Oudinot, Nicolas-Charles, Duke of Reggio


Oudinot, Nicolas-Charles, Duke of Reggio

Nicolas Charles Marie Oudinot, born April 25, 1767 in Bar-le-Duc and died September 13, 1847 in Paris, is Marshal of the Empire (1809).

He would be the soldier who received the most wounds during the wars of the French Revolution and the Empire, 24 wounds in total (1.14 wounds per year). In 1795-96, he received eleven wounds:two bullets and nine saber cuts).

French Revolution

Son of an artisan brewer, he joined the Médoc regiment from 1784 to 1787 where he obtained the rank of sergeant. He left after a few years, returned to civilian life, he can not stand boredom and indulges in a few pranks. He returned to his hometown where he married Charlotte Françoise Derlin with whom he had seven children.

He returned to service when the French Revolution broke out, and in 1791 was appointed chief of the 3rd battalion of Meuse volunteers. He distinguished himself in September 1792 by a fine defense of a Prussian attack on the castle of Bitche, he received the first injury of his career during this attack. He takes 700 prisoners.

He obtained the Picardy regiment whose colonel had just emigrated.

On 4 Prairial Year II (May 23, 1794) he fought his way through the bayonet at the Battle of Kaiserslautern, against the enemies of the Republic. This will earn him the promotion of colonel. In June 1794, attacked near Moclauter by 10,000 enemies, he resisted for ten hours with a single regiment, then retreated without being attacked, and as a reward for this conduct, he was made brigadier general on June 14.

The following July he seized Trier by a bold maneuver and commanded there until August 1795. Then transferred to the Army of Moselle, he was attacked in October at night at the Battle of Neckerau, wounded five times. sword, taken and sent to Germany, to be exchanged on 17 Nivôse, year IV (January 7, 1796).

Exchanged after five months, he took from the enemy, as soon as he returned to the army, Nordlingue, Donauworth and Neubourg. At the blockade of Ingolstadt, where he had to fight against tenfold forces, he received a bullet in the thigh, three saber strokes in the arms and one in the neck; however, without waiting for his recovery to be complete, he rejoined his division at Ettenheim and charged the enemy with his arm in a sling. The Manheim bridge affair, the battle of Feldkirch and the capture of Constance, which the Prince of Condé defended, earned him the rank of divisional general.

He served under Hoche, Pichegru and Moreau then in the year VII (1799) in the army of Helvetia under Masséna of which he was the chief of staff. Wounded again in the battle of Zurich, he became chief of staff of Masséna, whom he followed to Italy and with whom he supported the siege of Genoa. Retained by Brune in the functions of Chief of Staff of the Army of Italy, he distinguished himself in all the affairs in which the banks of the Mincio were the scene, on Christmas Day 1800, and was charged with bringing to Paris the news of the peace soon signed in Treviso.

After the Battle of Monzambano Napoleon awarded him a saber of honor and then the cross of the Legion of Honor.

He was elected in 1803 deputy of the Meuse (department) but without participating in the meetings of the chamber.

Empire

He selects soldiers to form a grenadier division in Lannes' corps which is nicknamed "the infernal column". It will not take long for these elite soldiers to be known as the "grenadiers of Oudinot".

Grand Eagle of the Legion of Honor in 1805, he left the Boulogne camp at the head of 10,000 grenadiers, seized Vienne as if passing, after 45 days of marching, presented himself at the Danube bridge defended by 180 pieces of cannon, tore out the wick of the first Austrian gunner, crossed the river, occupied the opposite bank with his division, and forced to capitulate all the enemy troops he encountered. Injured at Wertingen, he is replaced by Duroc. After having participated in the battles of Armstetten, Oudinot, wounded once again in that of Juncersdorff, attended, although convalescing, the battle of Austerlitz, where he picked up new laurels. In 1806 he took possession of the counties of Neuchâtel and Valangin, then he entered Berlin.

