Jean Lannes

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Jean Lannes, Duke of Montebello (April 11, 1769 – May 31, 1809), Marshal of France, was born at Lectoure, Gers. Jean Lannes was one of Napoleon's most daring and talented generals. Napoleon once commented on Lannes: "I found him a pygmy and left him a giant."

He was the son of a livery stables keeper, and was apprenticed to a dyer. He had had little education, but his great strength and proficiency in all manly sports caused him in 1792 to be elected sergeant-major of the battalion of volunteers of Gers, which he had joined on the breaking out of war between Spain and the French republic. He served through the campaigns in the Pyrenees in 1793 and 1794, and rose by distinguished conduct to the rank of chef de brigade. However, in 1795, on the reform of the army introduced by the Thermidorians, he was dismissed from his rank.

He re-enlisted as a simple volunteer in the army of Italy, and in the famous campaign of 1796, he again fought his way up to high rank, being eventually made a general of brigade by orders of Bonaparte. He was distinguished in every battle, and was wounded in Battle of the Bridge of Arcole while aiding Bonaparte to escape the Austrian advance. He was chosen by Bonaparte to accompany him to Egypt as commander in one of Kléber's brigades, in which capacity he greatly distinguished himself, especially on the retreat from Syria. He went back to France with Bonaparte, and assisted him at the 18 Brumaire. After Bonaparte's take over and appointment as Consul of France, Lannes was promoted to the ranks of general of division and commandant of the consular guard. He commanded the advanced guard in the crossing of the Alps in 1800, was instrumental in winning the battle of Montebello, from which he afterwards took his title, and bore the brunt of the battle of Marengo.

In 1801 Napoleon sent him as ambassador to Portugal. Opinions differ as to his merits in this capacity; Napoleon never made such use of him again. On the establishment of the empire he was created a marshal of France (1804), and commanded once more the advanced guard of a great French army in the campaign of Austerlitz. At Austerlitz he had the left of the Grand Armée. In the 1806-07 campaign he was at his best, commanding his corps with the greatest credit in the march through the Thuringian Forest, the action of Saalfeld (which is studied as a model today at the French Staff College) and the battle of Jena. His leadership of the advanced guard at Friedland was even more conspicuous.

He was now to be tried as a commander-in-chief, for Napoleon took him to Spain in 1808, and gave him a detached wing of the army, with which he won a victory over Castaños at Tudela on November 22. In January 1809 he was sent to attempt the capture of Saragossa, and by February 21, after one of the most stubborn defences in history, was in possession of the place. Napoleon then created him duc de Montebello, and in 1809, for the last time, gave him command of the advanced guard. He took part in the engagements around Eckmühl and the advance on Vienna. With his corps he led the French army across the Danube, and bore the brunt, with Masséna, of the terrible battle of Aspern-Essling. On May 22 he had to retreat. During the retreat Lannes exposed himself as usual to the hottest fire, and received a mortal wound: a cannon exploded near Lannes, rupturing both of his legs, which were later amputated; he succumbed to his wounds at Vienna on May 31. As he was being carried from the field to Vienna he met the emperor hurrying to the front. It was reported that the dying man reproached Napoleon for his ambition, but this rests on little evidence save the fact that Lannes was the most blunt and outspoken of all Napoleon's marshals. He was one of the few people for whom the emperor felt a real and deep affection, and at their last meeting Napoleon gave way to a passionate burst of grief, even in the midst of the battle. His eldest son was made a peer of France by Louis XVIII.

Lannes ranks with Davout and Masséna as the ablest of all Napoleon's marshals, and consciously or unconsciously was the best exponent of the emperor's method of making war. Hence his constant employment in tasks requiring the utmost resolution and daring, and more especially when the emperor's combinations depended upon the vigour and self-sacrifice of a detachment or fraction of the army. It was thus with Lannes at Friedland and at Aspern as it was with Davout at Austerlitz and Auerstädt, and Napoleon's estimate of his subordinates' capacities can almost exactly be judged by the frequency with which he used them to prepare the way for his own shattering blow. Routine generals with the usual military virtue, or careful and exact troop leaders like Soult and Macdonald, Napoleon kept under his own hand for the final assault which he himself launched, but the long hours of preparatory fighting against odds of two to one, which alone made the final blow possible, he entrusted only to men of extraordinary courage and high capacity for command. In his own words, he found Lannes a pygmy, and lost him a giant. Lannes's place in his affections was never filled.

Lannes purchased the magnificent seventeenth-century Château de Maisons, not far from Paris, in 1804 and had one of its state apartments redecorated for a visit from Napoleon, but he had little use of it.

[edit] References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
  • See R Penn, Vie militaire de Jean Lannes (Paris, 1809).