Claude-Henri Belgrand de Vaubois (; 1 October 1748 – 14 July 1839) was a French general of the Revolutionary Wars.
He led a division during Napoleon’s First Italian Campaign and commanded the Grand Harbour of Valletta from 1798 to 1800 during the Siege of Malta, eventually surrendering to the British.
Vaubois subsequently sat in the Senate under the Consulate and the Empire. Napoleon created him Count of the Empire in 1808. He served in the Chamber of Peers during the Bourbon Restoration. His name was inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe.
Ancien Régime Claude-Henri Belgrand was born in 1748 in Clairvaux, in the province of Champagne. His father, Henri Belgrand (1707–1792), was an ironmaster and tax collector for the Duchy of Châteauvillain on behalf of Louis de Bourbon, grandson of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan. His mother, Anne (1712–1786), was the daughter of Abraham Febvre, who was also an ironmaster in the Arc-en-Barrois region. Through his mother’s family, Belgrand was connected to the regional nobility. He was also a distant cousin of Auguste de Marmont, Marshal of the Empire.
Known as Vaubois, Belgrand studied with the Oratorians in Troyes.. At the age of twenty, he entered the French Royal Army as an officer cadet at the Royal Artillery School of Auxonne.. Promoted to lieutenant in 1770, he was made captain in 1784 in the La Fère Regiment, where he met the young Napoleon in 1788.
The French Revolution In the autumn of 1791, shortly after the French royal family unsuccessfully attempted to flee the country, Vaubois was made a Knight of Saint Louis. His younger brother, a Knight Hospitaller, emigrated to Malta following the nationalization of his order's property. When their father died in September 1792, his ironworks were confiscated by the newly proclaimed French Republic. Despite being removed from the rolls of the Revolutionary Army, Vaubois enlisted in one of the volunteer battalions attached to the Army of the Midi, and was elected its commanding officer.
Army of the Alps
In the summer of 1793, his battalion was attached to the Army of the Alps, commanded by General Kellermann, the victor of the Battle of Valmy, who led the Republican forces during the Siege of Lyon. Kellermann appointed him provisional brigadier general on 3 August, a promotion confirmed by the National Convention on 6 September. At Lyon, Vaubois's columns captured the Pont Morand on 15 September, followed by the Brotteaux district the following week. The insurgents capitulated on 9 October, and the city was subjected to a severe repression ordered by the Committee of Public Safety.
At the end of 1793, as the Reign of Terror intensified with the passage of the Law of Suspects, General Kellermann was imprisoned. Vaubois, meanwhile, was sent to Savoy. The former duchy, annexed from the Kingdom of Sardinia, had become the department of Mont-Blanc. He took command of the troops stationed in the Tarentaise Valley and advanced southward, crossing the Alps into Piedmont. In September 1794, after fierce hand-to-hand fighting, he captured a strategic mountain pass, thereby opening the way into the Stura di Demonte Valley. Following his release by the Thermidorian Convention, Kellermann resumed command of the Army of the Alps in 1795. Vaubois was promoted to major general.
First Italian Campaign On 2 March 1796, Napoleon assumed command of the Army of Italy and won a series of victories over the Sardinians, forcing King Victor Amadeus III to abandon his alliance with Austria under the Armistice of Cherasco. In May, the Directory ordered General Kellermann to detach a division of 12,000 men to reinforce the Army of Italy, which was then advancing through Lombardy. The division was placed under Vaubois's command and joined General Sérurier's forces during the Siege of Mantua.
As Napoleon advanced toward Bologna, he ordered Vaubois to march on Reggio on 15 June. Following the armistice with Pope Pius VI, the commander-in-chief turned toward the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and occupied the port of Livorno on 29 June, where the French confiscated goods that the British had been unable to ship. Vaubois was appointed military commander of the city. On 20 July, Bonaparte reprimanded Vaubois in a letter, reproaching him for alienating Tuscan and Genoese merchants and for yielding to Commissioner Garrau’s demands by issuing a proclamation against the French émigrés.
On 6 August 1796, the day after the Battle of Castiglione, Vaubois was recalled to Bonaparte's side to replace General Sauret. The Austrian army, commanded by Dagobert von Wurmser, had withdrawn into the Tyrol. By the end of August, Bonaparte was at Rivoli with Masséna's 13,000-man division. On the right flank, Augereau's 9,000-man division occupied Verona. On the left flank, Vaubois's 11,000-man division was stationed at Salò, on the western shore of Lake Garda. Together with Sahuguet's division at Mantua and Kilmaine's reserve cavalry, the French army numbered 45,000 men, roughly matching Wurmser's strength.
On 1 September, the Austrians divided their army in two. General Davidovich was ordered to defend the Tyrol with 20,000 men, while Field Marshal Wurmser led the remainder of his forces—the divisions of Quasdanovich, Sebottendorf, and Mészáros—down the Brenta valley in an attempt to relieve the Siege of Mantua by outflanking the French positions.
Carl von Clausewitz was highly critical of the Austrian strategy in his study of the Italian campaign. Davidovich's forces were dispersed across three positions in the Tyrol, and only 14,000 of his men confronted the French around Trento. On 4 September, Vaubois drove back Prince Reuss at Mori,Martin Boycott-Brown, The Road to Rivoli: Napoleon's First Campaign, London, Cassell & Co., 2001, pp. 423–425. while Masséna defeated Vukassovich at Rovereto and then at Calliano. Nearly 10,000 Austrian soldiers were killed, wounded, or captured, including 3,000 prisoners. Davidovich was forced to retreat as far as San Michele. At dusk, Vaubois crossed the Adige and entered Trento at noon on 5 September, shortly after Masséna.
