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73-569: Marshal General Jean-de-Dieu Soult , 1st Duke of Dalmatia ( French: [ʒɑ̃dədjø sult] ; 29 March 1769 – 26 November 1851) was a French general and statesman. He was a Marshal of the Empire during the Napoleonic Wars , and served three times as President of the Council of Ministers (prime minister) of France. Son of a country notary from southern France, Soult enlisted in

146-455: A Bonapartist , was made a peer of France , and acted as chief of staff to the emperor during the Waterloo campaign , in which role he distinguished himself far less than he had done as commander of an over-matched army. In his book, Waterloo: The History of Four Days, Three Armies and Three Battles , Bernard Cornwell summarizes the opinions of several historians that Soult's presence in

219-437: A Marshal of France . He once more tried to show himself as a fervent royalist and was made a peer in 1827. After the revolution of 1830 he declared himself a partisan of Louis Philippe , who welcomed his support and revived for him the title of Marshal General of France , previously held only by Turenne , Claude Louis Hector de Villars , and Maurice de Saxe . As Minister of War (1830 to 1834), Soult organized and oversaw

292-511: A formidable army in a remarkably short time. An exception to this good logistical record was launching the Battle of the Pyrenees offensive when his soldiers only had four days' rations. Tactically, Soult planned his battles well, but often left too much to his subordinates. Wellington said that "Soult never seemed to know how to handle troops after a battle had begun" . An example of this was at

365-464: A great victory at the Battle of Ocana . In 1810, he invaded Andalusia , which he quickly overran. However, because he then turned to seize Seville , the capture of Cádiz eluded him, saying, "Give me Seville and I will answer for Cádiz." This led to the prolonged and futile Siege of Cadiz , a strategic disaster for the French. In 1811, Soult marched north into Extremadura and took Badajoz . When

438-528: A plan to take into account altered circumstances on the battlefield – Soult's performance in the closing months of the Peninsular War is often regarded as proof of his fine talents as a general. Repeatedly defeated in these campaigns by the Allies under Wellington, it was the case that many of his soldiers were raw conscripts while the Allies could count greater numbers of veterans among their ranks. Soult

511-518: A republican. He died three years later in his castle in Soult-Berg, near Saint-Amans-la-Bastide where he was born, a few days before the coup of 1851 . In his honor, the town was renamed Saint-Amans-Soult in December 1851. He is one of the eighteen Marshals of the Empire (out of twenty-six) who belonged to Freemasonry . Soult published a memoir justifying his adherence to Napoleon during

584-691: A royalist following the Bourbon Restoration , but rejoined Napoleon during the Hundred Days . He was Napoleon's chief of staff during the Waterloo campaign in 1815, where the emperor suffered a final defeat. Following the second restoration, Soult went into exile in Germany. In 1819 he was recalled to France and returned to royal favour, and in 1830 he was made minister of war after the July Revolution . Soult oversaw reforms of

657-510: A victory over Royalist forces in Brittany. His surname is one of the names 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." Hoche was born on 24 June 1768 in the village of Montreuil, today part of Versailles , to Anne Merlière and Louis Hoche, a groom at

730-560: The American War of Independence and a future Marshal ), Jean Victor Marie Moreau , Jean-Baptiste Kléber and François Lefebvre (also a future Marshal ). He took part in the Battle of Aldenhoven on 2 October 1794. He moved to Jacques Hatry 's division and took part in the Siege of Luxembourg from 22 November to 7 June 1795. He took a brilliant part in the battles of Altenkirchen on 4 June 1796, of Friedberg on 10 July 1796, and in

803-756: The Army of Italy . However, upon arriving in Nice to receive the assignment, he was arrested on orders of the Committee of Public Safety, charges of treason having been proffered by Charles Pichegru , the displaced commander of the Army of the Rhine. He was sent to Paris' Carmes Prison on 11 April, was later transferred to the Conciergerie , and was only released on 4 August, after the fall of Maximilien Robespierre and

