对拿破仑各元帅的评论

tntxhy

奥热罗
Pierre Augereau

Augereau, Pierre-François-Charles, Duke (duc) De Castiglione
born Oct. 21, 1757, Paris, France
died June 12, 1816, La Houssaye



army officer whose military ability won for France a series of brilliant victories in Italy under Napoleon's command.
The son of a poor Parisian servant, Augereau turned to a military career at the age of 17, served in several foreign armies, and returned to France in 1792. He quickly advanced in rank and by 1793 was general of a division stationed in the eastern Pyrenees. In 1795 his division served in the Italian campaign, and his victory at Castiglione (Aug. 5, 1796) convinced Napoleon of his indispensability. He carried out the coup d'état of 18 Fructidor (Sept. 4, 1797) and was elected a deputy and secretary of the Assembly in 1799. Augereau opposed Napoleon's coup d'état of 18 Brumaire (Nov. 9, 1799) and was consequently given unimportant commands from 1800 to 1805. Yet he was appointed a marshal of France in 1804.
In 1806 Augereau commanded a corps at the Battle of Jena. At the Battle of Eylau (Feb. 7–8, 1807), his corps, misdirected in a snowstorm, lost half its numbers. Nevertheless, in 1808 Napoleon named him Duke de Castiglione and gave him a new command in Catalonia, in Spain, where he was soon defeated. Recalled to France in 1810, he was given only a minor post during Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. He continued fighting in Germany the following year, but after the losses at the Battle of Leipzig (Oct. 16–19, 1813) he returned to France.
Augereau had grown weary of the war by 1810. After another defeat at Lyon, in 1814, he bitterly attacked Napoleon and declared himself a royalist after the First Restoration of the Bourbon monarchy (1814). Louis XVIII rewarded Augereau for his anti-Napoleonic sentiments, and when he again offered his services to Napoleon in 1815, he was ignored. After the Battle of Waterloo the king gave him no command, and he retired to his estate at La Houssaye.

tntxhy

贝尔蒂埃
Louis Berthier

Berthier, Louis-Alexandre, Prince De Wagram
born Nov. 20, 1753, Versailles, Fr.
died June 1, 1815, Bamberg, Bavaria

French soldier and the first of Napoleon's marshals. Though Berthier was not a distinguished commander, Napoleon esteemed him highly as chief of staff of the Grande Armée from 1805. Responsible for the operation of Napoleon's armies, he was called by the Emperor “the man who has served me longest and has never failed me.”

The son of an ennobled court works surveyor, Berthier gained military experience in the American Revolution, serving with Lafayette, and then in the French Revolution as survey and staff officer and finally as chief of staff (1791–92). Sent to fight the royalists in western France in March 1793, he was recalled, as a noble, after four months' dangerous service and driven underground by the Revolutionary Terror. He reappeared as general of division and chief of staff in the Army of the Alps and of Italy. Commanding in Italy, he occupied Rome in February 1798 but later joined Napoleon in Egypt.

As chief of staff of the Grande Armée, Berthier directed a staff of six generals and eight colonels. His duties included dispatching direct orders from Napoleon to his marshals. In spite of his professed impersonality in carrying out Napoleon's orders, a certain amount of friction developed between Berthier and the marshals as the power of the chief of staff grew. Napoleon recognized his loyalty by making him sovereign prince of Neuchâtel in 1806 and gave him the French title of prince de Wagram in 1809.

Berthier remained with Napoleon in Russia to the end of the retreat in 1812 and, after the Emperor's departure, struggled devotedly to preserve order in the army. After Napoleon's abdication Berthier submitted to Louis XVIII and, as captain of his guards, escorted him out of France when Napoleon returned from Elba for the Hundred Days. He then retired to Bavaria, where he soon died from a fall. There were stories of suicide or murder, but the accident was probably due to illness.

tntxhy

贝西埃
Jean-Baptiste Bessieres

Bessières, Jean-Baptiste, Duc (duke) D'istrie
born Aug. 6, 1768, Prayssac, Fr.
died May 1, 1813, Rippach, Saxony [Germany]

French soldier and, as one of Napoleon's marshals, commander of the imperial guard after 1804. His appointment as marshal signaled Napoleon's intention to develop the imperial guard.

In 1792 Bessières joined Louis XVI's constitutional guard as a private. After serving in Catalonia as a captain, he was chosen to command Napoleon's escort in Italy in 1796. He fought bravely at Aboukir, Egypt, in 1798 and two years later commanded 800 men of the consular guard at the Battle of Marengo (June 14). In 1805, with 9,000 guards, he led the famous charge against the Russian guard cavalry at Austerlitz (December 2).

