805 



SUCHET, LOUIS GABRIEL. 



SUCHET, LOUIS GABRIEL. 



soa 



tlie troops of the above-named department. In this capacity, it is 

 stated, he was compelled to be the active witness of many atrocities, 

 committed in the name of the law by the deputy of the convention, 

 Muignet. He was present at the siege of Toulon in 1793 ; from thence 

 he was transferred to the army of Italy, and was attached to the brigade 

 under the command of General Laharpe. In this campaign he specially 

 distinguished himself at the combat of Loano (23rd of November 

 1795), where he captured three Austrian standards. He afterwards 

 served with distinction in the same campaign under the Generals 

 Augereau and Massdna, and received several wounds. He was selected 

 by Massdna to present to Bonaparte the standards which had been 

 captured during the year 1797 by the brigade in which was his 

 battalion. It was on the field of battle at Neumark (2nd of April 

 1797) that he was raised to the rank of " chef de brigade." He after- 

 wards joined the army in Switzerland, where he was instrumental to 

 the conclusion of a treaty with the cantons of Berne and Fribourg. 

 This treaty did not prevent the war being soou after rekindled in 

 Switzerland, and in it Suchet displayed considerable skill; it was 

 ther that he first gave proof of his talents as a tactician, which after- 

 wards raised him so high in the estimation of Bonaparte. The 

 important part he acted in this campaign was recognised by his chief, 

 who deputed him to Paris to present to the Directory twenty-three 

 standards taken from the enemy. 



When the expedition to Egypt was determined upon, it was 

 oriiuually intended that Suchet should be included among the mili- 

 tary commanders selected to act under Bonaparte ; the disordered state 

 however of discipline which prevailed in the army of Italy, and the 

 representations of General Brune, who commanded it, caused him to 

 be retained therewith the rank of Major-General of Brigade. In his 

 new command he made many strenuous endeavours to renew the 

 ancient discipline and to ameliorate the condition of the soldier; 

 these endeavours were construed by the suspicious government at 

 Paris into an attempt to introduce into the army an aristocratic rule. 

 His recal was decided upon, in opposition to the strong remonstrances 

 made on the subject by General Joubert, who was among the most 

 popular and successful of the republican generals of that period. On 

 his arrival at Paris, he succeeded in clearing himself of the charges 

 which had been brought against him, and he was transferred to a 

 command in the army of the Danube. He there rendered himself 

 conspicuous by the able manner in which he seconded the skilful 

 manoeuvres of General Masse'na in the Orisons. The successes which 

 attended the French arms in Switzerland were counterbalanced by 

 the disasters of General Sche"rer in Italy ; these disasters necessitated 

 the appointment of a more daring and vigorous commander, and 

 Joubert was again intrusted with the chief command. On this occa- 

 sion Suchet was recalled from the army of the Danube, and placed at 

 the head of Joubert's staff. The campaign which ensued added 

 greatly to his military reputation ; the careful avoidance of error in 

 his movements and manoeuvres, the skilful disposition of his troops, 

 whether acting independently or in conjunction with the main army, 

 as they procured him important successes, soon attracted the notice 

 of Bonaparte when he joined the Italian army, and he was appointed 

 by him second in command to Masse'na. In this capacity he par- 

 ticularly distinguished himself in the actions at San Bartolomeo and 

 the bridge of Cezio (7th and 8th of May 1800). With a body of 8000 

 men, advantageously posted, he checked the advance of General Me"las, 

 who had five times his numbers, and for a long time harassed his 

 army, whose retreat he had cut off; he thus afforded a powerful 

 co-operation to the main army of the French, which, under the 

 command of Bonaparte, was at that time crossing the Great St. 

 Bernard. General Suchet, after these operations, rejoined Masse'na 

 on the plains of Alessandria, and was present at the battle of Marengo. 

 When, in consequence of this decisive battle, the city of Genoa again 

 fell into the hands of the French, the government of it was given to 

 Sachet. At the conclusion of the armistice of six months, which had 

 been concluded between the French and Austrians, the command of 

 the centre of the army of Italy was confided to him. In this command 

 he was enabled to extricate General Dupont, so unfortunately known 

 by his subsequent disasters at Baylen, in Spain, from a position of 

 considerable danger, and, in conjunction with him, obtained a signal 

 success over the Austrians, under General Bellegarde, at Pozzolo, in 

 which action 4000 prisoners were made. 



During the peace which was concluded in 1801 at Luneville between 

 the Empire and France, General Suchet was employed in inspecting 

 the troops stationed on the south and west frontiers ; he was after- 

 wards actively engaged in the superintendence of military works, and 

 finally promoted to the governorship of the castle of Lacken, near 

 Brussels, having been previously named member of the Legion of 

 Honour. 



On the opening of the campaign of 1805, Suchet was attached to 

 the division of the army under the command of Marshal Lannes. At 

 the memorable battle of Austerlitz, he commanded the left wing of 

 that division, and greatly distinguished himself by a manoeuvre as 

 daring as it was skilful. The following year, a few days previous to 

 the battle of Jena (14th of October, 1806), he obtained at the head of 

 his division, some important advantages over Prince Frederick Louis of 

 Prussia, who commanded the advanced guard of the mam army of the 

 Prussians, at Graffenthal ; in this engagement he captured thirty pieces 



of artillery; among the killed was the young and gallant Prince of 

 Prussia. To this movement of Suchet Napoleon was indebt-d for the 

 opportunity of attacking, without opposition, the rear of the main 

 army of the Prussians. The following year he materially contributed 

 to the success obtained by Savary, duke of Rovigo, over the Russian 

 General Essen, who, with 20,000 men, attacked the French on the 

 banks of the river Narrow (16th of February 1807), and was repelled 

 with considerable loss. 



