Everything about Louis Jules Trochu totally explained
Louis Jules Trochu (
March 12,
1815 -
October 7,
1896) was a
French military leader and politician. He served as President of the
Government of National Defense - being France's
de facto head of state - from
September 4,
1870 until his resignation on
January 22,
1871 (although he retained the role symbolically until the legislative elections of February 1871).
Military career
He was born at Palais (
Belle-Île-en-Mer). Educated at
St. Cyr, he received a commission in the Staff Corps in
1837, and was promoted to lieutenant in 1840, and captain in 1843. He served as a captain in
Algeria under
Marshal Bugeaud, who, in recognition of his gallantry in the battles of
Sidi Yussuf and
Isly, made him his
aide-de-camp and entrusted him with important commissions. He was promoted to major in 1845, and to colonel in 1853. He served with distinction throughout the
Crimean campaign, first as
aide-de-camp to
Marshal St. Arnaud, and then as general of brigade, and was made a commander of the
Légion d'honneur and general of division. He again distinguished himself in command of a division in the Italian campaign of 1859, where he won the
Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur.
In
1866 he was employed at the ministry of war in the preparation of army reorganization schemes, and he published anonymously in the following year
L'Armée française en 1867, a work inspired with
Orleanist sentiment, which ran through ten editions in a few months and reached a twentieth in 1870. This brochure brought him into bad odour at court, and he left the war office on half-pay and was refused a command in the field at the outbreak of the
Franco-Prussian War. After the earlier disasters in 1870, he was appointed by the emperor first commandant of the troops of Châlons camp, and soon afterwards (
August 17) governor of
Paris and commander-in-chief of all the forces destined for the defence of the capital, including some 120,000 regular troops, 80,000 mobiles, and 330,000 National Guards.
He worked energetically to put Paris in a state of defence and throughout the
Siege of Paris showed himself a master of the passive defensive. At the revolution of
September 4 he became president of the
Government of National Defence, in addition to his other offices. His "plan" for defending the city raised expectations doomed to disappointment; the successive sorties made under pressure of
public opinion were unsuccessful, and having declared in one of his proclamations that the governor of Paris would never capitulate, when capitulation became inevitable he resigned the governorship of Paris on
January 22,
1871 to General
Joseph Vinoy, retaining the presidency of the government until after the
armistice in February.
He was elected to the National Assembly by eight
Départements, and sat for
Morbihan. In October he was elected president of the council general for Morbihan. In July 1872 he retired from political life and in 1873 from the army. He published in 1873
Pour la vérité et pour la justice, in justification of the government of national defence, and in 1879
L'Armée française en 1879, par un officier en retraite, a sort of supplement to his former work of 1867.
He died at
Tours.
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