Bertrand Clauzel
Bertrand, Comte Clauzel, was a French soldier who served in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. He saw service in the Low Countries, the Italian Peninsula, Haiti, and the Iberian Peninsula, where he achieved short periods of independent command.
Clauzel spent the years 1815–1820 in exile in the United States before returning to France and becoming politically active in the republican and liberal opposition to the absolutist governments of Charles X.
Clauzel would later become a Marshal of France under the Orléans monarchy, following the July Revolution. Clauzel would return to active service in the French conquest of Algeria, first during the initial French expedition and later as governor. Napoleon listed Clauzel amongst his most skilful generals.
Early life and family
Bertrand Clauzel was born on the 12 of December 1772 in Mirepoix, in the County of Foix.Bertrand's father, Gabriel Clauzel, was a bankrupt wholesale merchant who had been disinherited by his own father. Gabriel had embraced the Revolution and served as a member of the Committee of Surveillance of Mirepoix. A deputy to the National Convention would later write that "his presence alone frightens the enemies of the new regime."
Bertrand joined the Mirepoix National Guard at the end of July 1789; the Guard was deployed by his father Gabriel to invest the episcopal palace of Mirepoix and harass the bishop in 1790.
In his extended family Bertrand had an uncle, Jean-Baptiste Clauzel, who was a politician in Ariège during the revolutionary period.
Military career (1791–1809)
Early military career
Clauzel enlisted in the 43rd Infantry as one of the volunteers of 1791. He saw service in the first campaign of the French Revolutionary Wars. Having distinguished himself repeatedly on the northern frontier with the 43rd Line Infantry Regiment and then in the eastern Pyrénées, Clauzel was made a chef de batallion. Clauzel would also be given the honour of bringing twenty four flags taken from the Spanish back to Paris to present to the National Convention.Italian campaigns
In 1798, Clauzel became the chief of staff to the division of General Emmanuel de Grouchy within the Army of Italy. In this role, he negotiated the abdication of the King of Sardinia in December 1798 from his mainland territories, namely Piedmont.As part of the negotiations, Clauzel sought noble hostages, to ensure the terms of the abdication were honoured. Clauzel did not succeed instead, returning with the Woman with Dropsy, a painting by the Dutch master Gerard Dou. Clauzel would donate it to the Louvre where it remains today.
Clauzel's efforts were well regarded by his superiors, with Grouchy writing to General Barthélemy Catherine Joubert, then chief of the Army of Italy that:
Clauzel was rewarded in 1799 with a promotion to général de brigade on 5 February. In this rank, he continued to serve in Italy, where he won great distinction at the battles of Trebbia and Novi. At Novi, Clauzel fought on the left wing of the army, initially helping to stabilise it against the Austrian attack, but managing to withdraw his own brigade after the enemy breakthrough enveloped much of the French left wing, trapping them against the Bormida River.
Clauzel took command of the 4th Division under General Louis-Gabriel Suchet in 1800, taking part in the Siege of Genoa. Clauzel's division saw heavy fighting as delaying actions were fought through mountain passes. During the campaign, he seized the redoubt of Melogno and participated in the attack on. Then, as the Army of Michael von Melas pushed towards the city, he endured the starvation of the siege before a negotiated surrender led to the armies repatriation to France. Later in December 1800, Clauzel fought at Pozzolo.
Expedition to Saint-Domingue and return to Europe
The Treaty of Amiens enabled Napoleon to organise the Leclerc expedition to reassert French control in the lucrative colony of Saint-Domingue following the Haitian Revolution. Clauzel seized Fort-Dauphin in December 1802, and became commander at Cap Français with a promotion to général de division.During his time in Le Cap, he purchased a house previously owned by Toussaint Louverture, at auction. Clauzel invoked this purchase, during a later corruption controversy over property in Algeria, as a model purchase that furthered French national interests encouraging stability in the fragile colony.
General Charles Leclerc died of yellow fever in 1803, under the command of Leclerc's successor, Donatien-Marie-Joseph de Vimeur, vicomte de Rochambeau, Clauzel became disillusioned due to Rochambeau's use of extreme violence and indiscriminate killing in an attempt to reassert French control. Clauzel worked with Général de brigade Pierre Thouvenot at first to try and influence Rochambeau before they eventually conspired to overthrow Rochambeau and exile him. Rochambeau learned of the plot and, in September 1803, ordered both Clauzel and Thouvenot arrested and deported. The frigate La ''Surveillante'', carrying Clauzel was shipwrecked off the coast of Florida. He survived the wreck and made his way to New York, where he obtained passage to France.