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876-524: The Army of the North was one of several factors contributing to Napoleon's defeat, because of the animosity between him and Marshal Michel Ney , the other senior commander, and because, in spite of his experience as a soldier, Soult lacked his predecessor Marshal Louis-Alexandre Berthier 's administrative skills. The most glaring instance of this was his written order, according to Napoleon's instructions, to Marshal Emmanuel de Grouchy to position his force on

949-591: The Army of the Rhine to his sphere of command. In the Second Battle of Wissembourg on 26 December 1793, the French under his command drove Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser 's Austrian army from Alsace . Hoche pursued his success, sweeping the enemy before him to the middle Rhine in four days. He then put his troops into winter quarters at Bouzonville . Before the next campaign opened, Hoche married Anne Adelaïde Dechaux at Thionville on 11 March 1794. The day before his marriage, he had been invited to command

1022-692: The Army of the West with the order to "act offensively against Charette '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 new Army of the Coasts of the Ocean , Hoche became the supreme commander of all Republican forces in Western France. Thereafter, by means of mobile columns (which he kept under good discipline), he gradually eliminated

1095-507: The Battle of Albuera , where he brilliantly turned Beresford's flank to open the battle, yet when he found himself facing unexpected opposition from British and Spanish troops, he allowed his generals to adopt a clumsy attack formation and was beaten. Another example of his strengths and weaknesses can be seen at the Battle of the Nive . Soult recognized Wellington's strategic dilemma and took advantage by launching surprise attacks on both wings of

1168-419: The Battle of Stockach against the army of Charles of Austria on 25 March 1799. The rank of division general was attributed to him on 4 April 1799, provisionally, and it is confirmed on the following 21 April. Soult passed to the Army of Helvetia under the orders of General André Masséna (another future Marshal ). It was at this time that he built the bases of his military reputation, in particular during

1241-691: The Catholic and Royal Armies . Hoche directed the operations that led to the capture (and subsequent execution) of rebel leaders Jean-Nicolas Stofflet (24 February 1796) and François de Charette (23 March), bringing an end to the War in the Vendée. With the surrender of the leaders of the Chouannerie , in May and June 1796, Hoche concluded the pacification of Western France, which had for more than three years been

1314-461: The Château de Soult-Berg on 22 March 1852. The couple had three children: Marshal General of France This title was bestowed only on Marshals of France, usually when the title of Constable of France was unavailable or, after 1626, suppressed. Unlike the title of marshal, marshal general was rarely granted to active military commanders. Rather, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries, it

1387-529: The Duke of Wellington , reputedly caught him by the arm and exclaimed "I have you at last!" Once again at the head of the government (1839–1840), he was at the same time the holder of the Foreign Affairs portfolio. He participated in the ceremonies for returning the ashes of Napoleon in December 1840. President of the Council for almost seven years, from 1840 to 1847, he left the effective management of

1460-586: The First Battle of Zurich of 2–5 June 1799; then he subdued the insurgent cantons, drove the rebels on the Reuss and drove them back to in the valley of Urseren - relieving Frauenfeld , Altikon , Audelfinden . He obtained a citation on the order of the day of 2 June 1799. On the 10th of the same month, he hunted down, at the head of the 110th Demi-Brigade , the Austrians , occupying Mount Albis. Crossing

1533-901: The French Guards regiment as a fusilier in October 1784, although he originally intended to serve with the colonial troops in the East Indies . He was promoted to grenadier in November 1785 then to corporal in May 1789, just before the outbreak of the French Revolution . After the French Guards were disbanded at the start of the Revolution, Hoche joined the new National Guard in September 1789. During

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1606-514: The French Royal Army in 1785 and quickly rose through the ranks during the French Revolution . He was promoted to brigadier general after distinguishing himself at the Battle of Fleurus in 1794, and by 1799 he was a division general. In 1804, Napoleon made Soult one of his first eighteen Marshals of the Empire. Soult played a key role in many of Napoleon's campaigns, most notably at the Battle of Austerlitz , where his corps delivered

