Baron Emmanuel Felix de Wimpffen (13 September 181126 February 1884) was a French soldier and general of

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descent.

Biography

A member of the Wimpffen family, de Wimpffen was born in

Laon Laon () is a city in the Aisne department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. History Early history The holy district of Laon, which rises a hundred metres above the otherwise flat Picardy plain, has always held strategic importance. ...

, the illegitimate son of Baron Félix Victor Charles Emmanuel de Wimpffen by Cornélie Bréda. His father was a general in the

French Army History Early history The first permanent army, paid with regular wages, instead of feudal levies, was established under Charles VII of France, Charles VII in the 1420 to 1430s. The Kings of France needed reliable troops during and after the ...

who had been created a

Baron of the Empire As Emperor of the French, Napoleon I created titles of nobility to institute a stable elite in the First French Empire, after the instability resulting from the French Revolution. Like many others, both before and since, Napoleon found th ...

in 1810. In 1836 he was recognized by his father. Entering the army from the military school of Saint-Cyr, he saw considerable active service in

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, and in 1840 became captain; in 1847 ''chef de bataillon''. He first earned marked distinction in the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the ...

as colonel of a

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''Turko-Persia in historical perspective'', Cambridge University Press, ...

regiment, and his conduct at the storm of the Mamelon won him the grade of general of brigade. In the campaign of 1859 he was with General MacMahon at the

battle of Magenta The Battle of Magenta was fought on 4 June 1859 during the Second Italian War of Independence, resulting in a French-Sardinian victory under Napoleon III against the Austrians under Marshal Ferencz Gyulai. It took place near the town of Mage ...

at the head of a brigade of Guard Infantry, and again won promotion on the battlefield. Between this campaign and the Franco-Prussian War, he was mainly employed in Algeria, and was not at first given a command in the ill-fated

Army of the Rhine An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

. But when the earlier battles revealed incapacity in the commander of the 5th corps, De Wimpffen was ordered to take it over, and was given a dormant commission appointing him to command the

Army of Châlons , image= Macmahon.jpg , image_size = 250 , caption= Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Marshal Mac Mahon , dates= 17 August – 2 September 1870 , allegiance= , branch=French Army , command_structure=1st Army Corps5th Army Corps7th Army Corps 12th A ...

in case of Marshal MacMahon's disablement. He only arrived at the front in time to rally the fugitives of the 5th Corps, beaten at

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, and to march them to Sedan. In the disastrous

Battle of Sedan The Battle of Sedan was fought during the Franco-Prussian War from 1 to 2 September 1870. Resulting in the capture of Emperor Napoleon III and over a hundred thousand troops, it effectively decided the war in favour of Prussia and its allies, ...

on the first of September, MacMahon was soon wounded, and the senior officer, General Ducrot, assumed the command. Ducrot was beginning to withdraw the troops when Wimpffen produced his commission and countermanded the orders. In consequence it fell to him to negotiate the surrender of the whole French army. After his release from captivity, he lived in retirement at

Algiers Algiers ( ; ar, الجزائر, al-Jazāʾir; ber, Dzayer, script=Latn; french: Alger, ) is the capital and largest city of Algeria. The city's population at the 2008 Census was 2,988,145Census 14 April 2008: Office National des Statistiques d ...

, and died at

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

in 1884. His later years were occupied with polemical discussions on the surrender of Sedan, the responsibility for which was laid upon him. He wrote, amongst other works, ''Sedan'' (1871), ''La Situation de la France, et les reformes necessaires'' (1873) and ''La Nation armée'' (1875).

References

External links

* http://www.wimpffen.hu/ * https://web.archive.org/web/20110719132951/http://www.wimpffen.dk/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Wimpffen, Emmanuel Felix de 1811 births 1884 deaths People from Laon French generals Grand Officiers of the Légion d'honneur Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery Emmanuel Felix Barons of France