Adolphe Édouard Casimir Joseph Mortier (°1768 Le Cateau-Cambrésis - †1835 Paris), Duke of Treviso, Marshal of the Empire (1804)
He was the son of Antoine-Charles-Joseph Mortier, deputy to the States General. He entered as a captain in the 1st Battalion of Northern Volunteers.
Entering the army as a second lieutenant in 1791, he served in the campaigns of 1792 and 1793 on the northeastern frontier and in Holland, and later on the Meuse and the Rhine. He had a horse killed under him at the Quiévrain affair and gave proof of his valor at the battles of Jemmapes, Nerwinde, and Sellemberg near Louvain. During the blockade of Valenciennes, he held out for six hours on the Persian river with 150 men, after the evacuation of the Famars camp. He was appointed adjutant-general at Hondschoote in October 1793. Wounded when he took possession of the village of Dourlers, he once again made his mark at Mons, Brussels, Louvain and Fleurus.
In 1794, under General Kléber, he seized Fort Saint-Pierre, and found himself, under the orders of Marceau, at the crossing of the Rhine at Neuwied.
In 1796, he was in command of the outposts of the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse under General Lefebvre. He signaled himself at Altenkirchen, at the battle of Friedberg, took the heights of Wildendorf and took 2,000 prisoners; seized Grossen, made Frankfurt capitulate, took Gemmunden by main force, where he made a large number of prisoners and took fifteen boats loaded with munitions of war, and finally forced General Wartensleben to effect his retreat on Bamberg. At the battle of Hirschied, at Ehmanstadt, Mortier gave proofs of the greatest value.
In the fort of Rotbemberg, which he seized, he found 60 pieces of cannon. Promoted to the rank of brigadier general in 1799, he contributed powerfully to the capture of Lieptengen.
In the war against the second coalition in 1799 he was successively promoted to general of brigade and general of division on September 27, 1799, he went to command the 4th division of the army of Helvetia. He fought with distinction in the various cases that preceded and followed the capture of Zurich, and assisted Masséna in effecting the complete expulsion of the enemy from Swiss territory. He then took part in the military operations which took place against the Austrians in the country of Grisons. A decree of the consular government soon called him to command the 15th and 16th military divisions, whose capital was Paris. In 1803, General Mortier was charged by the First Consul with the command of the army intended to seize Hanover. He crossed the Waal with 14,000 men, defeated the Hanoverian troops and forced Field-Marshal Waldomen to sign, on June 3, at Sublingen, an agreement which made the French masters of the entire Electorate. He received the most flattering praise from the First Consul and became one of the four commanders of the Consular Guard. The command of the artillery was specially entrusted to him. In 1804, Mortier was elevated to the dignity of Marshal of France; Grand Eagle of the Legion of Honor, he received the Cross of the Order of Christ of Portugal some time later.
In 1805, he commanded one of the corps of the Grande Armée under the orders of the Emperor. He commanded the infantry of the Imperial Guard during the Ulm campaign in which he distinguished himself in particular by his brilliant action at Dürrenstein.
In 1806 he was still in Hanover and in northwestern Germany, and Napoleon entrusted Mortier with the command of the 8th corps of the Grande Armée, made up of Gallo-Batavian troops. He captured Cassel on October 1 and Naumburg the following November. In 1807 he defeated the Swedes at Anclam and distinguished himself at the Battle of Friedland. Appointed Duke of Treviso, some time later, he received an endowment of 100,000 francs a year from the estates of the former electorate of Hanover. He was made governor of Silesia, and soon after he commanded during the campaign in Spain.
In 1808, he commanded the 5th corps of the army of Spain, took a glorious part in the siege of Zaragoza. He won the victory of Ocaña on November 18, 1809 where more than 60,000 Spaniards were crushed by less than 30,000 French. He was put in charge of the siege of Cadiz and defeated the Spanish at the Battle of Gebora on February 19, 1811.