The reputation which Suchet had acquired in these engagements as 

 a brave soldier and a skilful tactician, induced Napoleon to entrust 

 him with a separate command. An opportunity of doing so was 

 afforded him by the war which broke out in Spain in 1808, and he 

 gave him the command of the fifth division of the army, having 

 previously raised him to the highest grade of the Lgion of Honour, 

 with a pension of 20,000 francs, and the title of Count of the Empire. 

 After assisting for a short time at the siege of Saragossa, he was 

 appointed to the command of general-in-chief of the French array in 

 the province of Aragon. This brings us to the most illustrious period 

 of his military life. When General Suchet was placed at the head of 

 the forces in Aragon, he found the army so destitute of discipline that 

 it almost amounted to disorganisation. In applying the measures to 

 restore this discipline, he evinced considerable discernment, prudence, 

 and energy ; no longer thwarted in his efforts by the factious oppo- 

 sition of mere theoretical statesmen, as he had been in the time of 

 the Directory, he speedily effected this important purpose. " Suchet 

 was no ordinary man ; and with equal vigour and prudence he com- 

 menced a system of discipline in his corps, and of order in his govern- 

 ment, that afterwards carried him, with scarcely a check, from one 

 success to another, until he obtained the rank of marshal for himself, 

 and the honour for his corps of being the only one in Spain that never 

 suffered any signal reverse." (Napier, ' History of the Peninsular War,' 

 vol. ii. p. 97.) In 1810 General Suchet received orders from Madrid 

 to lay siege to the strong fortress of Lerida, the approaches to which 

 were covered by the Spanish General O'Donnell and a strong body of 

 Catalonian troops. The defeat of this general was followed, after a 

 gallant and obstinate resistance, by the surrender of the fortress which 

 he had protected (14th of May 1810), in which were found five 

 hundred pieces of artillery. The fall of Lerida was followed by that of 

 Mequinanza (8th of June 1810), and Tortosa (2nd of January 1811). 

 These successes were followed by one still more important, the taking 

 of the city of Tarragona (28th of June 181 1), which was defended by a 

 garrison of 18,000 men; the city fell into the hands of the French 

 after a siege of two months, or rather, as Suchet himself expressed it, 

 after a succession of three sieges and five assaults ; they found in it, 

 according to the French accounts, five thousand cannon and abundant 

 munitions. The sanguinary nature of this siege may be judged from 

 the fact that upwards of 9000 Spaniards of the garrison are said 

 to have perished. The occupation of Mont-Serrat, a place of such 

 strength that it was deemed impregnable, followed soon after the fall 

 of Tarragona. These brilliant services were justly appreciated by 

 Napoleon, who rewarded them by raising Suchet to the dignity of a 

 Marshal of the Empire. In the latter end of the year 1811 Suchet 

 directed the operations of his army against Murviedro, the ancient 

 Saguntum, the fortifications of which had latterly been reconstructed 

 at considerable expense ; the defeat of General Blake and 30,000 men 

 under its walls, was followed, after about a month's siege, by the fall 

 of this important fortress. A reinforcement of fresh troops having 

 arrived from Navarre, Suchet next proceeded to invest the city of 

 Valencia, which surrendered to him by capitulation on the 10th of 

 January 1812. The fall of this city and of some fortresses in its 

 neighbourhood, was followed by the occupation of the entire province 

 of which it was the capital. AlbufeYa, which had been the scene of 

 his last successes, became the title of the dukedom to which he was 

 raised by Napoleon, who added to his title an extensive and valuable 

 domain. But he obtained a higher title to the respect and admiration 

 of posterity by the general expressed feeling of the Spaniards under his 

 rule, that he mitigated the horrors of war by his humanity, and dealt 

 equal justice to the conquerors and to the conquered. Marshal Suchet 

 pursued the same system of government in the province of Valencia that 

 had answered so well in that of Aragon ; he placed it in the hands of a 

 commission composed of enlightened aud respectable men. He called 

 together an assembly of persons of every class of society, and who 

 represented various interests, to vote the expenses of the war and 

 equitably to divide its burdens; and to them he rendered a faithful 

 and detailed account of the manner in which these taxes were em- 

 ployed. He manifested the same spirit of confidence and justice 

 towards the soldiers under his command, and found it productive of 

 the most beneficial results. 



The success which attended the British arms under Lord Wellington, 

 and the decisive victory which he obtained at Vittoria, compelled a 

 large portion of the French army to retreat beyond the Pyrenees, and, 

 in consequence, Suchet found himself under the necessity of abandon- 

 ing the eastern provinces of Spain, and to fall back upon Catalonia, 

 where he maintained himself for some time. Obliged at length to 

 evacuate this province, and to retreat towards the frontiers of France, 

 he effected this retreat in the attitude of a conqueror, and secured his 

 army from the reverses usually incident upon such an operation. On 

 reaching Narbonne, he signified, on 14th April 1814, his adhesion to 



