page_title: Charles Claude Jacquinot
section_title: 1812–1814
hierarchical_section_title: Charles Claude Jacquinot / Empire / 1812–1814
caption_attribution_description: Inscriptions of the Arc de Triomphe. Eastern pillar, Columns 19, 20.
context_page_description: Charles Claude Jacquinot commanded a French cavalry division at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. He joined a volunteer battalion in 1791 and transferred to a light cavalry regiment as a junior officer in 1793. He earned promotion to squadron commander and was acting commander of his regiment at Hohenlinden in 1800. After serving in a staff position at Austerlitz in 1805, he led a light cavalry regiment at Jena in 1806. Promoted to general of brigade he led his horsemen at Abensberg, Raab and Wagram in 1809. During the French invasion of Russia he fought at Ostrovno, Smolensk and Borodino in 1812. During the 1813 German Campaign he led a cavalry brigade at Dennewitz and Leipzig. After being appointed general of division he fought at Second Bar-sur-Aube and
  Saint-Dizier in 1814. During the Hundred Days he rallied to Napoleon and led a light cavalry division in the Waterloo campaign. After 15 years of inactivity, he was restored to favor in the 1830s. Thereafter he held a number of commands and was appointed to the Chamber of Peers. His surname is one of the names inscribed under the Arc de Triomphe, on Column 20.
context_section_description: During the 1812 French invasion of Russia Jacquinot led a brigade composed of the 7th Hussar and 9th Chevau-léger Lancer Regiments. The 3rd Light Cavalry Brigade was part of Jean Pierre Joseph Bruyère's 1st Light Cavalry Division in Étienne Marie Antoine Champion de Nansouty's I Cavalry Corps. During the campaign, he led his brigade at the battles of Ostrovno, Vitebsk, Smolensk and Borodino. Near Mozhaysk his brigade fought off Matvei Platov's Don Cossacks.
  Jacquinot was wounded while leading a charge against a Swedish battalion at the Battle of Dennewitz on 6 September 1813. During the action, he led the 12th Light Cavalry Brigade which was made up of the 5th and 13th Chasseurs à Cheval Regiments. The brigade was part of Jean Thomas Guillaume Lorge's 5th Light Cavalry Division in Jean-Toussaint Arrighi de Casanova's III Cavalry Corps. At the Battle of Leipzig on 16–19 October he led the same brigade, to which was added the 10th Chasseurs à Cheval. He was promoted general of division on 26 October 1813.
  On the night of 31 December 1813, Russian troops under Emmanuel de Saint-Priest executed a successful assault crossing of the Rhine River and captured Koblenz at 4:00 am on 1 January 1814. The commander of the Russian 17th Infantry Division, Igor Maximovich Pillar sent 200 jägers, 25 Cossacks and one cannon to seize a convoy near Remagen on 2 January. The convoy was intercepted, but the officer directing the column continued marching toward Bonn where he bumped into a large French force under Jacquinot and Joseph Jean-Baptiste Albert. The Russians were routed, losing 120 men and the artillery piece, the first cannon lost by the Army of Silesia. At that date, Jacquinot's heavy cavalry division in the III Cavalry Corps had two weak brigades composed of single-squadron regiments. Marc François Jérôme Wolff's brigade counted 368 officers and men from five dragoon regiments. Jean Charles Quinette de Cernay's brigade numbered 467 troopers from five dragoon and one cuirassier regiments.
  By mid-January, the French forces under Marshal Jacques MacDonald, which included III Cavalry Corps, were in full retreat through Namur and headed for an intended rendezvous with Napoleon at Châlons-sur-Marne. After detaching garrisons, MacDonald's command numbered no more than 11,000 men. From Châlons, MacDonald's force was chased to the west by the Army of Silesia. Around this time, Napoleon reorganized his cavalry into four corps plus an independent division and the III Cavalry Corps was suppressed. Jacquinot was placed in command of the two-brigade 4th Light Cavalry Division in the new VI Cavalry Corps under François Étienne de Kellermann. Auguste Jean Ameil's 979-strong 7th Brigade included six regiments of chasseurs à cheval while Wolff's 686-man 8th Brigade comprised three hussar, one chevau-léger lancer and two chasseurs à cheval regiments.
  On 25 February 1814, Napoleon decided to leave the pursuit of the Army of Bohemia to his subordinates. The emperor assigned Jacquinot's division and Kellermann's corps to Marshal Nicolas Oudinot while distributing other cavalry units to MacDonald. Jacquinot's division fought at the Battle of Bar-sur-Aube on 27 February and at the Battle of Saint-Dizier on 26 March. During Napoleon's bid to cut the Allied communications in the last week of March, he sent the light cavalry of Jacquinot and Hippolyte Piré ahead of the army, provoking panic. At Saint-Dizier, Napoleon's cavalry routed Ferdinand von Wintzingerode's 10,000 cavalry, but it proved to be a hollow victory because the Allied generals ignored the threat to their supply line and marched on Paris. The Allies won the Battle of Paris on 30 March 1814 and this event ended the war. By 4 April the 4th Cavalry Division had shrunk badly. Ameil's brigade counted only 331 officers and men while Wolff's brigade numbered only 244.
caption: Jacquinot is the 5th name under the Arc de Triomphe's Column 20, at right.
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