Jean-Baptiste Jourdan | |
|---|---|
 Portrait as Marshal of the Empire, after the original byJoseph-Marie Vien paintedc. 1805 | |
| Nickname | The victor ofFleurus[1][2] |
| Born | 29 April 1762 (1762-04-29) Limoges, France |
| Died | 23 November 1833 (1833-11-24) (aged 71) Paris, France |
| Allegiance | France |
| Branch | French Army |
| Years of service | 1778–1784 1790–1815 |
| Rank | Marshal of the Empire |
| Battles / wars | |
| Awards | Grand Cross of theLegion of Honour Grand Cross of theOrder of Saint Hubert Grand Dignitary of theRoyal Order of the Two-Sicilies Knight of theOrder of Saint Louis Knight of theOrder of the Holy Spirit[3] |
| Other work | Deputy in theCouncil of Five Hundred Governor ofLes Invalides (1830–1833) |
| Signature |  |
Jean-Baptiste Jourdan, 1st Count Jourdan (French pronunciation:[ʒɑ̃batistʒuʁdɑ̃]; 29 April 1762 – 23 November 1833), was aFrench military commander who served during theFrench Revolutionary Wars and theNapoleonic Wars. He was made aMarshal of the Empire by EmperorNapoleon I in 1804. He was also aJacobin politician during theDirectory phase of theFrench Revolution, serving as member of theCouncil of Five Hundred between 1797 and 1799.[4]
One of the most successful commanders of theFrench Revolutionary Army, Jourdan is best remembered in the Revolution for leading the French to a decisive victory over theFirst Coalition at theBattle of Fleurus, during theFlanders campaign.[5] Under theEmpire he was rewarded by Napoleon with the title of Marshal and continued to hold military assignments, but suffered a major defeat at theBattle of Vitoria, which resulted in the Empire's permanent loss ofSpain. In 1815 he became reconciled with theBourbon Restoration, and later supported theJuly Revolution and served in his last years asgovernor of theHôtel des Invalides.
.jpg)
Jourdan was born inLimoges, in the province ofLimousin, on 29 April 1762. He was the only surviving child of Roch Jourdan, a surgeon originally fromMeyrargues, and Jeanne Foreau-Franciquet.[3] His mother died at childbirth when he was two years old, and after being raised by his father for a few years, Jourdan was put under the care of an uncle, theAbbé Laurent Jourdan, a parish priest who ran aboarding school inBeaurecueil, inProvence. His father died when he was nine years old, at around 1771, leaving Jourdan as an impoverished orphan.[6]
After finishing his basic education at the school in Beaurecueil, at fifteen years old Jourdan was sent to the care of another uncle, Jean-François Jourdan, acloth merchant inLyon and disciplinarian employer. Working as an apprentice clerk at the clothing shop, Jourdan endured for about a year in Lyon before enlisting in theRoyal army in 1778,[7] joining the regiment ofAuxerrois stationed in theÎle de Ré, which was destined for service in theAmerican War of Independence.[8]
Jourdan spent the rest of the year with the regiment in Île de Ré before it departed for the war in America. He first saw action at thecapture of Granada in mid-1779. A few months later the Auxerrois regiment was put under the command of theComte d'Estaing,[3] and in this assignment Jourdan soon participated in the ill-fated assault at theSiege of Savannah, in October 1779. Through the next years he served in theWest Indies. He took part in the successful defense of therecently captured island ofSaint Vincent, in 1780, and in theinvasion of Tobago in 1781.[9]
During his duty in the West Indies, Jourdan fell ill with what was officially diagnosed ashernia, though it was likely an intestinal disease, and bouts of illness troubled him for the rest of his military career. Due to this period of poor health he missed most of the campaigns of 1782, only returning to the army at the end of the year.[9]
In June 1784, Jourdan was demobilized from the Royal army inVerdun,[9] and, after a period of unemployment, returned to his native Limoges and found work at a cloth merchant's shop, where he proved to be an excellent employee. He married Jeanne Nicolas Avanturier, the sister of his boss, in Limoges on 22 January 1788, and the couple had six children.[10]
Jourdan welcomed theFrench Revolution with enthusiasm. He was appointed lieutenant of thechasseurs of theNational Guard in 1790, and when theNational Assembly asked for volunteers, Jourdan was elected commander of the 9th battalion of volunteers fromHaute-Vienne.[8] He led his troops in the French victory at theBattle of Jemappes on 6 November 1792 and in the defeat at theBattle of Neerwinden on 18 March 1793. Jourdan's leadership skills were noticed and led to his promotion toBrigade general on 27 May 1793 and togeneral of division two months later. On 8 September, he led his division at theBattle of Hondschoote, in which he was wounded in the chest. On 22 September, he was named to lead theArmy of the North.[11] Three of his predecessors,Nicolas Luckner,Adam Philippe, Comte de Custine, andJean Nicolas Houchard were under arrest and later executed byguillotine.
