November 5, 1770 (Kassel) - July 15, 1830 (Kassel)
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- Vandamme, Dominique-Joseph René, Count of Unsebourg
Dominique-Joseph René Vandamme (born in Cassel on November 5, 1770, died in Cassel on July 15, 1830). Empire General, Count of Unebourg.
The revolution
Son of a surgeon from Cassel, a pupil of the Military School of Paris, and maintained by Marshal de Biron, he entered, on July 8, 1788, as a soldier in the 4th auxiliary battalion of the colonial regiment, embarked on 2 February 1789, in Lorient, on the flute Uranie, arrived on March 31 in Martinique, and was immediately incorporated into the regiment of this colony.
Returning with the rank of sergeant in France, on April 29, 1790, he passed, on June 22, 1791, to the Brie regiment, from 24th infantry, and received his final discharge on August 26, 1792.
In 1792, enthusiastic about the ideas of the French Revolution, Vandamme formed a free company in his native country. He led it to the Army of the North, and this company having been amalgamated with the battalion of hunters of Mont-Cassel, he became commander of this corps on September 5, 1793.
The armies of Hanover occupy Hondschoote. The British are camped in front of Dunkirk, which they threaten to invade. He commanded the Kassel battalion which he led during the Battle of Hondschoote (September 6 to 8) (under the orders of Houchard).
On September 27, 1793, at the age of 23, he was promoted to brigadier general and took part in the capture of Veurne on 30 Vendémiaire, Year II. He contributed, the 1st Thermidor, to the capture of Ypres.
In July 1794, during the capture of Nieuport under the orders of Moreau, a large part of the emigrants who had taken refuge there were massacred. He was forced to withdraw before superior forces, he lost part of his artillery. In this same campaign, Vandamme distinguished himself before Vanloo and took Menin.
During that of Year III, acting in command of Moreau's division, he captured Fort Schenck on 16 Brumaire, and on the 19 he drove the enemy out of Budwich.
Nevertheless, during the reorganization of the general staff of the army, on 25 Prairial, he was reformed. This disgrace came from the fact that he had been denounced as a terrorist and as having delivered Veurne to pillage.[2] However, the Committee of Public Safety, by decree of 7 Vendémiaire Year IV, put him back in service.
Sent to the West on September 29, 1795, he quickly regained his rank in the army of Sambre-et-Meuse commanded by Jourdan, then in the army of Rhin-et-Moselle.
Vandamme carried off, on 27 Thermidor of the same year, the gate which defended the little town of Alpersbasch, crossed the Lech, under the deadliest fire, and on the attack from the heights of Friedberg, rushing on the Austrians at the At the head of three regiments of light cavalry, he took from them 16 pieces of cannon, and pursued them with sabers at their loins as far as the valley of the Sarre. A few days later, he was again noticed by an impetuous attack on the entrenchments of Kehl and Huningue.
The following year, at the crossing of the Rhine, at Diersheim, where he had a horse killed under him, he made the first landing, penetrated beyond Gegenbach, and defeated the enemy between Zimmern and Benchen, and drove him out on the Kniebis. .
The attack at Rastadt having reignited the war, Vandamme, who had been appointed general of division on 17 Pluviôse, Year VII, was given command of the left wing of the Army of the Danube.
One day, when weakly accompanied, he was going to reconnoiter the enemy outposts, he fell into an ambush of dragoons from the Latour regiment. Almost immediately abandoned by his family, he fought alone against 8 opponents, killed 2, put the others to flight and returned to the French camp.
New accusations having been directed against him, the Directory, by a decree of 8 Floréal, brought him before a court martial, but another decree dated 2 Fructidor annulled the first. Then the minister sent Vandamme to the coasts of the North-West, in order to provide for their defence.
This operation completed, on September 19, 1799, Vandamme, placed this time in the army of Holland under the command of Brune, went to the Netherlands, then invaded by the combined forces of England and Russia. Placed on the left wing of the Gallo-Batavian army, he took an entire Russian division in the battle of Bergen, and contributed powerfully to the French victory at Kastricum. He pursues the Duke of York until he re-embarks.
After a few days spent in Cassel to recover from his fatigues, on January 20, 1800, he found his friend Moreau in a campaign of the army of Germany which was crowned with success:he found himself crossing the Rhine by the army of this name, capitulated the fort of Hohentweil, which was defended by 80 pieces of cannon, and then fought at Hohenwiel on the 2nd, Stockach on the 3rd, Engen on the 4th, Moeskirch on the 5th, Menningen on the 10th.
On August 17, 1800, he was accused this time of abuse and administrative irregularities, he was again dismissed, but for a very short time since he was assigned to the army of Graubünden under the orders of Macdonald. Put in treatment for reform on 29 Thermidor, Year VIII, and recalled on 19 Fructidor to active service, he commanded the vanguard of the so-called reserve army, with which he crossed the Splügen. On February 9, 1801, the Peace of Lunéville put an end to a difficult campaign, in which Vandamme very often distinguished himself.
Welcomed on his return in the most flattering manner by the First Consul, he received a pair of pistols from the Versailles factory. Appointed member of the Legion of Honor on 19 Frimaire, Year XII, and Grand Officer of the Order on the following 25 Prairial, when he had the 2nd division of the Saint-Omer camp under his command.
