French Revolutionary Wars general killed at Marengo
Returning to Europe in March 1800, he arrived at Marengo on 14 June as the Austrians were victorious along the line and led his three regiments against the enemy centre, yet was killed by a musket ball at the moment of victory.
A general of the French Revolutionary Wars. Born in 1768 at Ayat-sur-Sioule in Auvergne, he was educated at the Effiat military school and served in the royal army. In 1792, when most of his family emigrated, he refused and joined the Army of the Rhine, becoming provisional brigadier general on the merits of the combat at Lauterbourg. He served with the Army of the Rhine and in the 1795–1796 campaigns, covering Moreau's retreat, and was provisional commander-in-chief of the Army of England. In Egypt his division bore the Mamluk attack at the Battle of the Pyramids, and his Upper Egypt campaign won him the name 'Just Sultan' among the local population. Returning to Italy in 1800, he led the counterattack at Marengo with Boudet's division and was killed at the moment of victory. He is counted among the greatest generals of the Revolutionary Wars.
Also known as: Desaix de Veygoux · Just Sultan
Activities and affiliations
-
–1800
French First Republic state institutionsCorps Commander, Army of ItalyMain
Military command
Career Timeline
- 1783Commissioned sub-lieutenant in the Régiment de Bretagne
- 1793Made brigadier general on the merits of the combat at Lauterbourg, then general of division
- 1797–1798Provisional commander-in-chief of the Army of England
- 1798–1800Egyptian expedition; commanded the campaign in Upper Egypt
- 1800Fought at Marengo with the Army of Italy; killed in action
Related historical events
Death at Marengo and the disputed accounts of how he fell
Sources agree that Desaix was killed at Marengo on 14 June 1800, but they disagree about how he fell. The French article states that he was mortally wounded during the charge by a bullet through the heart, and notes that whether he turned back on hearing cannon fire behind him or on receiving a counter-order is disputed, with partisans on both sides. The English article records only that he was killed by a musket ball at the moment of victory.
Accounts from his own time and from later writers diverge further. The French article reports that Walter Scott killed him with a ball to the head, the Memorial of Saint Helena with a cannonball, and Napoleon's memoirs with a bullet to the heart, while General Mathieu Dumas, Simon Despreaux, who wrote his eulogy, and Decayrol, who embalmed the body, all had him killed by a gunshot wound to the chest. Even the words he is said to have spoken as he died, asking that the First Consul be told he regretted not having done enough to live in posterity, are not established. Decayrol asserted that he fell without any witness at all, and Bourrienne, an eyewitness, testified that he disappeared amid such confusion that the circumstances of his death could not be confirmed; the French article itself asks whether Desaix could have spoken and whether anyone could have recorded his words.
The divergence arose because Desaix's death was almost immediately fashioned into a legend. The victory at Marengo consolidated Napoleon's hold on power, and Desaix's death was commemorated as that of a man sacrificed to it. A 1983 exhibition at the Clermont-Ferrand museum of fine arts presented Desaix as a "hero in spite of himself" and judged that the legend around him was elaborately sustained as a propaganda tactic serving Bonaparte's benefit alone. The scattered and conflicting records of how he died are traces of that process.