Lazare Hoche | |
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 Portrait byCharles-Victor-Eugène Lefebvre [fr], 1834 | |
| Born | 24 June 1768 Versailles, France |
| Died | 19 September 1797 (aged 29) Wetzlar, Holy Roman Empire |
| Allegiance | Kingdom of France French Republic |
| Branch | Army |
| Years of service | 1784–1797 |
| Rank | General of division |
| Commands | Army of Moselle Army of the Rhine Army of the Coasts of Cherbourg Army of the Coasts of Brest Army of the West Army of the Coasts of the Ocean Army of Sambre and Meuse |
| Battles / wars | |
| Other work | Minister of War |
| Signature |  |
Louis Lazare Hoche ([lwila.zaʁɔʃ]; 24 June 1768 – 19 September 1797) was a French military leader of theFrench Revolutionary Wars. He won a victory over Royalist forces in Brittany. His surname is one of thenames inscribed under the Arc de Triomphe, on Column 3.Richard Holmes describes him as "quick-thinking, stern, and ruthless... a general of real talent whose early death was a loss to France."[1]
Hoche was born on 24 June 1768 in the village of Montreuil, today part ofVersailles, to Anne Merlière and Louis Hoche, agroom at the royal hunting grounds.[2] His mother died when he was two years old, and Hoche was mostly raised by an aunt, who was a fruit-seller in Montreuil, and was educated by his maternal uncle, the parish priest ofSaint-Germain-en-Laye, who arranged for Hoche to become achoirboy at his church.[3]
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In 1782, Hoche began working as an aide at the royal stables, but soon left in order to join theArmy. He entered theFrench Guards regiment as afusilier in October 1784, although he originally intended to serve with the colonial troops in theEast Indies.[3] He was promoted togrenadier in November 1785 then tocorporal in May 1789, just before the outbreak of theFrench Revolution.[2]
After the French Guards were disbanded at the start of the Revolution, Hoche joined the newNational Guard in September 1789. During theOctober Days protests, he was among the Guardsmen under the command ofLa Fayette who escorted KingLouis XVI and his family out of thePalace of Versailles.[2] He thereafter served in variousline infantry regiments until he received a commission in 1792.[2][4]
Hoche first saw action in thedefence of Thionville in 1792, as a lieutenant, in the early stages of theFlanders campaign of the Revolutionary Wars, and took part in theSiege of Namur at the end of the year.[2] After serving with distinction in theSiege of Maastricht, Hoche became anaide-de-camp to General Le Veneur in March 1793, and further distinguished himself later that month at theBattle of Neerwinden.[2]
WhenCharles Dumouriez defected to theAustrians, Hoche, along with Le Veneur and others, fell under suspicion oftreason.[2] After being kept under arrest from 8 to 20 August, he took part in the successfuldefence of Dunkirk, for which he was promoted successively tocolonel andbrigade general in September, and togeneral of division in October 1793.[2] In November, Hoche was provisionally appointed to command theArmy of the Moselle,[2] and within a few weeks he was in the field at the head of his army inLorraine.[4] His first battle was that ofKaiserslautern during 28–30 November 1793 against thePrussians.[2][4] The French were defeated, but even in the midst of theReign of Terror theCommittee of Public Safety retained Hoche in his command.[4] In their eyes, pertinacity and fiery energy outweighed everything else, and Hoche soon showed that he possessed these qualities.[4]
On 22 December 1793 he won theBattle of Froeschwiller,[2] and therepresentatives on mission with his army at once added theArmy of the Rhine to his sphere of command.[2] In theSecond Battle of Wissembourg on 26 December 1793, the French under his command droveDagobert Sigmund von Wurmser's Austrian army fromAlsace.[2] Hoche pursued his success, sweeping the enemy before him to the middleRhine in four days. He then put his troops into winter quarters atBouzonville.[2]
Before the next campaign opened, Hoche married Anne Adelaïde Dechaux atThionville on 11 March 1794.[2] The day before his marriage, he had been invited to command theArmy of Italy.[2] However, upon arriving inNice to receive the assignment, he was arrested on orders of the Committee of Public Safety,[2] charges of treason having been proffered byCharles Pichegru, the displaced commander of the Army of the Rhine.[4] He was sent to Paris'Carmes Prison on 11 April, was later transferred to theConciergerie, and was only released on 4 August, after thefall of Maximilien Robespierre and the end of the Reign of Terror.[2]
Shortly after his release, Hoche was given the command of theArmy of the Coasts of Cherbourg with the mission of suppressing the RoyalistRevolt in the Vendée.[2] He set up his headquarters atRennes,Brittany, and put his initial effort into reorganizing the troops.[2] In addition, he received the command of theArmy of the Coasts of Brest in November 1794.[2] Hoche completed the work of his predecessors in a few months by theTreaty of La Jaunaye (15 February 1795), but soon afterwards the war was renewed by the rebel leadership.[2][4]
Between June and July 1795, Hoche led the defense against theQuiberon Expedition byRoyalist émigrés assisted by the BritishRoyal Navy, which he decisively defeated atFort Penthièvre on 21 July.[2][4] In late August, he was appointed commander of theArmy of the West with the order to "act offensively againstCharette's army". In December 1795, when the three armies previously under his command (Armies of the West, of the Coasts of Brest and of the Coasts of Cherbourg) merged to form the newArmy of the Coasts of the Ocean, Hoche became the supreme commander of all Republican forces in Western France.[2]