In Spain Bessières's victory at Medina de Ríoseco (1808) enabled Napoleon's brother Joseph to reach Madrid and establish himself as king of Spain. Commanding the cavalry corps against Austria in 1809, Bessières led charges to cover the retreat in the Battle of Aspern-Essling (May 22) and to gain time at the Battle of Wagram (July 5–6), where he was severely wounded. Yet he was soon sent to end the British Walcheren expedition in Flanders. In 1809 he was created duke of Istria. Sent back to Spain in command of 50,000 men to hold the north, he was unable to bring more than a few of his cavalry to join André Masséna for the Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro (May 3, 1811). In 1812 Bessières led the guard cavalry to Russia and lost them almost without fighting. On the day before the Battle of Lützen (May 2), he was killed in a clash at nearby Rippach while on reconnaissance.

tntxhy

布律纳
Guillaume Brune

Brune, Guillaume(-Marie-Anne)
born March 13, 1763, Brive-la-Gaillarde, Fr.
died Aug. 2, 1815, Avignon

the only one of Napoleon's marshals associated with the French Revolutionary Reign of Terror. A distinguished cavalry commander, he consolidated his reputation as defender of Holland against the Allies.

At first dedicated to a literary career, Brune became associated in Paris with the Revolutionary leader Georges Danton, for whom he wrote a pamphlet on military matters. He then became a commissaire for purges of the army of the north and later escorted terrorist officials to Bordeaux (where he is credited with trying to restrain the terrorism). The rumour that he was responsible for the murder in 1792 of the Princesse de Lamballe, an intimate companion of Queen Marie-Antoinette, led to his death at the hands of a royalist mob 23 years later.

Under the Directory, Brune served in Paris with Paul Barras and with Napoleon Bonaparte. After three months' service in Italy (1797), he was made general of division. Barras used him to effect compliance to the French in the Helvetian, Cisalpine, and Batavian republics. Brune defeated the Anglo-Russian army in Holland at Bergen and at Castricum (September–October 1799). Sent by Napoleon to end the Italian campaign, Brune fought a battle against the Austrians in December 1800. He was made a marshal in 1804. After serving as ambassador to Constantinople and returning to take charge of some coastal defenses, he cleared the Swedes from Stralsund in 1807 but was then abruptly removed from employment, for reasons never divulged. During the Hundred Days (1815), Napoleon sent Brune to defend Provence (which was strongly royalist). When hostilities ended, a mob in Avignon attacked and killed him.

tntxhy

达武
Louis Davout

Davout, Louis-Nicolas, Duc (duke) D'auerstedt, Prince D'eckmuhl
born May 10, 1770, Annoux, Fr.
died June 1, 1823, Paris

French general who was one of the most distinguished of the Napoleonic field commanders.

Despite his noble origin and his training in the best military tradition of the ancien régime, Davout led his regiment in a pro-Revolutionary revolt (1790). He performed with merit in the Belgian campaign of 1792–93 and gained fame for his attempt to stop the treason of Gen. Charles Dumouriez (April 1793).

Davout rose to the rank of brigadier general but was forced to resign when an edict excluding former nobles from the French armies was adopted in July 1793. He was recalled to service after the overthrow of the anti-aristocratic Jacobins. After accompanying Bonaparte to Egypt (1798–99) he was promoted to the rank of divisional general and in 1801 married Louise-Aimée Le Clerc, Pauline Bonaparte's sister-in-law.

Appointed commander of the elite Third Corps, Davout's talents had a significant impact on the victories at Austerlitz (1805), Auerstädt (1806), Jena (1806), Eylau (1807), Eckmühl (1809), and Wagram (1809). In 1808 Napoleon bestowed the ducal title, and the next year Davout was made prince d'Eckmühl.

Davout performed admirably in the unsuccessful Russian campaign (1812–13) and then recaptured Hamburg. When Bonaparte fell in 1814 Davout retired, but he returned to the imperial cause during the Hundred Days as minister of war. After the defeat at Waterloo, Davout signed the Paris Convention (July 3, 1815), which opened Paris to the victorious allies. He retained command of the remnants of the imperial army in the Loire valley until a final peace was arranged. He refused to swear allegiance to the restored Bourbons until August 1817, after which he was recognized as a peer of France and confirmed in his honours and titles.

tntxhy

圣西尔
Gouvion St Cyr

Gouvion-Saint-Cyr, Laurent, marquis de
born April 13, 1764, Toul, Fr.
died March 17, 1830, Hyères

French soldier and statesman who distinguished himself in the Napoleonic Wars (1800–15). As minister of war in 1817–19 he was responsible for reorganizing recruitment procedures in the French army.