Jourdan's first assignment was to relieve General Jacques Ferrand's 20,000-man garrison ofMaubeuge which was besieged by an Austrian-Dutch army commanded byPrince Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. TheCommittee of Public Safety felt that this mission was so important that it dispatchedLazare Carnot to oversee the operation. Jourdan defeated Coburg on 15–16 October at theBattle of Wattignies and broke the siege. Carnot claimed that it was his own intervention that won the victory. HistorianMichael Glover writes that the first day's attack was a failure because of Carnot's interference, while the second day's success resulted from Jourdan using his own tactical judgment. In any case, only Carnot's account reached Paris.[12]
On 10 January 1794, after refusing to carry out an impossible order, Jourdan was brought before the Committee of Public Safety. Carnot presented Jourdan's arrest warrant, which was signed byMaximilien de Robespierre,Bertrand Barère, andJean-Marie Collot d'Herbois. Jourdan was saved from certain execution when an eyewitness,representative on missionErnest Joseph Duquesnoy rose and contradicted Carnot's version of events at Wattignies. Spared from arrest, Jourdan was nevertheless dismissed from the army and sent home.[13]
The government soon recalled Jourdan to lead theArmy of the Moselle. In May, he was ordered north with the left wing of the Army of the Moselle. This force was combined with theArmy of the Ardennes and the right wing of the Army of the North to form an army which did not officially become theArmy of Sambre-et-Meuse until 29 June 1794. With 70,000 soldiers of the new army, Jourdan laid siege toCharleroi on 12 June. A 41,000-man Austrian-Dutch army under thePrince of Orange defeated the French at theBattle of Lambusart on 16 June and drove them south of theSambre River. Casualties numbered 3,000 for each army.[14] Undeterred, Jourdan immediately marched onNamur to the east-northeast of Charleroi. Instead of attacking Namur, he suddenly swung west and appeared to the north of Charleroi. After a brief siege, the 3,000-man Austrian garrison of Charleroi surrendered on 25 June.[15] Military strategistB. H. Liddell Hart cited Jourdan's maneuver as an example of theindirect approach, even though it was probably inadvertent on the French general's part.[16] Too late to save Charlerloi, Coburg's 46,000-strong army attacked Jourdan's 75,000 French on 26 June. TheBattle of Fleurus proved to be a strategic French victory when Coburg called off his attacks and retreated.[17] During the battle, the Allied attacks pushed back both French flanks, but Jourdan stubbornly fought it out and was saved when GeneralFrançois Joseph Lefebvre's division held its ground in the center.[18]
After Fleurus, the Allied position in theAustrian Netherlands collapsed. The Austrian Army evacuated Belgium and theDutch Republic was dissolved by the advancing French armies in 1795. On 7 June 1795, Jourdan's army concluded the long but successfulSiege of Luxembourg.[19] Operations east of theRhine were less successful that year, with the French capturing, then losingMannheim.[20]
In theRhine campaign of 1796, Jourdan's Army of Sambre-et-Meuse formed the left wing of the advance intoBavaria. The whole of the French forces were ordered to advance onVienna, Jourdan on the extreme left, GeneralJean Victor Marie Moreau in the centre by theDanube valley, andNapoleon on the right in Italy. The campaign began brilliantly, with the Austrians underArchduke Charles being driven back by Moreau and Jourdan almost to the Austrian frontier. But Charles, slipping away from Moreau, threw his whole weight on Jourdan, who was defeated at theBattle of Amberg in August. Jourdan failed to salvage the situation at theBattle of Würzburg and was forced over the Rhine after theBattle of Limburg, which cost the life of GeneralFrançois Séverin Marceau. Moreau had to fall back in turn, and the operations of the year in Germany were a failure. The chief cause of defeat was the plan of campaign imposed upon the generals by their government. Jourdan was nevertheless made the scapegoat and was not employed for two years.[21] In those years he became prominent as a politician and above all as the framer of the famousconscription law of 1798, which came to be known as theJourdan Law.
