Louis Charles Antoine Desaix
Command Ratings
Commands
- Commands the Corps Desaix of French Army of the Reserve at Marengo (1800, age 32) †
Louis Charles Antoine Desaix de Veygoux was born on 17 August 1768 at the Château d’Ayat (Ayat-sur-Sioule, Auvergne). He was educated at the military school at Effiat and entered the royal army as an officer in 1783. During his early service he held junior infantry commissions in garrison postings and pursued professional military study.
After 1792 he served with the revolutionary field armies on the north-eastern frontiers. Rising rapidly during the campaigns of 1793–1794, he held senior field command and received promotion to général de division while employed against Coalition forces on the Rhine and in adjacent theatres. During the mid-1790s he continued in divisional command in the German campaigns, operating under the principal French army commanders in the theatre and participating in the successive operations that carried the war across the Rhine and back again as circumstances required.
In 1797 Desaix was brought into Bonaparte’s circle after the Italian campaign, and in 1798 he joined the expedition to Egypt. In the Armée d’Orient he commanded Major detachments and was entrusted with extended operations in Upper Egypt, conducting field actions against Mamluk and allied forces and administering French-held districts under delegated authority while the main army remained based in Lower Egypt.
In early 1800 he left Egypt and returned to France, then proceeded to join Bonaparte for the renewed Italian operations of the War of the Second Coalition. On 14 June 1800, during the Battle of Marengo, he arrived with a division during the latter phase of the action and took part in the counter-attack that helped restore the French position. He was killed in action on the battlefield the same day.
Sources
Com. 1783; X rank in 9/93; X & XX 94-95– Army du Haut-Rhine; XX rank 10/94; XXX (Temp. - 27000) 96 Army du Rhine – WW; XX 97 Italy; XX 98-99 Egypt – Pyramids; XX 00 Marengo (KIA). "Well-squared." "The Just Sultan." (1768-1800)