Édouard Adolphe Casimir Joseph Mortier,
1st Duc de Trévise (13 February 1768 28 July 1835) was a
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
generalA general officer is an officer of high military rank. The term or equivalent is used by nearly every country in the world. General can be used as a generic term for all grades of general officer, or it can specifically refer to a single rank that is simply called general.-All general officer...
and,
Marshal of FranceThe Marshal of France is a military distinction in contemporary France, not a military rank. It is granted to generals for exceptional achievements...
under Napoléon I.
Mortier was born at
Le Cateau-CambrésisLe Cateau-Cambrésis is a commune in the Nord department in northern France.The term Cambrésis indicates that it lies in the county of that name which fell to the Prince-Bishop of Cambrai.-History:...
on 13 February 1768, son of Charles Mortier (1730 1808) and wife Marie Anne Joseph Bonnaire (b. 1735), and entered the army as a sub-lieutenant in 1791.
He served in the
French Revolutionary WarsThe French Revolutionary Wars were a series of major conflicts, from 1792 until 1802, fought between the French Revolutionary government and several European states...
in the campaigns of 1792 and 1793 on the north-eastern frontier and in the Netherlands, and subsequently on the
MeuseMeuse is a department in northeast France, named after the Meuse River.-History:Meuse is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790...
and the
RhineThe Rhine is one of the longest and most important rivers in Europe, at , with an average discharge of more than ....
.
Édouard Adolphe Casimir Joseph Mortier,
1st Duc de Trévise (13 February 1768 28 July 1835) was a
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
generalA general officer is an officer of high military rank. The term or equivalent is used by nearly every country in the world. General can be used as a generic term for all grades of general officer, or it can specifically refer to a single rank that is simply called general.-All general officer...
and,
Marshal of FranceThe Marshal of France is a military distinction in contemporary France, not a military rank. It is granted to generals for exceptional achievements...
under Napoléon I.
Biography
Mortier was born at
Le Cateau-CambrésisLe Cateau-Cambrésis is a commune in the Nord department in northern France.The term Cambrésis indicates that it lies in the county of that name which fell to the Prince-Bishop of Cambrai.-History:...
on 13 February 1768, son of Charles Mortier (1730 1808) and wife Marie Anne Joseph Bonnaire (b. 1735), and entered the army as a sub-lieutenant in 1791.
He served in the
French Revolutionary WarsThe French Revolutionary Wars were a series of major conflicts, from 1792 until 1802, fought between the French Revolutionary government and several European states...
in the campaigns of 1792 and 1793 on the north-eastern frontier and in the Netherlands, and subsequently on the
MeuseMeuse is a department in northeast France, named after the Meuse River.-History:Meuse is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790...
and the
RhineThe Rhine is one of the longest and most important rivers in Europe, at , with an average discharge of more than ....
. In the war against the Second Coalition in 1799, he was promoted successively general of brigade and
général de divisionGénéral is the French word for General.In France, Army generals are named after the type of unit they command. In ascending order there are two ranks :* Général de brigade : Brigade General.* Général de division : Divisional General....
. His conduct of the French occupation of
HanoverHanover or Hannover , on the river Leine, is the capital of the federal state of Lower Saxony , Germany and was once by personal union the family seat of the Hanoverian Kings of Great Britain, in their dignities as the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg Hanover or Hannover , on the river Leine, is...
, bringing about the
Convention of ArtlenburgThe Convention of Artlenburg or Elbkonvention was the surrender of the Electorate of Hanover to Napoleon's army, signed at Artlenburg on 5 July 1803 by Oberbefehlshaber Johann Ludwig von Wallmoden-Gimborn...
, led Napoleon to include Mortier in the first list of marshals created in 1804.
He commanded a corps of the
Grande Armée in the
Ulm campaignThe Battle of Ulm was a series of minor skirmishes at the end of Napoleon Bonaparte's Ulm Campaign, culminating in the surrender of an entire Austrian army near Ulm in Württemberg....
in which he distinguished himself particularly by his brilliant action of Dürrenstein; in 1806 he was again in Hanover and north-western Germany, and in 1807 he served with the
Grande Armée in the
FriedlandThe Battle of Friedland saw Napoleon Bonaparte's French army decisively defeat Count von Bennigsen's Russian army about twenty-seven miles southeast of Königsberg...
campaign.
