Jean Victor Tharreau | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 15 January 1767 Bégrolles-en-Mauges, France |
| Died | 26 September 1812 (aged 45) Moscow, Russia |
| Allegiance | France |
| Years of service | 1792–1812 |
| Rank | General of Division |
| Battles / wars | |
| Awards | 1809 Legion of Honor |
Jean Victor Tharreau or Jean Victor Thareau (15 January 1767 – 26 September 1812), was a General of Division in the Army of the French Empire.[1]
Tharreau enthusiastically adopted the revolutionary cause and joined the Maine-et-Loire volunteers in 1792. He quickly rose through the command ranks. By 1795, he was chief of staff of the Army of the Ardennes. He helped to defend Zurich in the French army's defeat at the First Battle of Zurich in 1799, and participated in the French victory over the combined Austrian and Russian forces later that summer. After the successes of the 1809 campaign on the Danube, he was part of the jubilant force entering the Habsburg capital of Vienna.
In the 1812 campaign in Russia, he assumed command of the Westphalian army, appointed by Napoleon's brother Jérôme Bonaparte He died as the French Army took Moscow on 26 September 1812, of wounds suffered at the Battle of Borodino.
- ^ John G. Gallagher, Napoleon's enfant terrible: General Dominique Vandamme, Norman OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008, p. 326. Gallagher maintains Tharreau was killed on the 6th. Other sources, including the comparable article in the French Wikipedia Tharreau maintain he died on 26 September 1812.