Lazare Hoche

Divisional-General Louis Lazare Hoche ( , ; 24 June 1768 – 19 September 1797) was a French Army officer and politician who served as the Minister of War in 1797. He enlisted in the French Royal Army's French Guards Regiment in 1784, and joined the National Guard in 1789 following the beginning the French Revolution. Hoche was commissioned as an officer in 1792, and successively served in the Flanders campaign, War in the Vendée and Chouannerie along with several other engagements. The British historian Richard Holmes described Hoche as "quick-thinking, stern, and ruthless... a general of real talent whose early death was a loss to France."

Early life

Lazare Hoche was born on 24 June 1768 in the village of Montreuil, today part of Versailles, to Anne Merlière and Louis Hoche, a groom at the royal hunting grounds. His mother died when he was two years old, and Hoche was mostly raised by an aunt, who was a fruit-seller in Montreuil, and was educated by his maternal uncle, the parish priest of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, who arranged for Hoche to become a choirboy at his church.

In 1782, Hoche began working as an aide at the royal stables, but soon left in order to join the French Royal Army. He enlisted in the French Guards Regiment as a fusilier in October 1784, although he originally intended to serve with the colonial troops in the East Indies.

French Revolutionary Wars Flanders campaign

Hoche first saw action in the defence of Thionville in 1792, as a lieutenant, in the early stages of the Flanders campaign of the Revolutionary Wars, and took part in the Siege of Namur at the end of the year. Hoche mentioned, also, that great mischief had been done to the principles of liberty and additional difficulties thrown in the way of the French Revolution, by the quantity of blood spilled: "for", he added, "if you guillotine a man, you get rid of an individual, it is true, but then you make all his friends and connections enemies for ever of the government".

Rhine frontier and death

On his return, Hoche was at once transferred to the Rhine frontier as commander of the Army of Sambre and Meuse,

Death and legacy

On 2 September, Hoche received the command of the Army of the Rhine and Moselle and set up his headquarters at Wetzlar, near Koblenz.