Louis Gabriel Suchet
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Louis Gabriel Suchet, duc d'Albufera da Valencia (March 2, 1770 – January 3, 1826), marshal of France, one of the most brilliant of Napoleon's generals.
[edit] Biography
He was the son of a silk manufacturer at Lyon, where he was born, originally intended to follow his father's business; but having in 1792 served as volunteer in the cavalry of the national guard at Lyons, he manifested military abilities which secured his rapid promotion. As chef de bataillon he was present at the siege of Toulon in 1793, where he took General O'Hara prisoner.
During the Italian campaign of 1796 he was severely wounded at the battle of Cerea on October 11. In October 1797 he was appointed to the command of a demi-brigade, and his services, under Joubert in the Tirol in that year, and in Switzerland under Brune in 1797-98, were recognized by his promotion to the rank of général de brigade.
He took no part in the Egyptian campaign, but in August was made chief of the staff to Brune, and restored the efficiency and discipline of the army in Italy. In July 1799 he was promoted to général de division and chief of staff to Joubert in Italy. In 1800 he was named by Massena to be his second in command. His dexterous resistance to the superior forces of the Austrians with the left wing of Massena's army, when the right and centre were shut up in Genoa, not only prevented the invasion of France from this direction but contributed to the success of Napoleon's crossing the Alps, which culminated in the battle of Marengo on June 14. He took a prominent part in the Italian campaign until the armistice of Treviso.
In the campaigns of 1805 and 1806 he greatly enhanced his reputation at Austerlitz, Saalfeld, Jena, Pultusk and Ostrolenka. He obtained the title of count on March 19, 1808, married Mlle. de Saint Joseph, a niece of Joseph Bonaparte's wife, and soon afterwards was ordered to Spain. Here, after taking part in the Siege of Saragossa, he was named commander of the army of Aragon and governor of that province, which he by wise, unlike that of most of the French generals, and adriot administration no less than by his brilliant valour, in two years brought into complete submission. Beaten by the Spanish at Alcañiz, he sprung back and soundly defeated the army of Blake at María on June 14, 1809, and on April 22, 1810 defeated Henry Joseph O'Donnell, Count of La Bisbal at Lleida.
He was made marshal of France (July 8, 1811). In 1812 he captured Valencia, for which he was rewarded with the ducal victory title (honorary, not attched to an actual fief) of duc d'Albufera da Valencia in 1813. When the tide turned against France, Suchet defended his conquests one by one until compelled to withdraw from Spain, after which he took part in Soult's defensive campaign of 1814.
The restored Bourbon king Louis XVIII made him a peer of France on June 4, with a seat in the upper house, but, having commanded one of Napoleon's armies on the Alpine frontier during the Hundred Days, he was deprived of his peerage on July 24, 1815. He died near Marseille on January 3, 1826.
[edit] Writings and other sources
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
- Suchet wrote his Mémoires dealing with the Peninsular War, which were left by the marshal in an unfinished condition, and the two volumes with an atlas appeared in 1829-1834 under the editorship of his former chief staff officer, Baron St. Cyr-Nogues.
- Heraldica.org- Napoleonic victory titles
- C.H. Barault-Roullon, Le Marechal Suchet (Paris, 1854); *Choumara, Considerations militaires sur les memoires du Marechal Suchet (Paris, 1840), a controversial work on the last events of the Peninsular War, inspired, it is supposed, by Soult
- Lieutenant-General Lamarque's obituary notice in the Spectateur militaire (1826).
