Louis-Gabriel Suchet - Napoleonic Wars

Napoleonic Wars

In the campaigns of 1805 and 1806 he greatly enhanced his reputation at Austerlitz, Saalfeld, Jena, Pułtusk and Ostrolenka, where he commanded an infantry division. He obtained the title of count on 19 March 1808, married on 16 November of the same year Mlle. Honorine Anthoine de Saint-Joseph (Marseille, 26 February 1790 – Paris, 13 April 1884), a niece of Julie Clary, the wife of Joseph Bonaparte, by whom he had issue, and soon afterwards was ordered to Spain. Here, after taking part in the Siege of Saragossa, he was named commander of the army of Aragon and governor of that region, which he by wise, unlike that of most of the French generals, and adroit administration no less than by his brilliant valour, in two years brought into complete submission. Beaten by the Spanish at Alcañiz, he sprung back and soundly defeated the army of Blake at María on 14 June 1809, and on 22 April 1810 defeated Henry Joseph O'Donnell, Count of La Bisbal at Lleida.

He was made Marshal of France (8 July 1811) after the siege of Tarragona. In 1812 he captured Valencia, for which he was rewarded with the ducal victory title (honorary, not attached to an actual fief) of duc d'Albufera da Valencia in 1813. When the tide turned against France, Suchet defended his conquests one by one until compelled to withdraw from Spain, after which he took part in Soult's defensive campaign of 1814.

The restored Bourbon king Louis XVIII made him a peer of France on 4 June, with a seat in the upper house, but, having commanded one of Napoleon's armies on the Alpine frontier during the Hundred Days, he was deprived of his peerage on 24 July 1815. He died in the Castle of Saint-Joseph near Marseille on 3 January 1826.