Jean-Baptiste Kleber
Portrait by Jean-Urbain Guerin , 1798 ( Nationalmuseum , Stockholm )
Born	( 1753-03-09 ) 9 March 1753 Strasbourg , France
Died	14 June 1800 (1800-06-14) (aged 47) Cairo , Ottoman Egypt
Buried	Place Kleber , Strasbourg
Allegiance	Kingdom of France   Holy Roman Empire   Kingdom of France   French First Republic
Service/ branch	French Royal Army Imperial Army French Revolutionary Army
Years of service	1769?1770 (France) 1777?1783 (HRE) 1792?1800 (France)
Rank	General of division
Commands held	4th Haute-Rhin Battalion Army of Sambre and Meuse Army of the Orient
Battles/wars	See list: War of the Bavarian Succession French Revolutionary Wars War in the Vendee Battle of Tiffauges Battle of Montaigu Battle of La Tremblaye Second Battle of Cholet Battle of Dol Battle of Le Mans Battle of Savenay War of the First Coalition Siege of Mainz Flanders Campaign Battle of Gosselies Battle of Fleurus Battle of the Roer Battle of Mainz Rhine Campaign of 1796 Battle of Altenkirchen Battle of Friedberg French campaign in Egypt and Syria Siege of El Arish Siege of Jaffa Siege of Acre Battle of Mount Tabor Battle of Heliopolis
Awards	Inscription on the Arc de Triomphe (Southern Pillar, Column 23)
Signature

Jean-Baptiste Kleber ( French pronunciation: [??? batist kleb??] ; 9 March 1753 ? 14 June 1800) was a French military leader of the French Revolutionary Wars . After serving for one year in the French Royal Army , he entered Habsburg service seven years later. However, his humble birth hindered his opportunities. Eventually, he volunteered for the French Revolutionary Army in 1792 and quickly rose through the ranks.

Kleber served in the Rhineland during the War of the First Coalition , and also suppressed the Vendee Revolt . He retired to private life in the peaceful interim after the Treaty of Campo Formio , but returned to military service to accompany Napoleon Bonaparte in the campaign in Egypt and Syria in 1798. As the Egyptian campaign was deteriorating, Napoleon returned to Paris in 1799 and appointed Kleber as commander of all French forces in Egypt . He was assassinated by a student in Cairo in 1800.

A trained architect , Kleber, in times of peace, designed a number of buildings. ^[1]

Early career [ edit ]

Jean-Baptiste Kleber was born on 9 March 1753 in Strasbourg , in the province of Alsace , where his father worked as a master builder . He briefly engaged in 1769 in the French 1st Hussar Regiment , but resigned to study, from 1770 to 1774, architecture , partly in Paris with Jean Chalgrin . His opportune assistance to two German nobles in a tavern brawl obtained for him nomination to the military school of Munich . From this education, he obtained a commission in the Kaunitz Infantry Regiment Nr. 38 of the Habsburg Austrian army. He took part in the War of the Bavarian Succession but did not see major engagements. He was stationed alternately in the garrisons of Mons , Mechelen , and Luxembourg in the Austrian Netherlands . Finding that his humble birth hindered his chances for promotion ^[2] beyond that of an unterleutnant , he left the Austrian army in 1783 after serving seven years. ^[3]

Architecture [ edit ]

On returning to France, Kleber received the appointment of inspector of public buildings at Belfort . ^[2] Between 1784 and 1792, he designed a number of buildings both on public and private commission. Perhaps the most notable is the current town hall of Thann, Haut-Rhin (1787?1793), which was originally designed as a hospital but turned into an administrative building before its completion. ^[4] Other surviving buildings are the chateau of Grandvillars (often erroneously spelled "Granvillars"), built around 1790 ^[5] and the canoness houses of the Benedictine abbey of Masevaux (1781?1790). Nine of these houses had been planned but due to the French Revolution , only seven were built. ^[6] The Musee historique de Strasbourg features a room dedicated to Jean-Baptiste Kleber that also displays a number of his sketches and architectural designs.

French Revolutionary Wars [ edit ]

In 1792, at the start of the French Revolutionary Wars , Kleber enlisted in the 4th Battalion of Volunteers of Haut-Rhin . ^[7] Thanks to his military experience, he was at once elected adjutant and soon afterward lieutenant-colonel of the battalion. ^[2] At the defense of Mainz in July 1793 he so distinguished himself that, though disgraced along with the rest of the garrison and imprisoned, he promptly won reinstatement, and was promoted to brigade general in August 1793. ^[2]

Kleber was then posted to the Army of the Coasts of La Rochelle and deployed to Western France, where he took part in the suppression of the Revolt in the Vendee . ^[7] Although beaten at the Battle of Tiffauges on 19 September 1793, he maintained good relations with the representatives on mission and managed to keep his command. ^[7] A month later, Kleber contributed to the Republican victory at Cholet , earning him his promotion to general of division on 17 October 1793. ^[7] In these operations began his intimacy with General Francois Marceau , with whom he defeated the Royalists at the battles of Le Mans and Savenay in December 1793. ^[2]

When Kleber openly expressed his opinion that the Vendeans merited lenient measures, the authorities recalled him, but reinstated him once more in April 1794 and sent him to the Army of the Ardennes . ^{[2] [7]} He displayed his skill and bravery in the numerous actions around Charleroi , and especially in the crowning victory at Fleurus (26 June 1794). ^[2] During the following years he served mostly in the Army of Sambre and Meuse on the Rhine frontier. ^[7] In the winter of 1794?1795 he besieged Mainz. ^[2] In 1795, and again in 1796, Kleber held the chief command of the army temporarily, but declined a permanent appointment as commander-in-chief. ^[2]

