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Paul Jourdan Biography & Facts

Jean-Baptiste Jourdan, 1st Count Jourdan (29 April 1762 – 23 November 1833), was a French military commander who served during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. He was made a Marshal of the Empire by Emperor Napoleon I in 1804. He was also a Jacobin politician during the Directory phase of the French Revolution, serving as member of the Council of Five Hundred between 1797 and 1799. One of the most successful commanders of the French Revolutionary Army, Jourdan is best remembered in the Revolution for leading the French to a decisive victory over the First Coalition at the Battle of Fleurus, during the Flanders campaign. Under the Empire he was rewarded by Napoleon with the title of Marshal and continued to hold military assignments, but suffered a major defeat at the Battle of Vitoria, which resulted in the Empire's permanent loss of Spain. In 1815 he became reconciled with the Bourbon Restoration, and later supported the July Revolution and served in his last years as governor of the Hôtel des Invalides. Early life Jourdan was born in Limoges, in the province of Limousin, on 29 April 1762. He was the only surviving child of Roch Jourdan, a surgeon originally from Meyrargues, and Jeanne Foreau-Franciquet. His mother died at childbirth when he was two years old, and after being raised by his father for a few years, Jourdan was put under the care of an uncle, the Abbé Laurent Jourdan, a parish priest who ran a boarding school in Beaurecueil, in Provence. His father died when he was nine years old, at around 1771, leaving Jourdan as an impoverished orphan. After finishing his basic education at the school in Beaurecueil, at fifteen years old Jourdan was sent to the care of another uncle, Jean-François Jourdan, a cloth merchant in Lyon and disciplinarian employer. Working as an apprentice clerk at the clothing shop, Jourdan endured for about a year in Lyon before enlisting in the Royal army in 1778, joining the regiment of Auxerrois stationed in the Île de Ré, which was destined for service in the American War of Independence. American Revolutionary War Jourdan spent the rest of the year with the regiment in Île de Ré before it departed for the war in America. He first saw action at the capture of Granada in mid-1779. A few months later the Auxerrois regiment was put under the command of the Comte d'Estaing, and in this assignment Jourdan soon participated in the ill-fated assault at the Siege of Savannah, in October 1779. Through the next years he served in the West Indies. He took part in the successful defense of the recently captured island of Saint Vincent, in 1780, and in the invasion of Tobago in 1781. During his duty in the West Indies, Jourdan fell ill with what was officially diagnosed as hernia, though it was likely an intestinal disease, and bouts of illness troubled him for the rest of his military career. Due to this period of poor health he missed most of the campaigns of 1782, only returning to the army at the end of the year. Return to Limoges In June 1784, Jourdan was demobilized from the Royal army in Verdun, and, after a period of unemployment, returned to his native Limoges and found work at a cloth merchant's shop, where he proved to be an excellent employee. He married Jeanne Nicolas Avanturier, the sister of his boss, in Limoges on 22 January 1788, and the couple had six children. War of the First Coalition Jourdan welcomed the French Revolution with enthusiasm. He was appointed lieutenant of the chasseurs of the National Guard in 1790, and when the National Assembly asked for volunteers, Jourdan was elected commander of the 9th battalion of volunteers from Haute-Vienne. He led his troops in the French victory at the Battle of Jemappes on 6 November 1792 and in the defeat at the Battle of Neerwinden on 18 March 1793. Jourdan's leadership skills were noticed and led to his promotion to Brigade general on 27 May 1793 and to general of division two months later. On 8 September, he led his division at the Battle of Hondschoote, in which he was wounded in the chest. On 22 September, he was named to lead the Army of the North. Three of his predecessors, Nicolas Luckner, Adam Philippe, Comte de Custine, and Jean Nicolas Houchard were under arrest and later executed by guillotine. Jourdan's first assignment was to relieve General Jacques Ferrand's 20,000-man garrison of Maubeuge which was besieged by an Austrian-Dutch army commanded by Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. The Committee of Public Safety felt that this mission was so important that it dispatched Lazare Carnot to oversee the operation. Jourdan defeated Coburg on 15–16 October at the Battle of Wattignies and broke the siege. Carnot claimed that it was his own intervention that won the victory. Historian Michael Glover writes that the first day's attack was a failure because of Carnot's interference, while the second day's success resulted from Jourdan using his own tactical judgment. In any case, only Carnot's account reached Paris. On 10 January 1794, after refusing to carry out an impossible order, Jourdan was brought before the Committee of Public Safety. Carnot presented Jourdan's arrest warrant, which was signed by Maximilien de Robespierre, Bertrand Barère, and Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois. Jourdan was saved from certain execution when an eyewitness, representative on mission Ernest Joseph Duquesnoy rose and contradicted Carnot's version of events at Wattignies. Spared from arrest, Jourdan was nevertheless dismissed from the army and sent home. The government soon recalled Jourdan to lead the Army of the Moselle. In May, he was ordered north with the left wing of the Army of the Moselle. This force was combined with the Army of the Ardennes and the right wing of the Army of the North to form an army which did not officially become the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse until 29 June 1794. With 70,000 soldiers of the new army, Jourdan laid siege to Charleroi on 12 June. A 41,000-man Austrian-Dutch army under the Prince of Orange defeated the French at the Battle of Lambusart on 16 June and drove them south of the Sambre River. Casualties numbered 3,000 for each army. Undeterred, Jourdan immediately marched on Namur to the east-northeast of Charleroi. Instead of attacking Namur, he suddenly swung west and appeared to the north of Charleroi. After a brief siege, the 3,000-man Austrian garrison of Charleroi surrendered on 25 June. Military strategist B. H. Liddell Hart cited Jourdan's maneuver as an example of the indirect approach, even though it was probably inadvertent on the French general's part. Too late to save Charlerloi, Coburg's 46,000-strong army attacked Jourdan's 75,000 French on 26 June. The Battle of Fleurus proved to be a strategic French victory when Coburg called off his attacks and retreated. During the battle, the Allied attacks pushed back both French flanks, but Jourdan stubbornly fought it out and was saved when General François Joseph Lefebvre.... Discover the Paul Jourdan popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Paul Jourdan books.