French Marshal and diplomat
Edouard Adolphe Casimir Joseph Mortier, Duke of
Treviso
(
French pronunciation:
[ad?lf
edwa?
kazimi?
?oz?f
m??tje]
; 13 February 1768 – 28 July 1835), was a French military commander and
Marshal of the Empire
under
Napoleon I
, who served during the
French Revolutionary Wars
and the
Napoleonic Wars
. He served as
Minister of War
and
Prime Minister of France
from 1834 to 1835. He was one of 18 people killed in 1835 during
Giuseppe Marco Fieschi
's assassination attempt on King
Louis Philippe I
.
Early life
[
edit
]
Mortier was born at Le Cateau (now
Le Cateau-Cambresis
), northern France, on 13 February 1768.
[2]
He was the son of Charles Mortier (1730?1808), a
draper
, and his wife Marie Anne Joseph Bonnaire (b. 1735). After studying at the
Irish College, Douai
, he joined the
National Guard
of
Dunkirk
in 1789, at the start of the
French Revolution
, and was elected captain of a unit of volunteers in September 1791.
[2]
French Revolutionary Wars
[
edit
]
Upon the outbreak of the
War of the First Coalition
in 1792, Mortier was assigned to the
Army of the North
.
[2]
He spent the next years serving in the
Low Countries theatre
, fighting at the
Battle of Jemappes
and the
Siege of Namur
, in 1792, at the
Battle of Neerwinden
in 1793, and at the
Battle of Fleurus
in 1794.
[2]
He was then transferred to the
Army of Sambre and Meuse
on the
Rhine
, and distinguished himself in the capture of
Maastricht
.
[2]
Mortier was tasked by General
Jacques Maurice Hatry
to negotiate the surrender of the
Fortress of Mainz
,
[3]
which he completed successfully and then returned to Paris.
During the
War of the Second Coalition
in 1799, Mortier was promoted to
brigade general
and served under General
Soult
at the
Second Battle of Zurich
in September 1799,
[2]
where he led a force of 8,000 in the attack from Dieticon on Zurich.
[4]
He was made a
general of division
in October and recalled to Paris in early 1800.
[2]
Napoleonic Wars
[
edit
]
In 1803, Mortier was appointed commander-in-chief of an
invasion of the Electorate of Hanover
by First Consul
Napoleon Bonaparte
.
[2]
His successful occupation of Hanover, bringing about the
Convention of Artlenburg
, led Napoleon to include Mortier in the first list of marshals created in 1804.
[5]
[6]
In 1805, Mortier was made commander of the infantry of the
Imperial Guard
.
[2]
During the
War of the Third Coalition
, Mortier commanded a corps of the
Grande Armee
in the
Ulm campaign
in which he distinguished himself.
[5]
In the campaign of the middle Danube, which culminated in the
Battle of Austerlitz
, Napoleon placed him in command of the newly formed
VIII Corps
, composed of divisions from the other corps. Mortier over-extended his line of march on the north shore of the Danube and failed to heed Napoleon's advice to protect his north flank. A combined Russo-Austrian force, under the command of General
Mikhail Kutuzov
enticed Mortier to send General
Theodore Maxime Gazan
's 2nd Division into a trap and French troops were caught in a valley between two Russian columns. They were rescued by the timely arrival of a second division, under command of General Pierre Dupont de l'Etang's 1st Division, which covered a day's march in a half-day. The
Battle of Durrenstein
(11 November 1805) extended well into the night. Both sides claimed victory, with the French losing more than a third of the participants, and Gazan's division experiencing over 40 percent losses. The Austrians and Russians also suffered heavy losses?close to 16 percent. After Austerlitz, Napoleon dispersed the corps and Gazan received the
Legion of Honour
, but Mortier was simply reassigned to command the
V Corps
.
[7]
When the
War of the Fourth Coalition
broke out in 1806, Napoleon ordered Mortier to assume command of the reformed VIII Corps on 1 October. He was to coordinate his operations with
Louis Bonaparte
's Franco-Dutch troops. On 16 October, two days after his crushing victory over
Prussia
at
Jena-Auerstedt
, Napoleon ordered Mortier and Louis to conquer the
Electorate of Hesse
. Mortier was to occupy
Fulda
and then the capital city of
Kassel
, rule as
military governor
, and imprison the Elector of Hesse,
William I
. Every Hessian officer above the rank of lieutenant would be arrested and Napoleon stated his intention to "wipe the house of Hesse-Kassel from the map". Mortier knew this constituted a violation of Hessian neutrality and boasted on 17 October that its very neutrality made it easy to conquer. On 1 November, the French occupied and looted Kassel, discovering that William had fled. Mortier issued a proclamation in which he claimed to have come to avenge Prussian violation of Hessian neutrality but also accused them of being Prussian allies.
[
citation needed
]
Mortier left a division to hold Hesse-Kassel while the rest of his corps was directed to mopping-up operations in Prussia.
Hamelin
capitulated on 22 November, along with a garrison of 10,000 Prussian troops.
Nienburg
fell on 29 November, with 2,911 Prussian soldiers marching into captivity. In 1807, he led the left wing of Napoleon's army at
Battle of Friedland
, and served at the sieges of
Stralsund
and
Kolberg
.
