Pierre Marie Barthélemy Ferino

Pierre Marie Barthélemy Ferino (23 August 1747, Craveggia – 28 June 1816, Paris) was a general and politician of France. Born in the Savoyard state, he was the son of a low-ranking officer in the Habsburg military. In 1789, during the French Revolution, he went to France, where he received a commission in the French Army. In 1793, his troops deposed him, for his strict discipline, but he was immediately reinstated and rose rapidly through the ranks of the general staff. He helped to push the Austrians back to Bavaria in the 1796 summer campaign, and then covered Moreau's retreat to France later that year, defending the Rhine bridge at Hüningen until the last units had crossed to safety.

Ferino commanded the southernmost wing of Army of the Danube in 1799, and participated in the battles of Ostrach and Stockach. Napoleon awarded him the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor in 1804; in 1805, Ferino became a Senator, and in 1808, raised him to Count of the Empire. His name is engraved in the Arc de Triomphe.

Family

Barthélemy Ferino was born in Craveggia, in the Vigezzo valley, near the border of the Swiss Confederation. This section was known as the Piedmont which, at the time of his birth, was under the rule of the House of Savoy. His father, Bernardo Ferino, was an officer of the so-called Bender regiment and served in the Austrian military during the Seven Years' War. Barthélemy Ferino entered Austrian military service in 1768 and in 1779 he was brevetted as captain. His promotions in the Habsburg military were few. Responding to perceived inequalities, at the time of the French Revolution he moved to France and, in 1792, acquired a commission in the French army.

Service in French Revolutionary Wars

On 1 August 1792, he was named lieutenant colonel of the Legion of Biron, also called the Chasseurs of the Rhine, part of the Army of the Rhine under the over-all command of Philippe Custine. Ferino was named general of brigade in December, and on 23 August 1793, he became general of division, in command of the advance guard. Although he was deposed for maintaining discipline too strictly, he was immediately reinstated; he was assigned to the Army of the Moselle under the command of Jean Victor Moreau. In 1795, he was appointed Lieutenant General of the Army of the Rhine and Moselle, and in 1796, Commander of the Army of the Rhine and Moselle, Right Wing. With this force, he participated in the Battle of Landau, and helped Moreau and Jean-Baptiste Jourdan to push the Austrian army from the Rhineland into Bavaria in the 1796 summer campaign.

In the French withdrawal from Ostrach, he again secured the flank, and retraced his steps west toward Bodman, a small village on the furthest western point of Lake Constance, near Stockach. From there, he guarded the main army against an Austrian approach from Switzerland at the Stockach in March 1799.

While maintaining a cordon between the Austrian forces approaching from Switzerland, under command of Baron von Hotze, most of Ferino's division participated in a simultaneous assault in the first hours of the engagement at Stockach. With part of Joseph Souham's Center (the II. Division of the Army of the Danube), they assaulted the Austrian left, but were stopped by overwhelming numbers. This allowed him to continue to sit in the new Chamber of Peers.