Emmanuel Roërgas de Serviez (May 16, 1785 – November 30, 1816), known by the Hispanicized name of Manuel Roergas de Serviez, was a French soldier and adventurer who participated in the wars of independence in South America.
Born into French nobility, Serviez served in various units of the French Army during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, attaining the rank of lieutenant. In 1809, he deserted and later joined the independence movements in South America. After briefly serving in Venezuela, he fled to New Granada following the fall of the First Republic of Venezuela. There, he was appointed lieutenant colonel in the army of the United Provinces and tasked with training troops using French military doctrine.
In 1813, Serviez was accused of conspiring against General Antonio Nariño but was acquitted in 1814. That same year, he co-founded a military academy in Medellín with Francisco José de Caldas, mentoring future Colombian general José María Córdova. He later participated in the Battle of Bogotá under Simón Bolívar and was appointed chief of staff under General José María Cabal, playing a decisive role in the Patriot victory at the Battle of the Palo River in 1815.
Amid the Spanish reconquest in 1816, President Camilo Torres Tenorio promoted Serviez to brigadier general and commander of the army. Realizing his forces could not withstand the Spanish offensive, he led a strategic retreat to the eastern plains, preserving key military leadership, including Santander and Córdova. His forces joined those of José Antonio Páez and took part in the Battle of Hato Yagual.
Soon after, while seeking rest due to poor health, Serviez was murdered under mysterious circumstances.
Early life Emmanuel Roërgas de Serviez was born on May 16, 1785, and baptized on June 6, 1785. He hailed from a lineage of minor nobility who traditionally served in the military, his father was Emmanuel-Gervais Roergas de Serviez, then a lieutenant in the Royal-Roussillon Regiment. His mother was Marie-Henriette de Trelliard, the two married on December 25, 1784, in Cutry, Meurthe-et-Moselle, her family was dedicated to industry and public affairs.
Her father, François de Trelliard, was described as a "noble patrician of Parme, secretary of the cabinet with the approval of His Royal Highness the Lord Infante of Parme, and former mayor of agriculture and commerce in the states of His Royal Highness." Among the witnesses of the marriage ceremony was the future General Anne-François-Charles Trelliard, the bride's brother.
Military career Serviez enlisted into the French Revolutionary Army during the government of the directorate and received the rank of lieutenant in 1798 and was assigned to the general staff of the Army of Italy.
He was a later an aid-de-camp to his maternal uncle General Anne-François-Charles Trelliard. He was then a chasseur in the 11th regiment, by 1800 he requested to be transferred to the colonies, a request that was denied. In 1803 he was a sublieutenant in the 7th Crussaires.
He took an absence of leave in 1805 to marry Eugenia Tessier de Margueritte with whom he had two children. In 1806 he returned to the army as a lieutenant in the Mounted Chasseurs of the Imperial Guard and was assigned to the army of Spain in 1808 taking part in the fighting there. He was wounded at the Battle of Vimeiro and returned to France.
In 1809 Serviez deserted the French army and fled to England with his mistress and later ended up in the United States.
New Granada In 1811 Serviez traveled to Venezuela and joined General Francisco de Miranda's Venezuelan patriot army that had begun its war of independence from Spain. With the fall of the 1st republic of Venezuela to Spanish forces, Serviez fled to neighboring New Granada along with other officers from Venezuela arriving in Cartagena de Indias. New Granada had also declared independence from Spain and commissioned many of the exiled Venezuelan officers into their army to augment their forces against the Spanish royalists. The federalist congress of the United Provinces of New Granada commissioned Serviez into the Neogranadine army of the union, as a lieutenant colonel, and tasked him with training the troops in the south of the country.
In 1813 Serviez was deployed to the south of the country with a number of troops to assist the beleaguered forces of the army of the south which had been pushed back from the provincial capital of Popayán all the way north to the Cauca Valley as a result of an offensive launched by Spanish Brigadier Juan de Sámano. In June 1813 Serviez arrived in the town of Cartago in the Cauca valley where the remnants of the army of the south some 150 troops had retreated to.Ortiz, Sergio Elías (1971). Franceses en la Independencia de la Gran Colombia (2nd ed.). Bogotá: Editorial ABC. p. 30. Jose Hilario Lopez who was one of the troops of the army of the south and later future president of New Granada, described his first encounter with the French officer who attempted to rally the demoralized troops in his limited Spanish and to defend the town from the Spanish advance. There Serviez trained the troops in the French manual of arms, however his strict discipline led to many of them deserting, leaving him with only around 400 men, Serviez and his troops waited in Cartago for the promised reinforcements from Sante Fe which never came, while this happened Samano's troops slowly made their way north from Cali.Ortiz, Sergio Elías (1971). Franceses en la Independencia de la Gran Colombia (2nd ed.). Bogotá: Editorial ABC. p. 31. Samano's troops and Serviez's troops clashed near Cartago soon after in a defeat that forced the patriots to retreat Northeast towards the Quindio road.Ortiz, Sergio Elías (1971). Franceses en la Independencia de la Gran Colombia (2nd ed.). Bogotá: Editorial ABC. p. 35.