After his return to France, he was in almost continuous service in a number of coastal garrisons that saw no action. In 1806 when he was sent to the army of Naples, and made him a Grand Officer of the Légion d'honneur. In 1808–1809, he was under the command of Marshal Auguste de Marmont in Dalmatia, and at the close of 1809, Clauzel was assigned to the Army of Portugal under Marshal André Masséna.
The Peninsular War (1809–1814)
Clauzel initially commanded a division in the Army of Portugal during the Peninsular War. During the Siege of Aslorga, he defeated and drove back the Spanish corps positioned at Villa Franca into Galicia. Then at the Battle of Subiaco, he resisted a vastly superior enemy. These actions set conditions for the subsequent Torres Vedras campaign. Masséna's failures saw him replaced by Marmont, under whom Clauzel worked to re-establish the discipline, efficiency, and mobility of the army, which had suffered severely in the retreat from Torres Vedras.Salamanca: "a grand attempt to retrieve the battle"
After the failed invasion of Portugal in 1812, the French concentrated their forces to besiege Valencia and withdrew other units in preparation for the invasion of Russia. This left other areas of the Spanish theatre stripped of troops. General Lord Wellington, having previously secured key fortresses at the Spanish–Portuguese border, opted to attack, threatening the northern road connecting Madrid to Burgos and then on to France.Marmont initially retreated in the face of Wellington's superior forces, but once reinforced, he attempted to force the Anglo-Portuguese army to retreat or give battle. Marmont attempted this by marching to turn Wellington's flank, and threaten its lines of communication back to Portugal; it was these manoeuvres that instigated the Battle of Salamanca.
As the battle began, Clauzel's division was initially positioned behind the French left wing. After the rout of Jean Guillaume Barthélemy Thomières's division, Clauzel's division advanced to reinforce the faltering line. With both Marshal Marmont and General Jean Pierre François Bonet wounded, Clauzel, as the most senior officer available, assumed command of the French forces under challenging circumstances. Marmont's attempt to flank had exposed the divisions led by Thomières and Antoine Louis Popon de Maucune to an Anglo-Portuguese assault. According to Lewis Butler, Clauzel's subsequent actions constituted "a grand attempt to retrieve the battle".
The battlefield was characterised by two small hills, the lesser and the greater Arapiles. The lesser Arapile was situated at the heart of the Anglo-Portuguese army's position, while the greater Arapile occupied a central position in the French army's deployment. Both hills served as crucial points, securing the flanks of each army's formations. Clauzel's strategy aimed to counter the attack on his left flank by launching an assault on the Anglo-Portuguese centre to capture the lesser Arapile.
The offensive proved unsuccessful as it was met with staunch resistance from fresh enemy troops. The retreat and resulting disarray among the French forces left them vulnerable to subsequent assaults on their left and centre. The battle culminated in a resounding defeat for the French, with Butler noting that the engagements had rendered the divisions of Maucune, Thomières, and Clauzel incapable of functioning as cohesive military units.
Lievyns reports that Clauzel became known as the "unfortunate hero of the Arapiles" following the battle.
The Castile Campaign
The retreat from Salamanca posed significant challenges to Clauzel due to the substantial losses suffered by the French army. Initially, Maximilien Sébastien Foy's division, the only French unit relatively unscathed, provided cover as the rear guard. However, it suffered a decisive defeat the following day at the Battle of García Hernández. Clauzel managed to salvage what remained of the Army of Portugal as he retreated north of Burgos.The historian Mullié reports this retreat by the Army of Portugal was compared to the actions of Marshal Michel Ney during the retreat to Russia.
Burgos was besieged by Wellington before Clauzel could regroup his forces. With reinforcements from General Joseph Souham, Clauzel spent some time recovering from a gunshot wound to his right foot. Clauzel later resumed divisional command in the subsequent campaign, which saw Wellington retreat back to Ciudad Rodrigo. Despite Wellington's return to his initial position, Clauzel's costly defeat at Salamanca compelled French forces in Spain to focus their efforts against Wellington, leading to the liberation of Andalusia, Extremadura, and Asturias by Spanish forces.