In 1812, during the Russian campaign, Marshal Mortier was given command of the Young Imperial Guard. The Emperor appointed him governor of the Kremlin and gave him, when he retired, the terrible mission of blowing it up. Pursued by superior forces, the Duke of Treviso was attacked at the passage of the Bérésina and shared with Marshal Ney the honor of saving the remains of the Grande Armée. It was he who reorganized, in Frankfort-on-Main, the young Guard of which he had the command during the campaign of 1813. He fought in Lutzen, in Bautzen, in Dresden, in Wachau, in Leipzig and in Hanau. /P>
During the campaign of 1814, the Marshal Duke of Treviso took an active part in all the actions which marked this immortal campaign. It was he who, in the defense of Paris, was responsible for supporting the shock of the Allied army in the plain of Saint-Denis. Having arrived at the foot of the enclosure of this capital, the Emperor of Russia sent Count Orlov, his aide-de-camp, to Mortier to summon him to lay down his arms; the marshal replied:"The allies, in order to be at the foot of the Butte Montmartre, are not for that reason masters of Paris." The army would bury itself under its ruins rather than subscribe to a shameful capitulation; and when it can no longer defend itself, it knows how and where to retreat before and despite the enemy. »
Mortier left his position only after the Duke of Ragusa had concluded an arrangement for the evacuation of the capital. On the 8th of April he sent his adhesion to the acts of the Provisional Government. Immediately after the return of the Bourbons, in 1815, he entered the service of Louis XVIII. He was sent to Lille as commissioner extraordinary of the 16th division, of which he then became governor. The king named him Knight of Saint-Louis and Peer of France.
At the time of March 20, the Government resolved to form at Péronne an army of reserve, of which the Marshal was to have the command. Arriving in Lille a little before Louis XVIII, the Duke of Treviso hastened to warn M. de Blacas that the garrison was ready to rise and summoned the king to leave as soon as possible. The king having approved this advice, the marshal accompanied him to the bottom of the glacis, in order to impose on the soldiers by his presence. "I thank you for what you have done, Marshal," the king said to him. I give you back your oaths; always serve France and be happier than me. »
During the Hundred Days he joined Napoleon I who gave him a high command. Napoleon created Mortier a member of the new Chamber of Peers and entrusted him with the inspection of the frontier places of the East and the North, but at the start of the Waterloo campaign he left him.
After the Second Restoration, he was eliminated from the House of Peers which the king had just reformed and fell out of favor for a time. A member of the Council of War in charge of judging Marshal Ney, he declared himself incompetent. Appointed governor of the 15th military division in Rouen, in 1816, he was elected, the same year, member of the Chamber of Deputies by the department of the North, and reinstated, in the honors of the peerage in March 1819 and, in 1825, he was decorated with the Order of the Holy Spirit.
After the 1830 revolution, he was appointed Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honor.
In 1830-1831 he was Ambassador of France in Saint Petersburg, and on November 18, 1834 he was called to the Ministry of War and to the Presidency of the Council. He reluctantly accepted functions for which he knew he was little suited, and which he had already refused for the first time a few months earlier, when Marshal Gérard resigned.
See the article Government Édouard Adolphe Mortier.
An excellent man, modest, loyal, honest, Marshal Mortier completely lacks authority over the government, especially over those weighty ministers, aware of their value, Thiers and Guizot. “Not one of his words expresses intelligence,” laughs Charles de Rémusat. Uncomfortable in speaking, he stammers in front of the rooms that he does not manage to dominate. The situation ends up being detrimental to Louis-Philippe, whom the opposition accuses of having placed a puppet at the head of the government to better impose his personal policy. Ultimately, when Mortier tendered his resignation on February 20, 1835, officially for health reasons, the king did not think for a moment of retaining him.
In 1835, accompanying, as Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honor, King Louis-Philippe I during a review of the National Guard, the Marshal was killed with eleven other people in the Fieschi attack. The procession had reached the Boulevard du Temple, the Marshal complained of the heat which overwhelmed him. Someone urged him to retire; but he would not consent. “My place,” he said, “is with the king, among the marshals, my comrades in arms. No sooner had he expressed this resolution than he fell struck down by the shrapnel of the infernal machine which Fieschi had directed against the king. He was still alive when he was taken to a billiard room in the Turkish Garden. He tried to lean against a table; then suddenly, seized by the last convulsions, carried the body back, uttered a loud cry and expired.
He had for children:
* Caroline Mortier de Trévise (1800-1842), Marquise de Rumigny;
* Napoléon Mortier de Trévise (1804-1869), 2nd Duke of Treviso;
* Sophie Malvina Joséphine Mortier de Trévise, Countess of Bellozanne then, in her second marriage, Countess of Naives;
* Ève Stéphanie Mortier de Trévise, Countess Gudin.