1679-594: The Hundred Days , and his notes and journals were arranged by his son Napoleon Hector , who published the first part Mémoires du maréchal-général Soult (Memories of Marshal-General Soult) in 1854. Le Noble's Mémoires sur les operations des Français en Galicie (Memories of the Operations of the French in Galicia) are supposed to have been written from Soult's papers. Although often found wanting tactically – even some of his own aides questioned his inability to amend

1752-614: The Linth River on 22 September, Soult led the enemy to suffer a loss of 4,000 men, then he came to meet the Russians who advanced on Kaltbrunn , forcing the surrender of a body of 2,000 men, seized Weesen and pushed the enemy back to Lake Constance . He won a significant victory at the battle of the Linth (25 to 26 September). Moreover, he had the honour of coordinating the actions of Gazan 's and Molitor 's divisions, which halted

1825-626: The October Days protests, he was among the Guardsmen under the command of La Fayette who escorted King Louis XVI and his family out of the Palace of Versailles . He thereafter served in various line infantry regiments until he received a commission in 1792. Hoche first saw action in the defence of Thionville in 1792, as a lieutenant, in the early stages of the Flanders campaign of

1898-465: The Peninsular War . In 1809, he invaded Portugal and took Porto , but was isolated by General Francisco da Silveira 's strategy of contention. Busying himself with the political settlement of his conquests in French interests and, as he hoped, for his own ultimate benefit as a possible candidate for the Portuguese throne, he attracted the hatred of Republican officers in his army. Unable to move, he

1971-575: The Prussians . The French were defeated, but even in the midst of the Reign of Terror the Committee of Public Safety retained Hoche in his command. In their eyes, pertinacity and fiery energy outweighed everything else, and Hoche soon showed that he possessed these qualities. On 22 December 1793 he won the Battle of Froeschwiller , and the representatives on mission with his army at once added

2044-503: The advance of Suvorov 's army at the battle of Näfels . When in 1800 the First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte entrusted Masséna to reorganize the Army of Italy , he insisted that Soult be his deputy; giving him the command of the right wing. Soult distinguished himself for his active part in the defense of the country of Genoa . On 6 April, in an initial sortie, at the head of several battalions, he crossed

2117-706: The first insurrection of the city's silk workers, the canuts . Order is restored, but Soult becomes very unpopular within the Republican camp. In his play Napoléon Bonaparte ou Trente ans de l'histoire de France (Napoleon Bonaparte or Thirty Years of the History of France), Dumas Père represents him in a dreadful appearance during the Hundred Days . In 1834, when a new insurrection broke out in April in Lyon, Marshal Soult received from Lieutenant-General Aymar, commander of

2190-481: The staff of General Lazare Hoche to the Army of the Moselle on 19 November 1793. He took part in the Battle of Kaiserslautern from 28 to 30 November, which allowed the recapture of Wissembourg and the relief of Landau . Hoche gives Soult the command of a detached body to take Marsthal's camp, a task which was brilliantly executed. From 26 to 29 December he was present at the Second Battle of Wissembourg . He

2263-797: The Anglo-Allied Army. But French tactical execution was poor and the British general managed to fend off Soult's blows. Sloppy staff work marred his tenure as Napoleon's chief of staff in the Waterloo campaign. In the early twentieth century the British named the Royal Navy monitor HMS Marshal Soult after him. On 26 April 1796, Soult married Johanna Louise Elisabeth Berg (1771–1852), the daughter of Johann Abraham Berg (1730–1786) by his marriage to Wilhelmine Mumm in Solingen . She died at