An artist as a young man, Gouvion in 1792 enthusiastically joined the French Revolutionary armies. His heroic performance in Germany at the battles of Mainz and Mannheim (1795) won him promotion to the rank of general, and he subsequently served in Egypt and Italy. In 1801 Napoleon Bonaparte appointed him ambassador to Spain, where he played an important role in Napoleon's extended but inconclusive campaign in the Iberian Peninsula. Gouvion participated in the Russian campaign (1812), and his victory at the Battle of Polotsk gained him a marshal's baton. In 1813 he commanded an unsuccessful defense of Dresden and then voluntarily withdrew from military and political affairs for almost two years.

In 1815 and then again in 1817 King Louis XVIII appointed Gouvion minister of war. Although his past service to the republic and the empire undermined his credibility with the reactionary-royalist “ultra” party, Gouvion proceeded with a substantial reform program that included a recall to service of former Napoleonic officers, inducements for enlistment, a rationalization of promotion procedures, and the introduction of a lottery to fill quotas. Forced into retirement when the liberal ministry fell to “ultra” pressures, Gouvion wrote several historical works, notably Mémoires sur les campagnes des armées du Rhin et de Rhin-et-Moselle . . . (1829; “Memoirs of the Campaigns of the Armies of the Rhine and of Rhine-et-Moselle”).

tntxhy

儒尔当
Jean-Baptiste Jourdan

Jourdan, Jean-Baptiste, Count
(Comte) born April 29, 1762, Limoges, Fr.
died Nov. 23, 1833, Paris

military commander remembered as the sponsor of conscription during the French Revolutionary regime and as one of Napoleon's marshals of the empire.

After being a soldier in King Louis XVI's army and serving in the West Indies (1778–84), Jourdan retired and became a draper in Limoges. He supported the Revolution, however; and, having been elected lieutenant colonel of volunteers in 1791, he rose to general of a division (1793). After successes against the Austrians, he was made commander of the Army of the Moselle in March 1794. Executing Lazare Carnot's new strategy of concentrating troops and artillery at points of attack, he marched westward to the Sambre River and, on June 26, won so decisive a victory at Fleurus, in Hainaut, that Austrian resistance west of the Meuse River collapsed. By October, his army was occupying all of Belgium.

Jourdan's campaigns east of the Rhine River (1795 and 1796) were less successful; and, in 1797, he was elected to sit as deputy for Haute-Vienne in the council of Five Hundred. He was there responsible for the legalization of mass conscription (Sept. 5, 1798). His subsequent military career was largely unsuccessful, though in 1804 Napoleon appointed him a marshal. He was at last dismissed from command because of his failure to control his troops at the Battle of Vitoria (June 1813).

In 1814 Jourdan favoured Napoleon's abdication and switched his loyalties to Louis XVIII. He was made head of the Army of the Rhine and named count (1816) and a peer of France (1819). He served for a few days as foreign minister during the July Revolution of 1830, then became governor of the Invalides. His Mémoires, edited by E.H. de Grouchy, appeared in 1899.

tntxhy

克勒曼
Francois Kellerman

Kellermann, François-Christophe, Duc (duke) De Valmy
born May 28, 1735, Strasbourg, Fr.
died Sept. 23, 1820, Paris

French general whose defeat of a Prussian army at Valmy in September 1792 halted an invasion that threatened the Revolutionary regime in France.

Born into a family of the judicial nobility, Kellermann became an officer in the French Army in 1752. He fought with distinction against the Prussians and British during the Seven Years' War (1756–63) and was subsequently sent on diplomatic missions to eastern Europe. Promoted to the rank of field marshal in 1788, Kellermann welcomed the outbreak of the Revolution in the following year. In March 1792 he was made a lieutenant general. He joined Charles-François du Périer Dumouriez, commander of the northern front, at Valmy on September 19; on the following day Kellermann defeated an invading Prussian army in an artillery duel. The Austrian and Prussian forces then retreated from French soil.