Serviez and his battered troops retreated to Ibagué, arriving there in July 1813, during the difficult retreat he had been reduced to 20 officers and only a handful soldiers.Ortiz, Sergio Elías (1971). Franceses en la Independencia de la Gran Colombia (2nd ed.). Bogotá: Editorial ABC. p. 35. Upon arriving to Ibague they were met by Colonel Jose Maria Cabal who was in charge of relieving them, Cabal who had lived in Paris for time in his youth communicated in French with Serviez who gave him a report of their actions and had also praised the conduct of the young cadet Jose Hilario Lopez in battle.
Nariño's Southern Campaign While in Ibague, Cabal tasked Serviez with recruiting and training new troops that would be destined for the upcoming campaign to liberate Popayán and the south of the country led by Lieutenant General Antonio Nariño. Serviez along with English Captain Willam Henry Virgo created a cavalry squadron of lancers that would be part of the campaign. After a few months, Serviez led this cavalry group to the town of Purificación in September 1813, where General Nariño had ordered that the rendezvous point be so that the various battalions and troops from other parts of the country would gather to form the army. Now joined up with the bulk of the army, they marched south to the town of La Plata arriving there on October 25.Ortiz, Sergio Elías (1971). Franceses en la Independencia de la Gran Colombia (2nd ed.). Bogotá: Editorial ABC. p. 37. La Plata was chosen as Nariño was still waiting on the troops coming from the Antioquia Province, in the meantime the troops already there underwent instruction and training. Serviez continued as commander of the 3rd battalion but was also placed as the cavalry instructor for the whole army. As instructor his training was harsh on the troops as his expected nothing less than fierce discipline, which gained him notoriety and much dislike among the troops and officers. Serviez alongside Spanish Colonel Manuel Cortés Campomanes proposed to Nariño that the army do away with the Spanish military doctrine they had been following and adopt the French one in its place, which would require retraining the troops to adopt the new formations and tactics as well as adopting bugle commands. Nariño gave his approval of this initiative and the two officers went to work on implementing the new doctrine.
Despite the assistance and know-how that was provided to the army by Serviez and the other foreign officers like him, there was an air of distrust from the native Neogranadine troops towards them. Serviez's harsh training and arrogant attitude when it came to his harsh criticism of the quality Neogranadine officers, did not gain him any favors.Ortiz, Sergio Elías (1971). Franceses en la Independencia de la Gran Colombia (2nd ed.). Bogotá: Editorial ABC. p. 38. This would culminate with the arrest of both Serviez and Campomanes after they were accused of by Nariño and his general staff of trying to cause insubordination among the troops and attempting to remove him as commander of the army to take control.Riaño, Camilo (1973). El Teniente General Don Antonio Nariño. Bogotá: Imprenta y Litografia de las Fuerzas Militares. p. 170. The supposed evidence behind this accusation was dubious at best,Ortiz, Sergio Elías (1971). Franceses en la Independencia de la Gran Colombia (2nd ed.). Bogotá: Editorial ABC. p. 39. and many historians have criticized Nariño's handling of the situation citing that one of the possible reasons he arrested them was to get rid of the two because they questioned his leadership as well as the fact that they were part of army of the federalist congress that despite working together to prepare this campaign was still distrusted by Nariño.Ortiz, Sergio Elías (1971). Franceses en la Independencia de la Gran Colombia (2nd ed.). Bogotá: Editorial ABC. p. 40. In December while Narino and the army of the union began their march to Popayan and began their campaign, Serviez and Campomanes were transported as prisoners to Santfe to face a military tribunal for their perceived crimes. Nariño's campaign while successful as first, would end in disaster with many historians arguing that not having present two experienced officers such as Serviez and Campomanes in their ranks contributed to the defeat.
The arrested officers arrived in Santafe on January 8, 1814, and on January 18, their case ended with military tribunal ruling in their favor and allowing them to rejoin the army. At the end of that month both officers left the city, with Campomanes traveling to Cartagena, meanwhile Serviez was transferred to Medellín in the Antioquia Province where the provincial authorities had hired him to become an instructor at the military academy being established there. At this short lived academy Serviez worked alongside scientist Francisco José de Caldas who had been tasked with teaching and creating a military engineer corps. At the academy one of the new cadets caught his eye, this being 15-year-old José María Cordova, of whom Serviez took a liking to and became his mentor, eventually naming Cordova as his aid-de-camp.Valencia Tovar, Álvaro. (2021) General de división José María Córdova. Academia Colombiana de Historia. 2nd edition. Bogotá. p. 26.
Serviez was then called up by the congress to join General Simón Bolívar's army that was tasked with subjugating the centralist Cundinamarca state into the United Provinces of New Granada where he would participate in the Battle of Bogotá.