Karl Marx. Bessières
Karl Marx. Bessières[16]
Bessières, Jean Baptiste, marshal of the French empire, born at Praissac, in the department of Lot, Aug. 6, 1768, killed at Lützen, May 1, 1813. He entered the constitutional guard[164] of Louis XVI, in 1791, served as a non-commissioned officer in the mounted chasseurs of the Pyrénées, and soon after became a captain of chasseurs. After the victory of Roveredo, Sept. 4, 1796, Bonaparte promoted him on the battle-field to the rank of colonel. Commander of the guides "" of the general-in-chief during the Italian campaign of l796-'97, colonel of the same corps in Egypt, he remained attached to it for the greater part of his life. In 1802, the rank of general of division was conferred upon him, and, in 1804, that of marshal of the empire. He fought at the battles of Roveredo, Rivoli, St. Jean d'Acre, Aboukir, Marengo — where he commanded the last decisive cavalry charge — Austerlitz, Jena, Eylau, and Friedland.,66 Despatched in 1808 to assume the command of a division of 18,000 men stationed in the Spanish province of Salamanca, he found on his arrival that Gen. Cuesta had taken up a position between Valladolid and Burgos, thus threatening to intersect the line of communication of Madrid with France. Bessières attacked him and won the victory of Medina del Rio Secco. After the failure of the English Walcheren expedition,[167] Napoleon substituted Bessières for Bernadotte, in command of the Belgian army. In the same year (1809), he was created duke of Istria. At the head of a cavalry division he routed the Austrian general, Hohenzollern, at the battle of Essling.(1)
During the Russian expedition he acted as chief commander of the mounted guard, and on the opening of the German campaign of 1813, as the commander of the French cavalry. He died on the battle-field while attacking the defile of Rippach, in Saxony, on the eve of the battle of Liitzen.[168] His popularity with the common soldiers may be inferred from the circumstance that it was thought prudent to withhold the news of his death for some time from the army.
Endnotes
[16] The unsuccessful siege of Alessandria by the French in 1657 was an episode in the Franco-Spanish war of 1635-59. Northern Italy, the greater part of which (the Duchy of Milan) had fallen into the hands of the King of Spain by 1635, was one of its theatres. The seizure of Alessandria by Prince Eugene of Savoy in October 1706 was a military operation by the allied Austrian and Savoy troops against the French in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-14) caused by the struggle for the division of the then decaying feudal Spain's European and colonial possessions, and by the naval and colonial rivalry between Britain and France. France and Spain, whose crown passed to Philip Bourbon, grandson of Louis XIV, after the extinction of the male line of the Spanish Habsburgs, were opposed by a coalition of Britain, the Austrian Habsburgs (to which dynasty the Emperor of Germany also belonged), the Netherlands, the Duchy of Savoy, Portugal, Prussia and other German states. As a result of the war the Spanish possessions in Northern Italy passed to the Austrian Habsburgs while the fortress of Alessandria was ceded to the Duchy of Savoy.
[164] T h e Constitutional Guard was charged, in accordance with the Constitution adopted in 1791, during the French Revolution, with protecting the King and his palace. It was formed after the disbandment of the Royal Guard. In May 1792 the Legislative Assembly, under pressure from the democratic movement, decreed its dissolution.
[167] A reference to the British naval expedition to the mouth of the Scheldt in July 1809 during the war of the fifth coalition against Napoleonic France. It was undertaken when Napoleon's main forces were engaged against Austria. The British captured Walcheren island, but failed to use it as a base for military operations against Antwerp and other French strong points in Belgium and Holland. They had to evacuate it in December 1809.
[168] T h e battle of Lützen (Saxony) between Napoleon's army and Russo-Prussian armies took place on May 2, 1813. Napoleon forced the enemy to retreat, but the retreat was orderly.