Thereafter, by means of mobile columns (which he kept under good discipline), he gradually eliminated theCatholic and Royal Armies.[2][4] Hoche directed the operations that led to the capture (and subsequent execution) of rebel leadersJean-Nicolas Stofflet (24 February 1796) and François de Charette (23 March), bringing an end to the War in the Vendée.[2] With the surrender of the leaders of theChouannerie, in May and June 1796, Hoche concluded the pacification of Western France, which had for more than three years been the scene of civil war.[2][4]
On 20 July 1796, Hoche was rewarded by theFrench Directory for his immense service.[2] That same day, he was appointed to organize and command theExpedition to Ireland,[2] to assist theUnited Irishmen in a rebellion againstBritish rule. He survived an assassination attempt in Rennes on 16 October, when a worker at the local arsenal fired at him but missed.[2]
InBrest, Hoche gathered an army and forty-eight vessels for the expedition, under the command of Vice AdmiralJustin Bonaventure Morard de Galles.[2] The fleet set sail for Ireland on 15 December 1796, with Hoche and Morard de Galles aboard the frigateFraternité.[2] Due to agale, however, the frigate was separated from the expedition the day after its departure, and was afterwards chased by a British ship.[2] By the time it reached the Irish coast, on 30 December, the rest of expedition had already dispersed after a failed landing attempt.[2] TheFraternité re-entered France through theÎle de Ré on 11 January 1797 without having effected its purpose.[2][4]
With the United Irish leader,Wolfe Tone, who was to have landed with him in Ireland, Hoche reflected critically on the violent course of the Revolution. Tone, "heartily glad" to find Hoche of "a humane temperament", wrote in his memoirs:[5]
Hoche mentioned, also, that great mischief had been done to the principles of liberty and additional difficulties thrown in the way of the French Revolution, by the quantity of blood spilled: "for", he added, "if you guillotine a man, you get rid of an individual, it is true, but then you make all his friends and connections enemies for ever of the government".
On his return, Hoche was at once transferred to the Rhine frontier as commander of theArmy of Sambre and Meuse,[2] where he defeated the Austrians at theBattle of Neuwied on 18 April 1797, though operations were soon afterwards brought to an end by thePreliminaries of Leoben.[4]
In July 1797, Hoche was appointedMinister of War by the Directory.[2] In this position he was surrounded by obscure political intrigues, and, finding himself the dupe ofPaul Barras and technically guilty of violating the constitution, he resigned after less than a month in office, and returned to his command on the Rhine frontier.[2][4] It was his denunciation during that time that had led toKléber's removal from command. The compromising letter was found byJean Baptiste Alexandre Strolz in Hoche's papers.[6][7]
On 2 September, Hoche received the command of theArmy of the Rhine and Moselle and set up his headquarters atWetzlar, nearKoblenz.[2] Following his return fromFrankfurt, on 13 September, his health grew rapidly worse, and he died at Wetzlar on 19 September of consumption (tuberculosis), aged 29.[4] The belief spread that he had been poisoned, but the suspicion seems to have been unfounded.[4] He was buried four days later next to his friendFrançois Marceau at Fort Petersberg in Koblenz.[4]
A funeral procession to Hoche was held on theChamp de Mars, Paris on 1 October.[2] In 1919, the French Army inoccupied Rhineland reburied his mortal remains into the 1797-builtMonument General Hoche inWeißenthurm, nearNeuwied, where he had started his last campaign against the Austrians.
Hoche is commemorated by a statue on Place Hoche, a gardened square not far from the main entrance to thePalace of Versailles, and another in theLouvre Palace. Another statue, the last major work byJules Dalou, is inQuiberon, Brittany. InLes Invalides there is also a memorial to Hoche. A station on theParis Metro is also calledHoche. French navy had a namesakeironclad.
Hoche's motto wasRes non verba, which is Latin for "Deeds, not words".[2][8]
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One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Hoche, Lazare".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 553–554.
Media related toLazare Hoche at Wikimedia Commons| Military offices | ||
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| Preceded by Jacques Charles René Delaunay | Commander-in-chief of theArmy of the Moselle 31 October 1793 – 18 March 1794 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by Pierre Vialle | Commander-in-chief of theArmy of the Coasts of Cherbourg 1 September 1794 – 30 April 1795 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Commander-in-chief of theArmy of the Coasts of Brest 10 November 1794 – 10 September 1795 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Commander-in-chief of theArmy of the West 11 September – 17 December 1795 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by New organization | Commander-in-chief of theArmy of the Coasts of the Ocean 5 January – 22 September 1796 | Succeeded by Discontinued |
| Preceded by New organization | Commander-in-chief of the Army of Ireland 1 November – 23 December 1796 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Commander-in-chief of the Army of Ireland 19 January – 9 February 1797 | Succeeded by Discontinued |
| Preceded by | Commander-in-chief of theArmy of Sambre-et-Meuse 9 February – 18 September 1797 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | French minister of War 15 July 1797 – 22 July 1797 | Succeeded by |
French Directory (2 November 1795 to 10 November 1799) | |||||||||||||||
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