Auguste Marmont (20 July 1774-22 March 1852) was one of Napoleon Bonaparte's Marshals of the Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. A veteran of Napoleon's campaigns since the siege of Toulon, Marmont later deserted Napoleon and remained loyal to King Louis XVIII of France during the Hundred Days.
Biography[]
Born in Chatillon-sur-Seine, he volunteered for the French revolutionary army and fought at the Siege of Toulon in 1793. He made the acquaintance of Napoleon Bonaparte in the siege and served him in his Egyptian Campaign after September 1798. General Marmont was responsible for quelling the Cairo Revolt by the Mamelukes, before capturing additional lands from the Bedouin and Mamelukes in southern Egypt in early 1799. The Matruh Bedouin of Awlad Ali were forced to submit to him, and they joined the French Republic's alliance.
During the later campaigns of Napoleon he fought at the Battle of Marengo in 1800, and won a victory at the Battle of Ulm in 1805. After the Second Battle of Wagram in July 1809 he was made a Marshal along with Etienne-Jacques MacDonald and Nicolas Oudinot and he succeeded Jean-Andre Massena as commander of the French troops in the Peninsular War a year later. Marmont commanded one of the major armies in the Iberian Peninsula, along with fellow field army commanders Louis Gabriel Suchet, Claude-Victor Perrin, and Jean-Baptiste Jourdan. Marmont's army was destroyed at the Battle of Viseu by [[[Viscount Wellington]] in early May 1811. Wounded in the Battle of Salamanca, he retired to France to treat his wounds, and he fought at Lutzen, Bautzen, and Dresden in 1813's European campaign. He defended Paris in 1814, inflicting heavy losses, but he was captured and surrendered to the Bourbon monarchy.
After Napoleon was deposed on 11 April 1814, Marmont became a general of the new Kingdom of France. Serving the Bourbon monarchy, Marmont (despite being a moderate liberal) tried to suppress the July Revolution but since he was outmatched, he gave in. He chose to be exiled with Louis XVIII, guilty of forfeiting, and he died as the last Napoleonic marshal alive in Venice in 1852.
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