Louis-Nicolas Davout, duke of Auerstedt

Louis-Nicolas Davout, duke of Auerstedt (born May 10, 1770, Annoux, France—died June 1, 1823, Paris) was a French marshal who was one of the most distinguished of Napoleon’s field commanders.

Born into the noble family of d’Avout, he was educated at the École Royale Militaire in Paris and entered Louis XVI’s service as a second lieutenant in 1788. Amid the divisions caused by the French Revolution in the army, d’Avout sided with the pro-revolutionaries in 1790 and was forced out, but he was reinstated after the establishment of the First Republic two years later. At that time he changed the spelling of his name to Davout so as not to indicate his noble birth.

He served with distinction in the armies in northern France and Belgium and rose rapidly to the rank of general of brigade (1793). But the antiaristocratic Jacobins soon purged him from his position; after their fall from power in 1794, he was reinstated yet again. In 1798 he served under Napoleon in Egypt. Returning to France in 1800, Davout later married Louise-Aimée Leclerc, sister-in-law to Napoleon’s sister Pauline Bonaparte.

Given command of the troops at Bruges that became the Third Corps of Napoleon’s army and named marshal of the empire, Davout played a major role in the Battle of Austerlitz (1805). The following year, at Auerstädt, with 26,000 men of the Third Corps, he destroyed a Prussian army of nearly 60,000 troops; that success would earn him the title duke of Auerstädt. He also played a significant role in the Battles of Eylau (1807), Eckmühl (1809), and Wagram (1809).

Davout commanded the First Corps during Napoleon’s Russian campaign (1812) and was wounded at the Battle of Borodino. In 1813 Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of Leipzig, and his army retreated west of the Rhine. Davout was left in command of the besieged city of Hamburg, and from October 1813 to May 1814 he held the city, surrendering it only when the new Bourbon government of France confirmed that Napoleon had abdicated.

Upon Davout’s return to France, Louis XVIII refused to receive him. When Napoleon returned to power in 1815, Davout was named minister of war. Several months later, after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, Davout took the remains of the army south of the Loire River. He was forced out of the army and exiled to central France. In 1819 Davout was restored to his honours and title and named a peer of France.