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2336-518: The Anglo-Portuguese army laid siege to the city, he marched to its rescue and fought and nearly won the famous and bloody Battle of Albuera on 16 May. In 1812, after Wellington's great victory at Salamanca , Soult was obliged to evacuate Andalusia. In the subsequent Siege of Burgos , he was able to drive Wellington's Anglo-allied Army back to Salamanca. There, the Duke of Dalmatia, as Soult

2409-593: The Austrian army and relieved General Gardanne . The enemy was repulsed beyond Piotta , and Soult pursued General Suvorov into the Alps, seizing Sassello and returning to Genoa with numerous prisoners, cannons, and flags. During another sortie, the general pushed in against the Austrian army, trapping a division at Monte-Facio. But, during a fight in Montecreto on 13 April 1800, a gunshot shattered his leg; lying on

2482-643: The Austrians at the Battle of Neuwied on 18 April 1797, though operations were soon afterwards brought to an end by the Preliminaries of Leoben . In July 1797, Hoche was appointed Minister of War by the Directory. In this position he was surrounded by obscure political intrigues, and, finding himself the dupe of Paul Barras and technically guilty of violating the constitution, he resigned after less than month in office, and returned to his command on

2555-594: The Austrians. Hoche is commemorated by a statue on Place Hoche, a gardened square not far from the main entrance to the Palace of Versailles , and another in the Louvre Palace . Another statue, the last major work by Jules Dalou , is in Quiberon , Brittany. In Les Invalides there is also a memorial to Hoche. A station on the Paris Metro is also called Hoche . Hoche's motto was Res non verba , which

2628-653: The British Army's left flank in order to prevent reinforcement by the Prussians. Cornwell decries the wording of Soult's order as "almost impenetrable nonsense" , and Grouchy misinterpreted the order, instead marching against the Prussian rearguard at Wavre . Following the Second Bourbon Restoration in 1815, Soult went into exile in Germany, but in 1819 he was recalled and in 1820 again made

2701-512: The Cabinet to his minister of foreign affairs, François Guizot, who logically succeeded him when he left the government, for health reasons. For five years (1840–1845), he combined his function with that of minister of war. On 26 September 1847 Louis-Philippe restored for him the honorary dignity of Marshal General of the king's camps and armies, however modifying this title into the unique Marshal General of France . In 1848, Soult declared himself

2774-507: The French military and was responsible for the creation of the French Foreign Legion . Under King Louis Philippe , he was three times French prime minister from 1832 to 1834, almost a year between 1839 and 1840 and from 1840 to 1847. In 1847, he was awarded the title Marshal General of France . Soult again declared himself a Republican after Louis Philippe's overthrow in the French Revolution of 1848 . He died in 1851. Soult

2847-619: The Revolutionary Wars, and took part in the Siege of Namur at the end of the year. After serving with distinction in the Siege of Maastricht , Hoche became an aide-de-camp to General Le Veneur in March 1793, and further distinguished himself later that month at the Battle of Neerwinden . When Charles Dumouriez defected to the Austrians , Hoche, along with Le Veneur and others, fell under suspicion of treason . After being kept under arrest from 8 to 20 August, he took part in

2920-615: The Rhine frontier. It was his denunciation during that time that had led to Kléber 's removal from command. The compromising letter was found by Jean Baptiste Alexandre Strolz in Hoche's papers. On 2 September, Hoche received the command of the Army of the Rhine and Moselle and set up his headquarters at Wetzlar , near Koblenz . Following his return from Frankfurt , on 13 September, his health grew rapidly worse, and he died at Wetzlar on 19 September of consumption ( tuberculosis ), aged 29. The belief spread that he had been poisoned, but

2993-584: The age of sixteen, he enlisted as a private in the Royal-Infanterie regiment, to help his mother financially after the death of his father. His younger brother, Pierre-Benoît Soult , followed his example three years later, and would also become a French general. Jean Soult fought in the wars of Revolutionary France . Soult's superior education ensured his promotion to the rank of sergeant after six years of service, and in July 1791 he became instructor to

