Jean-Charles Pichegru
Jean -Charles Pichegru ( born February 16, 1761 Arbois, Franche -Comté, † April 5, 1804 in Paris) was a French general of the Revolutionary War, who played a leading role in the conquest of the Austrian Netherlands and Holland, and later with the counter- revolutionaries conspired and planned an assassination attempt against Napoleon Bonaparte.
Life
Pichegru studied with the Friars Minor and was a teacher of mathematics at the College of Brienne the habit, but never received the orders. Also at the military school in Brienne, he gave lessons, but Napoleon was not to his pupils.
In 1783 he appeared as a soldier in the artillery regiment of Auxerre, was at the outbreak of the French Revolution, which he joined from ambition with zeal, in Besançon and was the president of a political club in command of a battalion of the National Guard, which he led to the Army of the Rhine. Here he distinguished himself so that he came to the General Staff in 1792 and was promoted to major general in 1793.
In October entrusted with the command of the Army of the Rhine, he threw together with Hoche in December the Austrians back, seized Weißenburger lines, terrified and Landau took a Lauter castle. In February 1794, he was awarded the supreme command of all armed forces in the Netherlands, fought on the 26th - 29th April, the Siege of Mont Castel and Menen, defeated the Austrians under Friedrich Josias of Saxe- Coburg- Saalfeld and Frederick Augustus, Duke of York and Albany on May 18 at Courtrai and in June at Roeselare and Hooglede. According to Jean -Baptiste de Jourdan's victory at Fleurus Pichegru crossed the Scheldt, took Bruges, Ostend, Ghent and Oudenaarde, went on 18 October with 40,000 troops over the Meuse, captured on 27 December, supported by the frost, the island of Bommel and penetrated, welcomed by Dutch patriots as liberators, beginning in 1795 victoriously into the Netherlands.
Appointed in March 1795 as commandant of the city to Paris, he suppressed here on April 1, the popular uprising in the suburbs, but then returned to the Army of the Rhine and conquered Mannheim. Here he met on the mediation of the emigrants de Mont Gaillard on Louis Fauche - Borel, a bookseller of Neufchatel in Switzerland and agents of the Bourbons, the Pichegru on behalf of Condé made big promises when he leads back the Bourbons to the French throne.
Adolphe Thiers (1797-1877), French historian, liberal- conservative minister and president, describes in 1820 the background as follows: Condé, whose emigrant army was in the pay of the British government was asked by the British, Pichegru with his army to a flag change cause. Pichegru well-known tendency to a lush lifestyle - which was not possible with the meager Republican payment - should be rewarded with 1 million francs, the palace and park of Chambord, the Marshal dignity and the province of Alsace. His wife and children should receive a continuous annuity of 200,000 francs, in the Rhine Army all officers should keep their ranks, the commandant resulting pensions and their cities were assured the duty exemption on fifteen years. In return for that Pichegru should open the fortress Hüningen am Rhein, handed over to the Austrians and lead Prince Condé and his Army of the Rhine to Paris.
After Thiers wanted Pichegru neither a surrender of the fortress Hüningen, still negotiating the army of the Rhine, but only the participation of a number of selected officers of his staff. Maybe Pichegru had seriously not going to respond to the offer and delayed with change requests and counterclaims which was previously interrupted negotiations.
From now on, Pichegru business operations so careless that he seemed to reduce the yield of the French victories and thereby the government was suspicious. The new Board therefore entrusted him with a mission post in Sweden. Pichegru did not take this job but at, but withdrew in the former monastery Bellevaux about 70 km north back of his native town of Arbois. 1797 Member and President of the Council of Five Hundred, he was after the coup of 18 Fructidor (September 4 ) was arrested and sentenced to deportation to Cayenne. From there he escaped in June 1798 with seven companions to Paramaribo, went to England, joined in 1799 the Austro- Russian army under Alexander Mikhailovich Rimsky -Korsakov at, lived for some time in Germany and then returned to England.
After he had his previous connections resumed with the Bourbons, he designed with Georges Cadoudal the plan to assassinate the First Consul. Disguised both went to Paris in 1804, where Pichegru Jean -Victor Moreau anknüpfte compounds, but was arrested on February 28.
Before his trial came to the decision that he was found on April 5, 1804 in his dungeon in the Temple hanged on his neck cloth, perhaps by his own hand or on Bonaparte's command.
Honors
His name is inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris in the 3rd column.
1816 was erected to him in Arbois a statue.