The Allies Strike Back:
Field Marshal Suvorov
Retakes Italy in 1799

Joubert Biography

© by John Pomeroy

A Marshal Had He Lived

The French commander at Novi began his military career in the artillery, as did Napoleon Bonaparte. Christopher Duffy believes that Joubert, who earned fame in the Italian campaign of 1796-97, was one of the most promising French commanders of the Revolution:

Still only thirty in 1799, général de division Barthélemy Catherine Joubert (1769-1799) was a pure product of the Revolution, and well suited to point up the contrast with people like the mercenary Schérer and the semi-criminal Macdonald. He had been devoid of all military experience when he enlisted as a private soldier in 1791, yet rose to the rank of général de brigade in 1795, and won golden opinions from Bonaparte in Italy in 1796.

Bonaparte now prized Joubert as a reliable man to leave in the European theater while the best of the French troops were campaigning in the Orient; the Directory valued him as a soldier who would bolster its military credit while being innocent of political designs.

The photo at right shows the habit de grand tenue, or uniform coat, worn by Gen. Joubert. This coat, which is nearly identical to the one Napoleon wore at Marengo in 1800, was purchased by John Pomeroy in 1991. The coat and seals belonging to Joubert and his father were obtained by Madame Guedal, whose father in law was the great grand nephew of Joubert. The coat was authenticated by Musee de l'Emperi curator Roaul Brunun.

In person Joubert was tall, spare, and not particularly eloquent, in spite of his earlier ambitions to become a lawyer. The Austrians had come to respect him as a bold and active enemy, and if he had survived there can be little doubt that he would have been numbered among the Marshals of the Napoleonic Empire. Soult could detect in him one shortcoming, which he would surely have overcome with experience, and that was his desire to plunge into the thick of combat at the head of his troops— "a virtue, certainly, in a subordinate, but something different in a commander in chief. As leader of an army he would jeopardize his troops if he took the same risks as before."

The Allies Strike Back: Suvorov Retakes Italy 1799

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