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3066-444: The battlefield wounded, he was robbed and taken prisoner, spending days in agony in a filthy hospital. This experience traumatized Soult, and he would never again place himself so forward in the battleline. He was rescued after the victory at Marengo on 14 June 1800. Appointed military commander of Piedmont , then in the midst of a rebellion, Soult managed to put down the so-called Barbets insurrection . He even managed to discipline

3139-502: The campaign. Two battles were fought in Arlon on 17, 18 and 29 April, then on 21 May , in which Soult took an active part. After the Battle of Fleurus of 1794 , in which he distinguished himself for coolness, he joined the Army of Sambre and Meuse on 28 June. Soult was promoted to brigadier general by the representatives on mission. For the next five years, Soult was employed in Germany under Generals Jean-Baptiste Jourdan (a veteran of

3212-499: The centre at Lützen and Bautzen , but he was soon sent, with unlimited powers, to the South of France to repair the damage done by the defeat at Vitoria . It is to Soult's credit that he was able to reorganise the demoralised French forces. His last offensives into Spain were turned back by Wellington in the Battle of the Pyrenees ( Sorauren ) and by General Manuel Freire 's Spaniards at San Marcial . Pursued onto French soil, Soult

3285-511: The decisive attack that secured French victory. He was subsequently created Duke of Dalmatia and from 1808, he commanded French forces during the Peninsular War . Despite several initial victories, for instance at the Battle of Ocaña , Soult was eventually outmaneuvered and driven out of Spain by the coalition forces under the command of Arthur Wellesley (later Duke of Wellington). He was again defeated by Wellington at Toulouse in 1814, days after Napoleon's first abdication. Soult declared himself

3358-429: The depots. Those that can will be fit to conquer the world." In May 1804, Soult was made one of the first eighteen Marshals of the Empire . He commanded a corps in the advance on Ulm , and at Austerlitz he led the decisive attack on the Allied centre. Soult played a great part in many of the famous battles of the Grande Armée , including the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805 and the Battle of Jena in 1806. However, he

3431-419: The end of the Reign of Terror. Shortly after his release, Hoche was given the command of the Army of the Coasts of Cherbourg with the mission of suppressing the Royalist Revolt in the Vendée . He set up his headquarters at Rennes , Brittany , and put his initial effort into reorganizing the troops. In addition, he received the command of the Army of the Coasts of Brest in November 1794. Hoche completed

3504-412: The expedition, under the command of Vice Admiral Justin Bonaventure Morard de Galles . The fleet set sail for Ireland on 15 December 1796, with Hoche and Morard de Galles aboard the frigate Fraternité . Due to a gale , however, the frigate was separated from the expedition the day after its departure, and was afterwards chased by a British ship. By the time it reached the Irish coast, on 30 December,

3577-429: The first battalion of volunteers of the Bas-Rhin . On 17 January 1792 his colonel appointed him instructor in the 1st battalion of Haut-Rhin volunteers, with the rank of second lieutenant ( sous-lieutenant ). The war period, which began in April 1792, offered him many opportunities to stand out and he rose through the ranks with regularity. Adjutant-major on 16 July 1792, captain on 20 August 1793, provisional adjutant to

3650-424: The following year, Soult was appointed as commander of the II Corps with which Napoleon intended to conquer Spain. After winning the Battle of Gamonal , Soult was detailed by the emperor to pursue Lieutenant-General Sir John Moore 's British army. At the Battle of Coruña , in which Moore was killed, Soult failed to prevent British forces escaping by sea. For the next four years, Soult remained in Spain engaged in

3723-416: The guarantor of the Treaty of the XXIV articles , he had the Antwerp expedition carried out by Marshal Gérard , who seized the city after heroic resistance from the Dutch (December 1832) and returned it to Belgium, its country of attribution. In April 1838, Louis-Philippe chose Soult to represent him at the coronation of Queen Victoria . He received a triumphant welcome in London – where his former enemy,