[8]
In 1808, Napoleon rewarded Mortier for his actions at Friedland with the title of "Duke of
Treviso
" (
Duc de Trevise
in French), a
duche grand-fief
(a rare, but nominal, hereditary honor, extinguished in 1946) in his own
Kingdom of Italy
.
[2]
In October 1808, Mortier was sent to Spain in the campaign for the recapture of
Madrid
, at the head of the V Corps, which he led at the
Battle of Somosierra
and the
Second Siege of Zaragoza
.
[2]
[5]
He then fought under Marshal Soult at the
Arzobispo
, in August 1809, and contributed to the victory at
Ocana
, where he was wounded.
[2]
Afterwards Mortier served in southern Spain, most notably at the
Siege of Badajoz
, before being recalled to France in May 1811.
[2]
During the
invasion of Russia
in 1812, Mortier commanded the
Young Guard
.
[2]
After the
Battle of Borodino
he became governor of
French-occupied Moscow
, and was ordered to destroy what remained of the city when the retreat began.
[2]
He then fought at
Krasnoi
, at the
Berezina
, and regrouped the surviving Imperial Guards in January 1813.
[2]
Mortier again commanded the Young Guard in several battles of the
German campaign
, including
Lutzen
,
Bautzen
,
Dresden
and
Leipzig
.
[2]
During the
defense of France
in 1814, he rendered brilliant services in command of rearguards and covering detachments,
[5]
and led the Old Guard at
Montmirail
,
Craonne
,
Laon
, and at the final
Battle of Paris
.
[2]
He rallied to the
Bourbon Restoration
after Napoleon's abdication in April 1814.
[2]
In 1815, during Napoleon's return to power in the
Hundred Days
, Mortier escorted the king out of the country before joining the emperor in Paris.
[2]
He was given command of the Imperial Guard once more, but at the opening of the
Waterloo campaign
, he was unable to continue due to severe
sciatica
.
Post-war career
[
edit
]
Following the second Bourbon Restoration, Mortier relutanctly accepted to be part of the court martial trying Marshal
Michel Ney
.
[2]
After the court declared itself incompetent he was for a time in disgrace, but in January 1816 he received a command,
[2]
and in 1819 Mortier was readmitted to the
Chamber of Peers
and in 1825 received the
Order of the Holy Spirit
, the kingdom's highest honor. He supported the
July Revolution
that brought King
Louis Philippe
to power in 1830.
[2]
From 1830 to 1831 he was the
Ambassador of France to Russia at St. Petersburg
, and from 1834 to 1834, Minister of War and
President of the Council of Ministers
.
[5]
Death
[
edit
]
On 28 July 1835, Mortier was one of those accompanying King
Louis-Philippe
to a review of the
Paris National Guard
, an annual event that commemorated the
July Revolution
that brought the king to power in 1830.
In the
Boulevard du Temple
, the royal party was hit by a volley of gunfire from the upstairs window of a house. Eighteen were killed, including Mortier, and 22 injured.
The king received only a minor wound.
The weapon used was a home-made
volley gun
, constructed and fired by
Giuseppe Marco Fieschi
for the purpose of assassinating the king. Fieschi had fixed twenty-five musket barrels to a wooden frame, and arranged that they could be fired simultaneously. Four of the barrels burst when fired and Fieschi was badly wounded.
[11]
He was quickly captured and later tried with two co-conspirators. The three went to the guillotine in February 1836.
Family
[
edit
]
Mortier married Eve Anne Hymmes (
Coblence
, 19 August 1779 – Paris, 13 February 1855), by whom he had six children:
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Paris, Louis (1869).
Dictionnaire des anoblissements
(in French). Vol. 1. Paris: Bachelin-Deflorenne.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
l
m
n
o
p
q
r
s
t
u
v
w
Garnier, Jacques. "MORTIER, Adolphe-Edouard-Casimir-Joseph, duc de Trevise (1768-1835), marechal".
Dictionnaire Napoleon
.
Editions Fayard
.
- ^
The Big Mortar
- ^
Adolphe Thiers.
The history of the French revolution
, New York: Appleton, 1854, v. 4., p. 401.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
public domain
:
Chisholm, Hugh
, ed. (1911). "
Mortier, Edouard Adolphe Casimir Joseph
".
Encyclopædia Britannica
. Vol. 18 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 878.
- ^
Thiers, fn, p. 401.
- ^
(in German)
Egger, Rainer.
Das Gefecht bei Durnstein-Loiben 1805
. Wien: Bundesverlag, 1986, pp. 14?22; Goetz, Robert.
1805: Austerlitz, the Destruction of the Third Coalition.
Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2005,
ISBN
1-85367-644-6
, pp. 75?81; and
Digby Smith
,
Napoleonic Wars Databook: 1805
, London: Greenhill Publishing Co., 1998,
ISBN
1-85367-276-9
, p. 213.
- ^
Jaques, Tony (2006).
Dictionary of Battles And Sieges: A Guide to 8,500 Battles from Antiquity Through the Twenty-first Century
. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 973.
ISBN
0-313-33536-2
.
- ^
Bouveiron (1835), pp. 67?68, Report of M. Lepage, Gunsmith to the King
Bibliography
[
edit
]
External links
[
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]
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