In 1808, Napoleon created him duke of
TrevisoTreviso is a city in Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Treviso and the municipality has 82,206 inhabitants : some 3,000 live within the Venetian walls or in the historical and monumental center, some 80,000 live in the urban center proper, while the city hinterland...
(
Trévise in French) a duché grand-fief (a rare, but nominal, hereditary honor, extinguished in 1912) in his own
Kingdom of ItalyThe Kingdom of Italy was founded in Northern Italy by Napoleon, and ended with his defeat and fall.-Constitutional Statutes:...
, and shortly afterwards he commanded an army corps in Napoléon's campaign for the recapture of
MadridMadrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. It is the third-most populous municipality in the European Union after Greater London and Berlin, and its metropolitan area is the third-most populous city by urban area in the European Union after Paris and London.The city is located on the river...
.
He remained in Spain for two campaigns, winning the victory of
OcañaIn the Battle of Ocana or Ocaña , French forces under Marshal Soult and King Joseph Bonaparte inflicted upon the Spanish army its greatest single defeat in the Peninsular War...
in November 1809. In 1812 and 1813 he commanded the Imperial Guard, and in the defensive campaign of 1814 he rendered brilliant services in command of rearguards and covering detachments. In 1815, after the flight of
BourbonThe House of Bourbon is an important European royal house, a branch of the Capetian dynasty. Bourbon kings first ruled Navarre and France in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples & Sicily, and Parma...
king
Louis XVIII of FranceLouis XVIII , Louis Stanislas Xavier de France, was King of France and Navarre from 1814 to 1824, omitting the Hundred Days in 1815. Louis XVIII spent twenty-three years in exile, from 1791 to 1814, due to the French Revolution, and was exiled again in 1815, upon the return of Napoleon Bonaparte...
, he rejoined Napoléon during the
Cent Jours and was given a high command, but at the opening of the
Battle of WaterlooIn the Battle of Waterloo forces of the French Empire under Napoleon Bonaparte and Michel Ney were defeated by those of the Seventh Coalition, including an Anglo-Allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellington and a Prussian army under the command of Gebhard von Blücher...
he was unable to continue, complaining of severe
sciaticaSciatica is a set of symptoms including pain that may be caused by general compression and/or irritation of one of five nerve roots that give rise to the sciatic nerve, or by compression or irritation of the sciatic nerve itself. The pain is felt in the lower back, buttock, and/or various parts of...
.
After the second
Bourbon RestorationThe Bourbon Restoration is the name given to the restored Bourbon Kingdom of France which existed from 1814 until the July Revolution of 1830, with the interval of the "Hundred Days" from Napoleon Bonaparte's return from Elba to the Battle of Waterloo in 1814–15. The regime was a constitutional...
he was for a time in disgrace, but in 1819 he was readmitted to the
Chamber of PeersThe Peerage of France was a distinction within the French nobility which appeared in the Middle Ages. It was abolished in 1789 during the French Revolution, but it reappeared in 1814 at the time of the Bourbon Restoration which followed the fall of the First French Empire...
and in 1825 received the
Order of the Holy SpiritThe Order of the Holy Spirit, also known as the Order of the Knights of the Holy Spirit, was an Order of Chivalry under the French Monarchy. It should not be confused with the Congregation of the Holy Ghost or with the Order of the Holy Ghost...
, the kingdom's highest. In 1830–1831 he was Ambassador of France at St Petersburg, and in 1834–1835 minister of war and
president of the council of ministersThe Prime Minister of France in the Fifth Republic is the functional head of the government and Council of Ministers of France. The head of state in France is the President of the French Republic...
.
In 1835, while accompanying
Louis-PhilippeLouis-Philippe I was King of the French from 1830 to 1848 in what was known as the July Monarchy. He was the last king to rule France, although Napoleon III, styled as an emperor, would serve as its last monarch....
to a review, Marshal Mortier and eleven others were killed by the bomb aimed at the king by
FieschiGiuseppe Marco Fieschi was the chief conspirator in the attempt on the life of King Louis-Philippe of France in July 1835....
. Louis Philippe bitterly mourned him, and wept openly at the marshal's funeral.
He married Eve Anne Hymmès (Coblence, 19 August 1779
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, 13 February 1855), by whom he had issue:
- Caroline (1800 – 1842)
- Malvina (1803 – 1883)
- Napoleon (1804 – 1869)
- Edouard (1806 – 1815)
- Louise (1811 – 1831)
- Eve (1814 – 1831)
- Edouard
Sources and references