The Empire
On October 6, 1805, it was Napoleon I's first campaign in Germany. Vandamme, who commands the 2nd Division in Marshal Soult's IVth Army Corps, had the honor of dealing the first blows to the Austrian army on 13 Vendémiaire, by overthrowing the Colloredo regiment at the Donawert bridge. who lamented the loss of 60 men and 150 prisoners.
On December 2, 1805, during the Battle of Austerlitz, Vandamme fought furiously to conquer the Pratzen plateau and repelled the Russian infantry with bayonets before taking the village of Augezd and then that of Telnitz. His division occupied Marshal Soult's left. The victory was spectacular:45,000 Russians and Austrians killed, wounded or prisoners (including 15 Russian generals), 40 flags and 120 guns taken.
These actions earned Vandamme, the 3 Nivôse, the dignity of Grand-Aigle of the Legion of Honor, as well as a dwelling in the polders of the island of Cadsand.
On December 2, 1806, Napoleon sent him alongside his brother Jérôme. At the head of a Württemberg division, he seized Glogau on December 5, brought down Breslau which capitulated on January 4, 1807, Brieg-sur-Oder on January 17, Schweidnitz on February 8, Neisse on June 16. Proceeding then to Glatz, he forced, on the 23d of June, the entrenched camp established in front of that town. On October 22, 1806, he was made Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Holland and Frederick of Württemberg made him Grand Cross of the Military Order.
The Emperor had given him command of the 16th military division on September 11, 1807, and had invested him with that of the Boulogne camp on August 16, 1808; he sent him, on March 11, 1809, to Hiedenheim, to put himself at the head of 10,000 Württembergers forming the 8th corps of the grand army, with which, on April 29, jointly with Marshal Lefebvre, he defeated the Austrian division at Abensberg of General Thierry, took on April 22, 1809 at the Battle of Eckmühl the castle and the village of this name, and, on May 17, vigorously repelled the enemy at Urfar. In July 1809, he was wounded at Wagram.
Reinstated, on his return from the army, in the command of the Boulogne camp, occupied during his absence by General Sainte-Suzanne, he allowed himself to settle violently in the mayor's house and to have the furniture thrown out. he did not find to his liking.[3] Napoleon sent Vandamme to the 14th military division, after appointing him, on January 1, 1811, president of the electoral college of Hazebrouck. Some time earlier he had created him Count of Unebourg.
Although destined to command the Westphalian troops forming part of the Russian expeditionary army, he did not take part in this campaign, having been laid off on August 6, 1812, following his disputes with King Jerome.
Recalled to the Grand Army on March 18, 1813, he commanded the 1st Corps there. Master of Haarbourg on April 27, on the 29th he occupied the island of Wilhemsburg, which enabled him to begin the bombardment of Haarbourg, which the enemy evacuated on the night of the 30th to the 31st, and he was preparing to march against the Russians , when an armistice temporarily suspended hostilities.
These being retaken, he seized, on August 25, Perne and Hodendorf, defeated on the 28th, the Duke of Wittenberg, to whom he made 2,000 prisoners, passed the gorge of the great chain of the mountains of Bohemia and marched on Kulm, where 10,000 Russians, commanded by General Ostermann, forced him to fall back after a stubborn fight. [4] It is the defeat of Kulm. He was captured by Cossacks as he tried to save his army and was taken prisoner. Taken to Moscow, then transferred to Kasan, twenty leagues from Siberia.
In 1814, at the signing of peace. He is back in France on September 1, he is under house arrest in Cassel by order of the government. The event of March 20, 1815 brought him back to the world stage. He immediately went to Paris. During the Hundred Days, Vandamme joined the Emperor who made him a peer of France. On April 9, 1815, Napoleon placed him in command of the 3rd Army Corps, with which, after the Battle of Ligny, he gained a significant advantage at Wavre.
He was pursuing the enemy when he learned of the disorder of the Battle of Waterloo.
However, constantly harassed by the Prussians, he effected his retreat in good order, crossed the Sambre at Namur, without them daring to worry him, and continued his retrograde movement towards Paris, where he brought back his army corps almost intact thus that a considerable material.
Vandamme then occupied Montrouge, Meudon, Vanves and Issy. Several generals, headed by Philibert Fressinet, came to find him there to offer him the command of the army:he refused. - Paris being occupied by the allies, Vandamme withdrew behind the Loire, and sent his submission to the king, which did not prevent him from being included in the ordinance of July 24.
Restoration
He retired at first to a castle near Limoges, but the prefect of Haute-Vienne having ordered him to leave this department within twenty-four hours, he took the road to Orléans and went to Vierzon. /P>
Finally, included in the ordinance of July 14, 1815, he had to leave the kingdom, and finding no asylum in Belgium, he embarked for the United States.
The ordinance of December 1, 1819, on the banished, put an end to his exile; it was even restored, on April 1, 1820, to the framework of the General Staff as available. Then he took his final retirement on January 1, 1825.
From that time Vandamme lived in retirement. He spent the summer in Cassel, the winter in Ghent, occupying his spare time with charitable works and writing memoirs. He died in Cassel on July 15, 1830.
His name is inscribed on the north side of the Arc de Triomphe.
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- Vandamme in Germany