François Achille Bazaine (; 13 February 181123 September 1888) was an officer of the French army. Bazaine rose through the ranks over four decades of distinguished service (including 35 years on campaign) under Louis Philippe and then Napoleon III, having held every rank in the army from fusilier to Marshal of France, the latter in 1863. Under the Second Empire, he was made a senator.
Early life Bazaine came from a family established in Scy-Chazelles, near Metz. His grandfather was a winemaker who, after the revolution, moved to Paris and eventually became known as a mathematician. Bazaine’s father, Dominique was an engineer; after graduation from the École polytechnique, he moved to Russia to establish the Institute of Engineers for Roads and Communications. He became a Russian lieutenant general, and was imprisoned in Siberia during the campaigns of Napoleon I. After the fall of the empire, he regained his rank and returned to France in 1835.
Beginning in 1807 Dominique Bazaine had been in a relationship with Marie-Madeleine Vasseur, known as 'Melanie', a Versailles haberdasher. While Dominique hid the relationship from his family, the couple had three illegitimate children: Pierre-Dominique Bazaine, who became a renowned engineer, and Mélanie Bazaine, who went on to marry the engineer Émile Clapeyron.
François Achille Bazaine, the youngest child, was born at Versailles on 13 February 1811. He studied at the Lycée Saint-Louis but was unsuccessful at gaining admission to the École polytechnique. In 1831, he enlisted as a private on 28 March 1831 at the 37th Infantry Division at Auxonne, and was promoted to Caporal (Corporal) on 8 July 1831. He was promoted to Corporal Fourrier on 13 January 1832 and, in July 1832, to Sergent (Sergeant) Fourrier (fourrier: a non-commissioned officer in charge of preceding the troops).
French Foreign Legion and Algeria
Bazaine entered the French Foreign Legion in August 1832. He was designated as Sergent-Major, on 4 November, he attained the Epaulette on 2 November 1833. On 22 July 1835, he was wounded in the battle of Macta against Abd al-Qadir. He was promoted to Lieutenant and made a knight of France's Legion of Honour.
With the Legion, he was ceded by Louis Philippe I to Queen Christine to combat the Carlists. Named Spanish Captain, he commanded a company of voltigeurs and was then attached to the general staff headquarters of Colonel Conrad. He was cited at the battles of Ponts (1835), Lamanère (1836), Huesca (1837) and Barbastro (1837) where, despite being wounded in the leg, he dragged the wounded Colonel Conrad to safety. He was then attached to Colonel Cariès de Senilhes, commissioner of the French government to the Army of Spain.
In 1838, he joined the 4th Light Infantry with his French rank of Lieutenant. On 20 October 1839, he was re-promoted to Captain in the Legion in Algeria. In 1840, he passed to the 8th Chasseurs à Pied Battalion. He took in part in the expeditions in Miliana where he was cited, as well as in Kabylie and Morocco. Promoted to Commandant–Major on 10 March 1844, he was assigned to the 58th Line Infantry Regiment as the Arab Bureau Chief of Tlemcen. On 9 November 1845, he was promoted to the rank of Officer of the Legion of Honour,. Cited for the Battle of Sidi Brahim, on 24 March 1846, he passed to the 5th Foreign Infantry Regiment while still in charge of Arab relations. He was cited at the combats of Afir for his contribution to the submission of Abd al-Qadir. Promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel on 11 April 1848, he was assigned to the 19th Light Infantry Regiment then went back to the 5th Line Infantry Regiment on 30 August superior commander of Tlemcen. On 4 June 1850, he was designated as a colonel in the 55th Infantry Division () and Director of the Arab Affairs division at Oran.
On 4 February 1851, he was placed at the head of the 1st Regiment of the 1st Foreign Legion 1er R.E.L.E and. the next month, he commanded the subdivision of Sidi Bel Abbès, a post which he occupied until 1854.
Crimea and Italy
On 28 October 1854, he was admitted to the 1st section of officer generals with the rank of Maréchal de camp and commanded two regiments of the Legion at the Army of the Orient. On 10 September 1855, he became the military commandant of Sevastopol and général de division on the next 22 September. During the Crimean War, he was wounded and cited during the attack of the Quarantaine, with a horse shot underneath him, the same day. On 16 August 1856, following the combat of Sidi Kafirhe, he was awarded a citation, and, by decree, his French Legion of Honour rank was upgraded to the rank of Commander. for the apprehension of the position of Kinbourn at the closing of Dniepr, which he concluded in three days.
The way in which he conducted the left wing of the French forces in the final Allied assault on Sebastopol on 8 September 1855 (wounded, shell fragment in left hip, his horse killed under him), received acclaim of the highest order from the Allied Command and he was subsequently promoted to Major General (General de Division) on 22 September 1855 and selected from all the Allied Generals to assume the Governorship of Sebastopol.
