Louis Lazare Hoche

Born

24 June 1768

Died

19 September 1797

The son of a royal stableman, Lazare Hoche enlisted in the Gardes françaises and had risen to corporal by 1789. His advancement during the Revolutionary Wars was rapid: in October 1793, aged twenty-five, he was given command of the Army of the Moselle, and in December his forces helped break the Coalition position in Alsace and relieve the siege of Landau.

Arrested in the spring of 1794 and imprisoned until after Thermidor, Hoche was subsequently sent to western France. By January 1796 he had assumed command of the newly unified Army of the Coasts of the Ocean, bringing the Republican forces operating in the Vendée and Brittany under a single command. His strategy combined tighter discipline among his troops and religious toleration with negotiated submissions, systematic disarmament and the use of mobile columns against forces that remained in arms. Stofflet was captured and executed in February 1796, followed by Charette in March, while the remaining Chouan leaders submitted over the following months. The pacification of the west was officially proclaimed in July.

At the end of 1796 Hoche commanded the French expedition intended to land in Ireland and support the United Irishmen. Severe weather scattered the fleet and prevented a landing. He died at Wetzlar on 19 September 1797, aged twenty-nine, of tuberculosis.

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