At the beginning of 1807, he won the battle of Ostrolenka in Poland, which earned him the title of count and an endowment of one million. He then went with a strong division to reinforce Marshal Lefebvre's corps which was besieging Danzig and brought about the capitulation of that place. Arrived late at the battle of Heilsberg, on June 10, 1807, after having traveled 60 km on a forced march, without stopovers, his grenadiers refused to participate in the final assault and the victory against the Russians, disdainfully rejecting a task which would add nothing to their glory. On June 14, attacked at one o'clock in the morning by 80,000 Russians in the plain of Friedland, he resisted until noon, and then Napoleon I, arriving with the rest of the army, won this bloody victory which was soon followed by the Peace of Tilsitt. Signed on June 25, during the interview, the Emperor presented Oudinot as the "Bayard of the French army" to Tsar Alexander.

Appointed Count of the Empire in 1808, he did not go to Spain, governor of Erfurt in 1808, during the meeting of sovereigns, Oudinot continued to command the united grenadiers in 1809. This vanguard, everywhere victorious, defeated the Austrians at Pfaffenhofen on April 19, entered Vienna on May 13, competed for victory at the Wagram, and earned him the title of Marshal (July 12, 1809) and Duke of Reggio. with a large sum of money in 1810.

In 1810, he seized the kingdom of Holland without firing a shot, and commanded there until the opening of the Russian campaign. Placed at the head of the 2nd Corps of the Grand Army, following the death of Marshal Lannes during the Battle of Essling, he went to Berlin, where he was governor for two months, and then took part in numerous battles until what, seriously wounded at that of Polotsk, he had to hand over his command to General Gouvion-Saint-Cyr. However, on learning soon of the evacuation of Moscow, the first French disasters and the wound of his successor, he hastened, although barely cured, to rejoin his corps, competed, with Marshals Ney, Mortier and Victor, to ensure to the remains of the French army the passage of the Bérésina, and was still wounded.

On January 12, 1812, he married Marie-Charlotte Eugénie de Coucy, a noblewoman, 24 years younger than him, with whom he had four children. His four sons and two sons-in-law are soldiers.

In 1813, he was present at the battles of Lützen and fought gloriously at Bautzen, but he suffered a severe defeat at the battle of Gross Beeren. After his defeat at the head, his troops were entrusted to Marshal Ney, whose fate he shared shortly after at Dennewitz.

In Leipzig he fought again; but a few days before the battle of Hanau he fell ill and was carried away dying from the theater of war. However, he took part in the most terrible affairs of the French campaign in 1814, in the battles of Brienne and Champ-Aubert, as well as in the reverses of Bar and Laferté-sur-Aube.

In Brienne, he has both thighs grazed by a cannonball; then at Arcis-sur-Aube, his Great Eagle plate stopped a bullet that should have been deadly.

After the capitulation of Paris and the forfeiture of Napoleon, the Duke of Reggio devoted himself entirely to the service of Louis XVIII, who appointed him colonel general of the grenadiers and royal hunters, and governor of Metz. Despite all his efforts, and the help given in this task by the prefect of Metz, the Count of Vaublanc, he was only able to contain the impatience of his troops as far as Troyes, who abandoned him to go to meet Napoleon. .

He spent the Hundred Days in his countryside of Montmorency. He avoids getting involved during the Hundred Days but is openly opposed to the condemnation of Marshal Ney. After the Second Restoration, on the proposal of the Comte de Vaublanc, then Minister of the Interior, he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Parisian National Guard, Major-General of the Royal Guard, Peer of France, Minister of State, Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Saint-Louis, and finally Knight of the Holy Spirit.

During the French invasion of Spain in 1823, Marshal Oudinot, at the head of an army corps, entered Madrid without firing a shot[6], received from the Prince Generalissimo the command of this capital, and until on his departure for Paris, he applied himself to containing a ferocious and fanatical populace.

When the revolution of July 1830 broke out, Oudinot was still one of the four major generals of the Royal Guard. He was sworn to the new government, but he seemed to sulk for some years; then, in 1837, he accepted the post of Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honor in 1839, which he left in 1842 only to become Governor of the Hôtel Royal des Invalides.

Marshal Oudinot died in the exercise of these last functions on September 13, 1847, at six o'clock in the evening. He was eighty years old.

He is the father of Nicolas Charles Victor Oudinot.