In November 1792 Kellermann was appointed commander of the Army of the Alps. He recaptured Savoy from the Sardinians in the autumn of 1793, but in November the Jacobin regime in Paris imprisoned him on suspicion of disloyalty. He was released shortly after the Jacobins fell from power in July 1794, and from 1795 to 1797 he again commanded the Army of the Alps. When Napoleon came to power in 1799, Kellermann was made a senator. He proved to be so able a military administrator that he was made marshal of France in 1804 and duc de Valmy four years later. Meanwhile, his son François-Étienne Kellermann (1770–1835) had become one of the finest cavalry officers in Napoleon's army. After the Second Restoration of King Louis XVIII (1815), Kellermann sat in the Chamber of Peers.

tntxhy

拉纳
Jean Lannes

Lannes, Jean, Duke (duc) De Montebello
born April 11, 1769, Lectoure, France
died May 31, 1809, Vienna, Austrian Empire

French general who, despite his humble origins, rose to the rank of marshal of the First Empire; Napoleon said of him, “I found him a pygmy and left a giant.”

Lannes, the son of a stable boy, learned to read and write from a village priest and was apprenticed to a dyer. In 1792 he joined the national volunteers of Gers and, as sergeant major, served in the Army of the Pyrénées-Orientales against the Spanish. His great courage in the Battle of Dego (1796), in the Italian campaign, brought him to the attention of Napoleon, who made him a general in 1796. In 1798–99 he took part in the capture of Cairo and went on the Syrian campaign as commander of an army division, playing a leading role in the siege of Gaza and Saint-Jean d'Acre, though he was seriously wounded at the Battle of Aboukir. Returning to France, he took command of the 9th and 10th divisions. He took part in the coup d'etat of 18 Brumaire (Nov. 9, 1799), which brought Napoleon to power. Entrusted with the vanguard that crossed the Alps into Italy in May 1800, he defeated the Austrians at Montebello on June 9, thus contributing greatly to Napoleon's victory at Marengo five days later.

In May 1804 Lannes was made one of the 18 marshals of the empire and fought in the battles of Ulm (October 1805), Austerlitz (December 1805), and Jena (October 1806). At the Battle of Pultusk in Poland on Dec. 26, 1806, he defeated a much larger Russian force and contributed to a second victory over the Russians at Friedland in June 1807.

In 1808 Lannes was created duc de Montebello in honour of his greatest victory. Sent to Spain, he directed the bloody siege of Saragossa, which was captured on Feb. 20, 1809. At the Battle of Aspern-Esseling, however, he was struck in the legs by a cannon ball, and nine days later, after having undergone a double amputation, he died. A tough, impetuous, hot-tempered fighter, he was one of Napoleon's ablest generals.

tntxhy

勒费弗尔
Francois Lefebvre

Lefebvre, (Pierre-) François-Joseph, Duc (duke) De Dantzig
born Oct. 20, 1755, Rouffach, Fr.
died Sept. 14, 1820, Paris

French general who was one of the 18 marshals of the empire appointed by Napoleon in May 1804.

Lefebvre, the son of an Alsatian miller, worked for a time as a clerk before entering a military career in the French Guards in 1773. A sergeant at the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, he was, between September 1792 and January 1793, promoted rapidly from captain to divisional general. Between 1793 and 1796 he commanded the vanguard of the Army of the Rhine, serving with distinction at the battles of Fleurus (June 1794), which repulsed the Austrians, and Duisburg (September 1795). In 1798 he served briefly as commander of the Army of the Sambre and Meuse and was appointed governor of Paris the following year. His position as governor proved extremely useful to Napoleon, who persuaded him to support the coup d'état of 18 Brumaire (Nov. 9, 1799), which resulted in Napoleon's being proclaimed first consul.

Created a senator in 1800 and a marshal in 1804, Lefebvre carried the sword of Charlemagne at Napoleon's imperial coronation. He with his German accent and his illiterate wife, née Catherine Hubscher and nicknamed Madam Sans-Gêne (“Overfamiliar,” or “Cheeky”) for her uninhibited behaviour, made themselves fine figures at court, but he wanted active service. Lefebvre commanded the imperial infantry guard at Jena (Oct. 14, 1806) and captured the city of Danzig on April 27, 1807, an exploit that earned him the title Duke de Dantzig in 1808. He served in Spain in 1808 and the following year, as commander of Bavarian troops, fought at Eckmühl and Wagram. In 1812 he fought in Russia. Although he opposed the invasion of France by the Allied armies attempting to depose Napoleon in 1814, he voted for Napoleon's abdication in the Senate; for this action Louis XVIII made him a peer of France. But he rejoined Napoleon in his attempt during the Hundred Days to recapture his empire and was deprived of his title when the Bourbons were restored for the second time in July 1815.