York laid siege to Dunkirk and blockaded the town of Bergues, on the Belgian border, which had insufficient garrison to fend off the British. Ernouf assembled a force of a thousand men and joined Jean Nicolas Houchard; together they marched to the relief of Dunkirk. Once there, he led a column in attack on the British camp. On 5 complémentaire an I (21 September 1793), which would have been the last day of the first year of the new Republic, he was raised to the rank of brigadier general and was appointed on 9 vendémiaire an II (30 September 1793) as chief of staff to the Army of the North.[1]

It was also by his advice that the commander-in-chief,

Army of Sambre-et-Meuse. He held several administrative posts, including a stint in which he helped to develop the topographical and geographical military maps.[1]

Action in Swabia and Switzerland

In 1798, Jourdan appointed him as chief of staff for the Army of Observation. Ernouf was with the Army of Observation when it crossed the

Alexander Rimsky-Korsakov.[6]

Caribbean appointment

A crowd gathers around a throne, as a man dressed in military uniform receives an award; people cheer.
Napoleon awards the first Legion of Honor decoration.
Engraved portrait of Ernouf by Constance Mayer, 1810.

In 1804, Ernouf became a Grand Officer of the

Charles Victor Emmanuel Leclerc.[1][8]

Within a year, after burning former slaves who refused to go back to the plantations, Ernouf had restored slavery and agricultural production. From his base on Guadeloupe, he dealt generously with many of the refugee planters who escaped the previous years' carnage. He also took over the Swedish island of

Général Ernouf, one of which was the captured sloop-of-war HMS Lilly), which underscores his encouragement of privateering. His task was further complicated by the failure of the Treaty of Amiens and the outbreak of war with Britain. To protect Guadeloupe, he established coastal batteries.[1]

The British

George Beckwith landed at Capesterre, or the eastern side of the islands.[10] Attacked on three sides at the end of January 1810, Ernouff's force mounted a spirited, although short defense and capitulated on 6 February 1810, after which he was transported to Britain. He was repatriated to France in a prisoner exchange in 1811. Irritated at the loss of Guadeloupe to the British, Napoleon accused him of abuse of power, embezzlement, and treason. Ernouf spent 23 months in captivity in France while the courts debated how to proceed.[1]

Restoration

At the

Saint-Louis, on 20 August of that year, and he was appointed Inspector General of Infantry. On 3 January 1815, he went in that capacity in Marseille. In March 1815, he received a command in the 1st Corps, under the general command of Charles, Duke of Angoulême.[1]

Napoleon's return

Ernouf was on an inspection away from this command when Napoleon landed at Cannes. Upon his landing, many of the soldiers of Angoulême's army flocked to Bonaparte's banner, beginning the Hundred Days. The mere news of Napoleon's escape from Elba and the defection of some of the troops caused Charles, Duke of Angoulême, to panic and capitulate. Ernouf returned to Marseille, where he learned that André Masséna also had chosen the imperial cause, after which he left for Paris. Napoleon rescinded Ernouf's honors and titles, and dismissed him from his post in the military on 15 April 1815. After Napoleon's final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, the second restoration of the Bourbons that summer also restored Ernouf's rights and property.[1]

Later years

A neck-style military order: an elaborate cross with jewels and gold hangs from an orange ribbon
The Order of St. Louis, from the Bourbon Restoration.

On 3 May 1816, Louis XVIII granted him the title of Baron with the Commander's Cross of the Order of Saint Louis, which entitled him to wear a red sash (right shoulder to left hip); he automatically received a pension, and hereditary nobility was granted to the son and grandson of knights. On 11 November 1816, Enrouf received command of the III Division, located at Metz, which was occupied by Allied troops as a condition of the Second Treaty of Paris; his role was to maintain harmony between residents and the foreign soldiers.[1]

Elected by the

Chamber of Deputies, and left the command of the III Division when he became eligible for retirement on 22 July 1822. He died in Paris on 12 September 1827.[1]

Family

Ernouf was married to Geneviève Miloent (d. 22 November 1822).[11] Ernouf's son, Gaspard Augustin (8 December 1777 – 25 October 1848), was also a military commander during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.[12] Gaspard and his wife, Adelaïde Guesdon, were the parents of the 19th century historian, Alfred Auguste Ernouf (1816–1889).[13]

Sources

Citations and notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Mullié, Charles (1852). "Ernouf (Jean-Augustin, baron)" . Biographie des célébrités militaires des armées de terre et de mer de 1789 à 1850  (in French). Paris: Poignavant et Compagnie.
  2. ^ Ramsey Weston Phipps. The Armies of the First French Republic, volume 5: The armies of the Rhine in Switzerland, Holland, Italy, Egypt and the coup d'état of Brumaire, 1797–1799. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939, pp. 49–50.
  3. ^ Timothy Blanning. The French Revolutionary Wars, New York, Oxford University Press, pp. 41–59.
  4. ^ Theodore Ayrault Dodge, Napoleon: A History of the Art of War. vol. 3, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co, 1904, pp. 581–582.
  5. ^ Jean-Baptiste Jourdan. A Memoir of the operations of the army of the Danube under the command of General Jourdan, taken from the manuscripts of that officer, London: Debrett, 1799, p. 204.
  6. ISBN 1-85367-276-9
    pp. 146–155.
  7. ^ Grand Officers were paid very generously – 5000 francs. Pierre-Louis Roederer, "Speech Proposing the Creation of a Legion of Honour", Napoleon: Symbol for an Age, A Brief History with Documents. Rafe Blaufarb (ed.). New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008, pp. 101–102.
  8. ^ "Charles Victor Emmanuel Leclerc". The Louverture Project. Archived from the original on 6 August 2016.
  9. ^ Roy and Lesley Adkins. War for all the Oceans. New York: Penguin, 2008, p. 327.
  10. ^ Adkins, p. 327.
  11. ^ Etat civil reconstitué 1798–1860: Mariages, naissances, décès. Paris: ARFIDO S.A., 2006.
  12. ^ Mullié, Charles (1852). "Ernouf (Gaspard-Augustin)" . Biographie des célébrités militaires des armées de terre et de mer de 1789 à 1850  (in French). Paris: Poignavant et Compagnie.
  13. ^ Charles Dudley Warner (ed.). "Alfred Auguste Ernouf." Biographical Dictionary and Synopsis of Books Ancient and Modern. Akron, Ohio: Werner, 1902. Alfred August Ernouf wrote several books, his most enduring being The art of gardens, their history, practice, and use, 1868; Recollections of the reign of terror, which appeared in English editions in 1870, Maret, duc de Bassano, 1878, and a biography of Denis Papin, in 1874. He also edited over 70 volumes, including volumes 11–14 of History of France by Louis-Pierre-Edouard Bignon, after Bignon's death. [1] Alfred Auguste Ernouf.

References

External links and sources

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