Gabriel Jean Joseph Molitor, Marshal of France, born March 7, 1770 in Hayange (Moselle), died July 28, 1849 in Paris.
His father was a former soldier who took care of his son's education. The young Molitor enlisted, in 1791, in the second battalion of volunteers of his department; Unanimously elected captain, he served in the 1792 campaign in the Armée du Nord. Adjutant-General the following year in the Army of the Ardennes, he commanded a brigade under General Hoche at the Battle of Kaiserslautern. He took with three battalions the important position of Erhrlenbach defended by the right of the Prussian army. In the campaign of 1795, he commanded one of the columns which decided the success of the battle of Gersberg, near Wissembourg. During the next four campaigns, he assisted as chief of staff in all the operations of Pichegru, Kléber, Moreau and Jourdan. He was seriously wounded in an attack on Mainz. At the siege of Kehl, he fearlessly defended the island of Ehrlen-Bhein, and received the commission of brigadier general on July 30, 1799.
Sent to Switzerland under Masséna, Molitor successively defeated the Austrians in the battles of Schwitz, Mütten and Glaris. Threatened in the latter city by the two Austro-Russian corps of Jellachich and [Linken], he replied to a parliamentarian who came to summon him to surrender:“It is not I who will surrender, it will be you! »
During eight days of fierce fighting, he seized the bridge of Naffels six times, finally held his own there and succeeded in preventing the junction of the two enemy corps. Following this campaign, the Executive Board wrote a letter of congratulations to Molitor, and the Swiss government voted him thanks.
In 1800, Molitor went to serve under Moreau, in the Army of the Rhine, directed the passage of the river, and threw himself into the first boat with a company of grenadiers. He defeated the left of the Austrians at Stockack, and made them 4,000 prisoners. Soon after, with a division of 5,000 men, he succeeded in containing the Austrian corps of the Tyrol which numbered no less than 25,000 combatants. Constantly victorious in a host of partial battles, notably at Brégentz and Nesselwangen, he crowned this expedition by taking the important position of Feldkirch and the country of Grisons, which opened up communication for the French with the army of Italy.
At peace, Molitor was appointed general of division on October 6, 1800, and went to take command of the division of Grenoble, which he retained until 1805.
When hostilities resumed, he joined Masséna in Italy, who did them the honors of the vanguard division, with which, at Caldiero, he alone supported the attack of the Austrian right wing led by Archduke Charles .
After the Peace of Pressburg, the Emperor sent him to take possession of Dalmatia. Invested with all the civil and military powers, he introduced order in the administration and saved half the public revenue. Attacked first by sea, he pushed back the Russian squadron which was besieging Lézina, kidnapped 300 Russians landed in this island, and reconquered that of Curzola.
This campaign ended with the deblockade of Ragusa; he rushed there with 1,700 men, swept away the 10,000 Montenegrins and 3,000 Russians who threatened the city. The Ragusians conceived such gratitude for him that, in the churches, when chanting the Domine salvum, after the word imperatorem, they added:et nostram Uberatorem Molitorem. The Emperor created him Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor.
In 1807, Molitor led an army corps on the Baltic Sea, pursued the King of Sweden to the ports of Stralsund, and directed the operations of the left wing at the siege of this fortress, where he was the first to enter.
He remained in Pomerania with the title of civil and military governor general, until the end of 1808.
At the opening of the new German campaign in 1809, he had a division in the corps of Masséna. On May 19, at the head of one of his brigades, he effected the first crossing of the Danube at Ebersdorff, and flushed out the Austrians from the island of Lobau. Two days later, the 21st, he supported alone with his division, for several hours, the first shock of the Austrian army at Aspera. On July 6, during the Battle of Wagram, he was charged with the attack on the village of Aderkla, where he halted, for much of the day, the desperate efforts of the enemy's center.
Charged, in 1810, with the command of the Hanseatic towns, and, in 1811, of the departments of the former kingdom of Holland, General Molitor was still there in April 1813, when The Hague, Leiden and Zardam began to rise in insurrection. He calmed this movement by the speed and energy of his measures.
In 1814, when the defection of foreign soldiers had delivered this part of the territory to our enemies, Molitor returned to France, and La Chaussée, Châlons and La Ferté-sous-Jouarre were still witnesses of his courage.
Napoleon I, on his return from the island of Elba, found Molitor fulfilling the functions of inspector general, and entrusted him with the defense of the borders of Alsace, with a corps of 20,000 mobile national guards. At the second Restoration, Molitor ceased to be employed, and was even exiled from Paris; but Marshal Gouvion-Saint-Cyr, on his arrival at the Ministry of War, made him return his general inspection.
In 1823, General Molitor, called to command the second corps of the army of the Pyrenees, successively seized the kingdom of Aragon, Murcia, Granada, and made himself master of the places of Malaga, Cartagena and Alicante. These successes raised him to the dignity of Marshal of France on October 9, 1823, and opened the doors of the Chamber of Peers to him.
The July Monarchy appointed him in 1831 to the superior command of the 7th and 8th military divisions. In 1840, Marshal Molitor supported in the Chamber of Peers, with all the authority of experience, the system of fortifications of Paris, "so that this capital would never be attacked and that the defense of France would necessarily be transferred to its true ground, that is to say on the border”.
Called on October 6, 1847, to the government of the Invalides, Marshal Molitor had ceded this place of honor to the former King of Westphalia, Jérôme Bonaparte, to occupy the position of Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honor.
His name is inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile, on the east side.
Titles
Marshal, Count (letters patent of March 19, 1808), Baron (letters patent of June 15, 1824) and peer of France. Marshal of France in 1823. Civil and Military Governor of Dalmatia. Governor of Pomerania. Governor of the Hanseatic Cities and of Holland. Grand Chancellor and Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor January 31, 1815. Knight of the Order of Saint Louis and of the Holy Spirit. Commander of Saint Louis. Knight of the Iron Crown of Austria. Commander of Military Merit of Baden. Grand Cross of Military Merit of Baden. Grand Cross 1st Class of the Order of Saint Vladimir.