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Jean Lannes, duke of Montebello (April 11, 1769 -
May 31, 1809), marshal of France, was born at
Lectoure (Gers).

He was the son of a livery stables keeper, and was
apprenticed to a dyer. He had had little
education, but his great strength and proficiency
in all manly sports caused him in 1792 to be
elected sergeant-major of the battalion of
volunteers of Gers, which he had joined on the
breaking out of war between Spain and the French
republic. He served through the campaigns in the
Pyrenees in 1793 and 1794, and rose by
distinguished conduct to the rank of chef de
brigade. However, in 1795, on the reform of the
army introduced by the Thermidorians, he was
dismissed from his rank.

He re-enlisted as a simple volunteer in the army
of Italy, and in the famous campaign of 1796 he
again fought his way up to high rank, being
eventually made a general of brigade by Napoleon
Bonaparte|Bonaparte. He was distinguished in every
battle, and was wounded at Arcola. He was chosen
by Bonaparte to accompany him to Egypt as
commander of one of Jean-Baptiste
Kléber|Kléber's brigades, in which capacity he
greatly distinguished himself, especially on the
retreat from Syria. He went with Bonaparte to
France, assisted at the 18th Brumaire, and was
appointed general of division, and commandant of
the consular guard. He commanded the advanced
guard in the crossing of the Alps in 1800, was
instrumental in winning the battle of Montebello,
from which he afterwards took his title, and bore
the brunt of the battle of Marengo.

In 1801 Napoleon sent him as ambassador to
Portugal. Opinions differ as to his merits in this
capacity; Napoleon never made such use of him
again. On the establishment of the empire he was
created a marshal of France, and commanded once
more the advanced guard of a great French army in
the campaign of Austerlitz. At Austerlitz he had
the left of the Grand Armée. In the 1806-07
campaign he was at his best, commanding his corps
with the greatest credit in the march through the
Thuringian Forest, the action of battle of
Saalfeld|Saalfeld (which is studied as a model
to-day at the French Staff College) and the battle
of Jena. His leadership of the advanced guard at
battle of Friedland|Friedland was even more
conspicuous.

He was now to be tried as a commander-in-chief,
for Napoleon took him to Spain in 1808, and gave
him a detached wing of the army, with which he won
a victory over Francisco Castaños|Castaños at
Tudela on November 22. In January 1809 he was sent
to attempt the capture of Saragossa, and by
February 2i, after one of the most stubborn
defences in history, was in possession of the
place. Napoleon then created him duc de
Montebello, and in 1809, for the last time, gave
him command of the advanced guard. He took part in
the engagements around Eckmtihl and the advance on
Vienna. With his corps he led the French army
across the Danube, and bore the brunt, with Andre
Massena|Masséna, of the terrible battle of
Aspern-Essling. On May 22 he had to retreat.
During-the retreat Lannes exposed himself as usual
to the hottest fire, and received a mortal wound,
to which he succumbed at Vienna on May 31. As he
was being carried from the field to Vienna he met
the emperor hurrying to the front. It was reported
that the dying man reproached Napoleon for his
ambition, but this rests on little evidence save
the fact that Lannes was the most blunt and
outspoken of all Napoleon's marshals. He was one
of the few men for whom the emperor felt a real
and deep affection, and at this their last meeting
Napoleon gave way to a passionate burst of grief,
even in the midst of the battle. His eldest son
was made a peer of France by Louis XVIII of
France|Louis XVIII.


Lannes ranks with Louis Nicolas Davout|Davout and
Masséna as the ablest of all Napoleon's marshals,
and consciously or unconsciously was the best
exponent of the emperor's method of making war.
Hence his constant employment in tasks requiring
the utmost resolution and daring, and more
especially when the emperor's combinations
depended upon the vigour and self-sacrifice of a
detachment or fraction of the army. It was thus
with Lannes at Friedland and at Aspern as it was
with Davout at Austerlitz and Auerstadt, and
Napoleon's estimate of his subordinates'
capacities can almost exactly be judged by the
frequency with which he used them to prepare the
way for his own shattering blow. Routine generals
with the usual military virtue, or careful and
exact troop leaders like Nicolas Jean de Dieu
Soult|Soult and Etienne-Jacques-Joseph-Alexandre
MacDonald|Macdonald, Napoleon kept under his own
hand for the final assault which he himself
launched, but the long hours of preparatory
fighting against odds of two to one, which alone
made the final blow possible, he entrusted only to
men of extraordinary courage and high capacity for
command. In his own words, he found Lannes a
pygmy, and lost him a giant. Lannes's place in his
affections was never filled.

==References==
*1911
**See R Penn, Vie militaire de Jean Lannes (Paris,
1809).