When war was renewed in 1799, Jourdan was at the head of the army on the Rhine, but again suffered defeat at the hands of Archduke Charles at the battles ofOstrach andStockach in late March. Disappointed and broken in health, he handed over command to GeneralAndré Masséna. He resumed his political duties and was a prominent opponent of theCoup of 18 Brumaire, after which he was expelled from theCouncil of Five Hundred. Soon, however, he became formally reconciled to the newrégime, and accepted from Napoleon fresh military and civil employment. In 1800, Jourdan became inspector-general of cavalry and infantry and representative of French interests in theCisalpine Republic.[21]
In 1804, Napoleon appointed Jourdan as a Marshal of the Empire. He remained in the newly createdKingdom of Italy until 1806, whenJoseph Bonaparte, whom his brother made King of Naples that year, selected Jourdan as his military adviser. He followed Joseph into Spain in 1808; but Joseph's throne had to be maintained by the French Army, and throughout thePeninsular War, the other marshals, who depended directly upon Napoleon, paid little heed either to Joseph or to Jourdan.[21] Jourdan was blamed for the defeat at theBattle of Talavera in 1809 and replaced by MarshalJean-de-Dieu Soult. He was reinstated as Joseph'schief of staff in September 1811 but given few troops.[22] After the disastrous French defeat at theBattle of Salamanca in July 1812, Joseph and Jourdan were forced to abandonMadrid and retreat toValencia. Joining with Soult's army, which evacuatedAndalusia, the French were able to recapture Madrid during theSiege of Burgos and pushWellington's Anglo-Portuguese army back to Portugal.[citation needed]
The following year, Wellington advanced again with a large, well-organized army. Repeatedly outmaneuvering the French, the Anglo-Allied army forced Joseph and Jourdan to fight at theBattle of Vitoria on 21 June 1813, during which hismarshal's baton was captured by the British.[23] After the French decisive defeat, which resulted in the permanent loss of Spain, Jourdan held no important commands up to the fall of the French Empire. He adhered to the firstBourbon Restoration, in 1814, but joined Napoleon on his return to power during theHundred Days and was appointed commander ofBesançon.[23]
Jourdan submitted to the Bourbons again after the final French defeat at theBattle of Waterloo. Afterwards he refused to be a member of the court which sentenced MarshalMichel Ney to death. He was made a count (comte de l’Empire) in 1804, aPeer of France in 1819, and governor ofGrenoble in 1816. In politics, Jourdan was a prominent opponent of the royalist reactionaries and supported theRevolution of 1830. After this event, he held the portfolio of foreign affairs for a few days and then became governor of theHôtel des Invalides, a post he held until his death. Jourdan died in Paris on 23 November 1833 and was buried in Les Invalides.[21]
While in exile onSaint Helena, Napoleon admitted,
I certainly used that man very ill ... I have learned with pleasure that since my fall he invariably acted in the best manner. He has thus afforded an example of that praiseworthy elevation of mind which distinguishes men one from another. Jourdan is a true patriot; and that is the answer to many things that have been said of him.[24]
Jourdan wroteOpérations de l'armée du Danube ("Operations of the Army of the Danube", 1799),Mémoires pour servir a l'histoire sur la campagne de 1796 ("Memoirs to serve history of the campaign of 1796", 1819), and unpublished personal memoirs.[21]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Jourdan, Jean Baptiste, Count".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 15 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 524.Marshals of theFirst French Empire | |||
|---|---|---|---|
.svg) |  | ||
French Provisional Ministry of 1830 (1 August 1830 to 11 August 1830) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Interior |  | |
| Justice | ||
| Foreign Affairs | ||
| War | ||
| Finance | ||
| Navy | ||
| Public Education | ||