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3796-467: The new regime. In August 1803, Soult was entrusted with the command-in-chief of the Camp of Boulogne . Soult, a former drill instructor, imposed a rigorous discipline there, which ensured the effectiveness of French troops during future campaigns, and also earned him the nickname "Bras de Fer" ("Iron Arm"). Even Napoleon wondered if he was being too severe, to which assertions Soult replied: "Those who can't handle what I myself endure will be left behind in

3869-438: 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 the Army of Sambre and Meuse , where he defeated

3942-447: The rearmament of the French military. The strength of the Army of the Restoration numbered only a little over 200,000 men and Soult sought to double its size, carrying the necessary reforms from 1831 to 1832. The first law of this important military reform was that creating the Foreign Legion , on 9 March 1831; a force of foreign volunteers which could only be used outside the territory of metropolitan France, especially aimed at garrisoning

4015-463: The recently conquered Algiers . The Legion, when created, was loathed by the army and considered a lower posting; the force being colloquially called as the "Bastard of Soult". Louis-Philippe, worried about having to rely solely on the National Guard to maintain public order, instructed Marshal Soult to reorganize the line army without delay. Soult wrote a report to the king, presented to the Chamber of Deputies on 20 February 1831, in which he criticized

4088-423: The recruitment Gouvion-Saint-Cyr law of 1818: the voluntary system combined with the drawing of ballots and the possibility of being replaced had not made it possible to increase the number of manpower sufficiently, and that the promotion procedures helped to maintain over-staffing. Soult proposed the main lines of a military policy aimed at increasing the army's strength, reducing said over-staffing and ensuring

4161-500: The rest of expedition had already dispersed after a failed landing attempt. The Fraternité re-entered France through the Île de Ré on 11 January 1797 without having effected its purpose. 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: Hoche mentioned, also, that great mischief had been done to

4234-421: The rowdy hordes and use them for his service. Soult then received command of the southern part of the Kingdom of Naples . Shortly before the Treaty of Amiens , General Soult returned to Paris, where the First Consul welcomed him with the highest distinction. On 5 March 1802 he was one of the four generals called to command the Consular Guard with the post of colonel general. He thereafter pledged allegiance to

4307-413: The royal hunting grounds. 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 of Saint-Germain-en-Laye , who arranged for Hoche to become a choirboy at his church. In 1782, Hoche began working as an aide at the royal stables, but soon left in order to join the Army . He entered

4380-460: The scene of civil war. On 20 July 1796, Hoche was rewarded by the French Directory for his immense service. That same day, he was appointed to organize and command the Expedition to Ireland , to assist the United Irishmen in a rebellion against British rule . He survived an assassination attempt in Rennes on 16 October, when a worker at the local arsenal fired at him but missed. In Brest , Hoche gathered an army and forty-eight vessels for

4453-421: The successful defence of Dunkirk , for which he was promoted successively to colonel and brigade general in September, and to general of division in October 1793. In November, Hoche was provisionally appointed to command the Army of the Moselle , and within a few weeks he was in the field at the head of his army in Lorraine . His first battle was that of Kaiserslautern during 28–30 November 1793 against

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4526-400: The supply of arms and ammunition. Following the creation of the Legion on 9 March, Soult passed the laws of 11 April 1831 on military pensions, of 21 March and 14 April 1832, on army recruitment and promotion, and of 19 May 1834 on the status of officers. Soult also oversaw the construction of the fortifications of Paris. In 1831, he was sent by Louis-Philippe to Lyon with 20,000 men to crush

4599-433: The suspicion seems to have been unfounded. He was buried four days later next to his friend François Marceau at Fort Petersberg in Koblenz. A funeral procession to Hoche was held on the Champ de Mars , Paris on 1 October. In 1919, the French Army in occupied Rhineland reburied his mortal remains into the 1797-built Monument General Hoche in Weißenthurm , near Neuwied , where he had started his last campaign against

