Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr
Marshal of France (1764-1830)
Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr, 1st Marquis of Gouvion-Saint-Cyr (English: , French: [loʁɑ̃ də ɡuvjɔ̃ sɛ̃ siʁ]; 13 April 1764 – 17 March 1830) was a French military leader of the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. He was a made a Marshal of the Empire in 1812 by Emperor Napoleon, who regarded him as his finest general in defensive warfare.
Gouvion Saint-Cyr showed an early interest in drawing, but with the onset of the French Revolution, he joined the French Revolutionary Army in September 1792 and experienced a meteoric rise through the ranks. Promoted to general of division in June 1794, he fought the Austrians in Germany and Italy under the command of generals Moreau and Jourdan.
After a period in administrative roles, Gouvion Saint-Cyr was appointed Colonel General of the cuirassiers in 1804. He served as commander-in-chief of the camp of Boulogne from 1806 to 1808 and was then sent to Spain, where he scored a series of victories at the head of the Army of Catalonia. He took command of the VI Corps of the Grande armée during the Russian campaign, where he obtained his marshal's baton for his victory at the First Battle of Polotsk. He served in the German campaign of 1813 and was taken prisoner at the capitulation of Dresden in November 1813.
Returning to France in June 1814, Gouvion Saint-Cyr played no role during the Hundred Days and became Minister of War then Minister of the Navy and Colonies under the Bourbon Restoration. His tenure was marked by several important reforms such as the law on recruitment.
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This entry incorporates text from “Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.