At 44, this made him the youngest General in the French Army. In October 1855, Bazaine was chosen to give the coup de grâce. With a mixed French and British Force, he sailed to Kinburn at the mouth of the Dnieper to attack the remaining Russian forces to the North of Sebastopol. He led a daring landing and seized the naval fortress with a frontal assault, an action for which he received particular praise: "General Bazaine who commands that portion of the French Army now operating at the mouth of the Dnieper may be cited as presenting one of the most brilliant examples of the achievement of military distinction in the modern day".Illustrated London News: 1855 At Sebastopol, on 25 June 1856 he was invested by the British Commander in Chief, Lord Gough, with the Order of the Bath, for his conspicuous contribution to the Allied campaign during the Crimean War.
Upon his return to France, he occupied the post of inspector of the infantry then commanded the 19th Infantry Division () at Bourges.
Commander of the 3rd Infantry Division () of the 1st Army Corps of Achille Baraguey d'Hilliers, he was close to the combat line of Melegnano, on 8 June 1859, and the Battle of Solferino, on 24 June, during the conquest of the cemetery.
Actually, during that year in 1859, he commanded the Division in the Franco-Sardinian campaign against Austrian forces in Lombardy. He was wounded by a shell splinter in the head on 8 June, during the action at the Battle of Melegnano. He recovered to play a conspicuous part in the Solferino, which he captured on 24 June 1859, despite being wounded again (bullet to the upper thigh) and having his horse shot from under him again, earning another citation.
Mexico
Returned to Paris, he was designated as the general inspector of the 4th and 5th infantry arrondissements. The souvenir of Spain made him suggest to Napoleon III to lend the French Foreign Legion to the new emperor in Mexico. This idea would become that of the Emperor.
Bazaine was later designated to be part of France's expedition to Mexico.
Commandant of the 1st Infantry Division of expeditionary corps to Mexico on 1 July 1862, his action was decisive during the siege of Puebla in 1863. He commanded with great distinction the First Division under General (afterwards Marshal) Forey in the Mexican expedition in 1862, where he pursued the war with great vigour and success, driving President Benito Juárez to the frontier. His decisive action was instrumental in the taking of the city of Puebla in 1863. As a consequence, he was cited and designated at the head of the expeditionary corps by replacing Élie Frédéric Forey. Amongst the citations he received for the battle of San Lorenzo was the title of Grand Cross of France's Legion of Honour. Bazaine, who had started as a Legionnaire, was elevated to the dignity of Marshal of France and Senator of the Second French Empire by Imperial decree on 5 September 1864. He commanded in person the siege of Oaxaca in February 1865, following which, the Emperor complimented him while decorating him with the Médaille militaire, on 28 April 1865.
Here as in 1870, two of Bazaine's nephews, Adolphe and Albert Bazaine-Hayter served with their uncle as his aide-de-camp. Bazaine's African experience as a soldier and as an administrator stood him in good stead in dealing with the guerrilleros of the Juárez party, but he was less successful in his relations with Maximilian, with whose court the French headquarters was in constant strife.
His first wife died while he was in Mexico. On 28 May 1865, while still in Mexico, Bazaine got engaged and married to Maria-Josefa Pedraza de la Peña y Barragán, who was described as belonging to "a respectable Mexican family, well connected with the Spanish aristocracy and had numerous friends in high places" by the media at the time. Alt URL Maximilian I of Mexico offered him the palace of Buena Vista.
Opinion is divided on his actions. Some argued that he aimed to depose Maximilian and get the throne of Mexico for himself, or that he aspired to play the part of a Bernadotte. In a New York Times opinion piece:- His conduct in Mexico had been so unprincipled, so rascally in every respect, that it had been even a question at one time of trying him by court-martial. In a contrary New York Times opinion piece:- Marshal Bazaine has long rested under a cloud in his country on account of his connection with the invasion of Mexico by Maximillian, and, feeling as Americans did and still do about this enterprise of Emperor Napoleon, it is difficult to form an unprejudiced estimate of the character of the man who took so prominent a part in that fortunately unsuccessful effort to established an empire on our Southern border. The Marshal, however, was simply obeying the orders of his Government, and should not be held responsible for his action in Mexico.
His marriage to a rich Mexican lady (Pepita de la Peña y Azcarate), whose family were supporters of Juárez, still further complicated his relations with the unfortunate emperor, and when at the close of the American Civil War the United States sent a powerful war-trained army to the Mexican frontier. On the commend of Napoleon III, Bazaine withdraw the French forces to France, embarkation at Veracruz (1867). His wife followed him back to France.
Consequently, his relations with Emperor Maximilian became tense. He was accused of dragging the expedition against the will of Napoleon III, a situation which provoked his repatriation. On 12 November 1867, he obtained the commandment of the 3rd Army Corps at Nancy, and the following year, he commanded the camp of Châlons then replaced Auguste Regnaud de Saint-Jean d'Angély at the head of the Imperial Guard.
Franco-Prussian War
At the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Bazaine took field command of the French front line forces of III Army Corps of the Army of the Rhine near Metz.
Prelude