Having grasped Wurmser's intentions, Bonaparte set off in pursuit through the Brenta valley on 6 September. He left Vaubois's division at Lavis, where it was to contain Davidovich north of Lake Garda. Wurmser's army was routed at the Battle of Bassano on 8 September and fell back toward Mantua, where it shut itself up on 15 September.
Emperor Francis II entrusted Baron Josef Alvinczy von Borberek with the task of relieving Field Marshal Wurmser. On 22 October, 20,000 men marched from Friuli. In the Tyrol, Davidovich received reinforcements that raised his strength to 20,000 men. His orders were to join Alvinczy at Verona after securing control of the Adige valley.
Bonaparte believed that the French forces in the Tyrol still outnumbered the Austrians.Martin Boycott-Brown, The Road to Rivoli: Napoleon's First Campaign, London, Cassell & Co., 2001, p. 447. On 29 October, Berthier ordered Vaubois to attack Davidovich and drive him back to Kaltern. On 2 November, his columns advanced toward San Michele, Cembra, and Segonzano. They encountered Vukassovich's forces and were compelled to withdraw the following day as Davidovich's corps advanced. Trento was abandoned on 4 November.
Louis Bonaparte reported the deteriorating situation to his brother.Martin Boycott-Brown, The Road to Rivoli: Napoleon's First Campaign, London, Cassell & Co., 2001, p. 449. Napoleon blamed Vaubois for his tactical errors and poor knowledge of the terrain, and dispatched General Joubert to assist him in his retreat.
On 7 November, heavy fighting took place around Calliano. At four o'clock in the afternoon, panic spread through the French ranks when a column of Croatian troops outflanked them and attacked their rear. A disorderly retreat followed toward Rivoli. In five days, Vaubois's division had lost more than 4,000 men, while Austrian casualties were of a similar magnitude.
Davidovich hesitated, mistakenly believing that Masséna's division had come to Vaubois's aid. On 12 November, Bonaparte engaged Alvinczy at the Battle of Caldiero. Defeated, he was forced to withdraw to Verona. The poor coordination between the two Austrian armies gave the French a crucial respite. On the evening of 14 November, faced with the threat of encirclement, Bonaparte devised a bold plan and led his army across the southern bank of the Adige in an attempt to strike Alvinczy's rear during the Battle of Arcole.
Vaubois was ordered to hold his position at all costs. On 17 November, after ten days of hesitation, Davidovich attacked Rivoli. His forces quickly overwhelmed the French. One thousand soldiers, including brigadier general Fiorella, were taken prisoner. Vaubois narrowly escaped capture and withdrew to Peschiera.
After his victory at Arcole, which had forced Alvinczy's army to retreat, Bonaparte turned back and compelled Davidovich to withdraw into the Tyrol. He removed Vaubois from divisional command, writing to the French Directory that the campaign had shown him unfit to command in a war of manoeuvre,Martin Boycott-Brown, The Road to Rivoli: Napoleon's First Campaign, London, Cassell & Co., 2001, p. 483. despite the numerical inferiority under which he had operated. Bonaparte replaced him with Joubert and reassigned him to the military governorship of Livorno.
A second offensive by Alvinczy culminated in the famous Battle of Rivoli in January 1797, which ended in a French victory. The Siege of Mantua came to an end on 2 February with Wurmser's surrender.
Corsica
In April 1797, Vaubois was sent to Corsica to serve as its military governor, the island having been recaptured from the British six months earlier. His correspondence with the Directory shows the difficulties he encountered in enforcing the law on an island dominated by rival families engaged in vendettas.
Late in 1797, following the Coup of 18 Fructidor, the island's clergy and civil servants were required to swear an oath of "hatred of royalty and anarchy" and of "fidelity to the Republic". Opponents of the Directory assembled on 22 December 1797 at the Convent of Saint Anthony in Casabianca. There they resolved to take up arms and appealed to the eighty-year-old General Agostino Giafferi, son of Luigi Giafferi, who had presided over the parliament of the Anglo-Corsican Kingdom. The insurgents wore white crosses on their clothing. The uprising became known as the Crocetta ("Little Cross").
Within a few days, the revolt had spread throughout Golo, the island's northern department. Vaubois initially adopted a conciliatory approach, prompting local administrators to accuse him of collusion with the rebels. He eventually took the field during the second week of January 1798 at the head of a column of 1,680 soldiers, joined by volunteer auxiliaries. On 18 January, he defeated the insurgents at Murato. Two weeks later, Agostino Giafferi was captured with forty of his supporters at La Porta. Imprisoned in Bastia, he refused Vaubois's offer to spare him from the firing squad. Giafferi was executed on 21 February.
Siege of Malta In May 1798, Vaubois and his division joined the Armée d'Orient under the command of Napoleon.
French occupation On 9 June, the French fleet reached the Maltese archipelago. The Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller, Ferdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim, whose order had governed Malta since 1530, initially refused the French access to the Grand Harbour of Valletta. On 10 June, 15,000 French troops landed. Vaubois came ashore at St. Julian's. His division was split into two columns: seven battalions under Lannes and five under Marmont.