On 13 October 1795 he fought a brilliant rearguard action at the bridge of Neuwied , and in the offensive campaign of 1796, he served as General Jean-Baptiste Jourdan 's most active and successful lieutenant, with his victory at Siegburg on 1 June that year enabling Jourdan to get the bulk of the French force across the Rhine. ^[2] After the retreat to the Rhine, Kleber again declined a chief command, and retired into private life in early 1798. ^[2] He returned to service later that year, first in the Army of England , then accepted a division in the Army of the Orient under General Napoleon Bonaparte. ^[7]

Egyptian campaign [ edit ]

Kleber followed Bonaparte in his expedition to Egypt but suffered a wound in the head at Alexandria in the first engagement, which prevented him for taking part in the Battle of the Pyramids , and caused his appointment as governor of Alexandria. ^[2] In the Syrian campaign of 1799, however, he commanded the vanguard, took El-Arish , Gaza , and Jaffa , and won a great victory at the Battle of Mount Tabor on 15?16 April 1799. ^[2]

The campaign was not going well for the French as Napoleon withdrew and returned to France towards the end of 1799. Napoleon left Kleber in command of the French forces, without consulting Kleber before leaving. ^[8] In this capacity, seeing no hope of bringing his army back to France or of consolidating his conquests, he negotiated the Convention of El-Arish (24 January 1800) with Commodore Sidney Smith , winning the right to an honorable evacuation of the French army. ^[8] When Admiral Lord Keith refused to ratify the terms, Kleber attacked the Turks at the Battle of Heliopolis . ^[8] Although he had only 10,000 men against 60,000 Turks, Kleber's forces utterly defeated the Turks on 20 March 1800. ^[2] He then re-took Cairo , which had revolted against French rule. ^[2]

Kleber, son of an operative mason and a prominent freemason himself, was attestedly instrumental in bringing freemasonry to Egypt. ^[9] While he was negotiating with Sidney Smith in January 1800, Kleber opened a masonic temple in Cairo and thus created the Isis lodge ( La Loge Isis ), serving as its first master . ^{[9] [10] [11]} The motto of the lodge was the slogan of the French Revolution: Liberte, egalite, fraternite . ^[9]

Assassination [ edit ]

Shortly after these victories, while Kleber was walking in the garden of the palace of Alfi bika, he was stabbed to death by Suleiman al-Halabi , a Kurdish ^[12] or Arab Syrian student living in Egypt. The assassin appeared to be begging from Kleber, but then took his hand and stabbed him in the heart, stomach, left arm, and right cheek, before running away to hide near the palace. He was soon caught, still in possession of the dagger which he had used to kill Kleber, and was later executed. The assassination happened in Cairo on 14 June 1800, coincidentally the same day on which Kleber's friend and comrade, Desaix , fell at Marengo . The assassin's right arm was burned off, and he was impaled in a public square in Cairo and left for several hours to die. Suleiman's skull was shipped to France and used to teach medical students what the French phrenologists claimed were the cranial features indicating "crime" and "fanaticism" ^[13]

Burial [ edit ]

After his assassination, Kleber's embalmed body was repatriated to France. ^[14] Fearing that his tomb would become a symbol of Republicanism, Napoleon ordered it held at the Chateau d'If , on an island near Marseilles . It stayed there for 18 years until Louis XVIII granted Kleber a burial place in his home town of Strasbourg . ^[15] He was buried on 15 December 1838 below his statue located in the center of Place Kleber . His heart is in an urn in the caveau of the Governors beneath the altar of the Saint Louis Chapel in Les Invalides , Paris . Kleber's name is inscribed in column 23 on the southern pillar of the Arc de Triomphe .

Assessment [ edit ]

Kleber emerged as undoubtedly one of the greatest generals of the French revolutionary epoch. Though he distrusted his powers and declined the responsibility of supreme command, there is nothing in his career to show that he would have been unequal to it. As a second-in-command no general of his time excelled him. His conduct of affairs in Egypt, at a time when the treasury was empty and the troops were discontented for want of pay, shows that his powers as an administrator were little, if at all, inferior to those he possessed as a general. ^[2] While Kleber himself had a mixed view of Napoleon (including cursing at him and drawing mocking caricatures of him), Bonaparte thought highly of Kleber's skill, stating that there was, "No sight so splendid as watching Kleber go into battle", and he likened him to the God of War Mars. ^[16]

See also [ edit ]

• Lycee Kleber
• Place Kleber
• Kleber (Paris Metro)
• Kleber (train)
• Manfred Stern , Austrian-born Soviet officer who gained fame in the Spanish Civil War under the pseudonym "General Kleber"

Notes [ edit ]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jean-Baptiste Kleber .

Attribution:

•   This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain :  Chisholm, Hugh , ed. (1911). " Kleber, Jean Baptiste ". Encyclopædia Britannica . Vol. 15 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 845.

References [ edit ]

• Phipps, Ramsay Weston (2011) [1929]. The Armies of the First French Republic and the Rise of the Marshals of Napoleon I: The Armees du Moselle, du Rhin, de Sambre-et-Meuse, de Rhin-et-Moselle . Vol. 2. Pickle Partners Publishing. ISBN   978-1-908692-25-2 .

Further reading [ edit ]

• Philippe Jehin, Jean-Baptiste Kleber : le lion indomptable : 1753-1800 , Editions Vent d'Est 2012, ISBN   979-10-90826-06-9
• Auguste Echard: J.-B. Kleber : un fils de l'Alsace , Charavay Freres Editeurs, Paris, 1883 (sic) online version