Louis-Henri Loison
Command Ratings
Commands
Louis-Henri Loison was a hard-driving French divisional commander whose career combined genuine battlefield ability with a reputation for severity that clung to him from the Revolutionary Wars onward. Rising quickly through the ranks after 1793, he proved himself a capable tactician in Germany and Switzerland before being sent to Portugal, where his harsh reprisals during the 1807–1808 occupation earned him lasting infamy among the Portuguese as “Maneta,” the one-handed general. In the wider Peninsular struggle he remained a dependable, if sometimes heavy-handed, commander, leading divisions under Junot, Soult, and Masséna, and fighting with determination at Bussaco, Fuentes de Oñoro, and in the long retreat from Portugal. Loison’s record is that of a soldier both competent and feared — a man whose energy and discipline served France well in the field, even as his severity left a darker imprint on the memory of Iberia.
X rank in 1795 Assisted Napoleon in suppression of the counter-revolution; X 99 Danube/Switzerland – L; XX 00 Marengo campaign; XX rank in 10/99; XX 05-06 Ulm campaign; XX 08-11 Spain – W, Vimiero, Bussaco, Coa River, Fuentes de Onoro; hated in Portugal and Spain for his treatment of the natives (massacre of Evora –7/25/08); XX 12 Russia; XX 13-14 (3/XIII – under Davout) – L, Defense of Hamburg. Missing an arm, he had the nickname "Maneta" (one-armed one) and often waved his empty sleeve at the enemy. (1771-1816)