4672-410: The troops in the city, a desperate telegraphic dispatch about evacuating the city. The Duke of Dalmatia's firm response was not long in coming, chastising the general and ordering him to hold all his positions and to man the walls and be buried beneath them. While he was minister of war, he held the presidency of the Council of Ministers (or Prime Minister) for the first time in 1832–1834. France being

4745-417: The work of his predecessors in a few months by the Treaty of La Jaunaye (15 February 1795), but soon afterwards the war was renewed by the rebel leadership. Between June and July 1795, Hoche led the defense against the Quiberon Expedition by Royalist émigrés assisted by the British Royal Navy , which he decisively defeated at Fort Penthièvre on 21 July. In late August, he was appointed commander of

4818-409: Was a skillful military strategist. An example was his drive to cut off Wellington's British army from Portugal after Talavera, which nearly succeeded. Though repeatedly defeated by Wellington in 1813–1814, he conducted a clever defence against him. Soult's armies were usually well readied before going into battle. After Vitoria , he reorganized the demoralized French forces of Joseph Bonaparte into

4891-429: Was an end-of-career reward for particularly deserving or loyal marshals. Six in the pre-revolutionary kingdom of France : One during the July Monarchy under the House of Orléans ' sole, constitutional king, Louis Philippe : Lazare Hoche Louis Lazare Hoche ( [lwi la.zaʁ ɔʃ] ; 24 June 1768 – 19 September 1797) was a French military leader of the French Revolutionary Wars . He won

4964-411: Was appointed chief of staff of the avant-garde on 27 January 1794, provisional battalion commander on 7 February 1794, titular battalion commander on 3 April and adjutant-general brigade chief ( adjudant-général chef de brigade ) on 14 May. On 19 March 1794 the Army of the Moselle was replaced by the Army of the Rhine under the command of General Jean-Baptiste Jourdan . This army immediately returns to

5037-425: Was born in Saint-Amans-la-Bastide (now called Saint-Amans-Soult in his honor, near Castres , in the Tarn department) and named after John of God . He was the son of a country notary named Jean Soult (1726–1779) by his marriage to Brigitte, daughter of Pierre François de Grenier de Lapierre. He was a Catholic . Jean-de-Dieu Soult was expected to have a promising career as a lawyer. However, on 16 April 1785, at

5110-406: Was eventually driven from Portugal in the Second Battle of Porto by Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Wellesley (later made Duke of Wellington ), making a painful and almost disastrous retreat over the mountains, pursued by General William Beresford and Silveira. After the Battle of Talavera , Soult was made chief of staff of French forces in Spain with extended powers, and on 19 November 1809, won

5183-542: Was maneuvered out of several positions at Nivelle , Nive , and Orthez , before suffering what was technically a defeat at Wellington's hands at the Battle of Toulouse . He nevertheless inflicted severe casualties on Wellington and was able to stop him from trapping the French forces. After Napoleon's first abdication in 1814, Soult declared himself a royalist, received the Order of Saint Louis , and acted as minister of war from 26 November 1814 to 11 March 1815. When Napoleon returned from Elba , Soult at once declared himself

5256-487: Was not present at the Battle of Friedland because on that same day he was capturing Königsberg . After the conclusion of the Treaties of Tilsit , he returned to France and in 1808 was anointed by Napoleon as 1st Duke of Dalmatia (French: Duc de Dalmatie ). The awarding of this honour greatly displeased him, for he felt that his title should have been Duke of Austerlitz, a title which Napoleon had reserved for himself. In

5329-536: Was now known, failed to attack Wellington despite superiority in numbers, and the British Army retired to the Portuguese frontier. Soon after, he was recalled from Spain at the request of Joseph Bonaparte (who had been installed by his brother as King of Spain) with whom, as with the other marshals, he had always disagreed. In March 1813, Soult assumed command of the IV Corps of the Grande Armée and commanded

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