HOCHE, LAZARE (1768-1797), French general, was born near Versailles on June 24, 1768. He enlisted in the Gardes f ran caises and soon obtained promotion. When the Gardes f rancaises were broken up in 2789 he served in various line regiments up to the time of his receiving a commission in 1792. He served with credit in the operations of 1792-1793 on the northern frontier of France. When Dumouriez deserted to the Austrians, Hoche, with le Veneur and others, fell under suspicion of treason; but after being kept under arrest for some months he took part in the defence of Dunkirk, and in the same year (1793) he was promoted successively chef de brigade, general of brigade, and general of division. During his command in Lorraine he was defeated by the Prussians at Kaiserslautern (Nov. 28, 3o, 1793), but the Committee of Public Safety valued his services enough to leave him in command; in December, after he had stormed the lines of Froschweiler the Army of the Rhine was also put under him, and he pursued his success, sweeping the enemy before him to the mid dle Rhine in four days. Before the following campaign opened, he married Anne Adelaide Dechaux at Thionville (March II, Ten days later he was suddenly arrested, on charges of treason preferred by Pichegru, the displaced commander of the Army of the Rhine. Hoche escaped execution, though imprisoned in Paris until the fall of Robespierre. On Aug. 21, 1794 he was appointed to command against the Vendeans and made the peace of Jaunaye (Feb. when the war was renewed by the royalists. Hoche inflicted a crushing blow on the royalist cause by capturing de Sombreuil's expedition at Quiberon and Penthisvre (July 16-21, . Before the summer of 1796 he had pacified the whole of the west, which had for more than three years been the scene of a pitiless civil war. In December 1796 he was appointed to organize the invasion of Ireland, but the expedition was driven back by bad weather. Hoche was at once transferred to the Rhine frontier, where he defeated the Austrians at Neuwied (April), though operations were soon afterwards brought to an end by the Preliminaries of Leoben. Later in 1797 he was minister of war for a short period, but, finding himself the dupe of Barras and technically guilty of violating the constitution, he returned to his command on the Rhine frontier. But his health grew rapidly worse, and he died probably of consumption at Wetzlar on Sept. 19, 1797. He was buried by the side of his friend Marceau in a fort on the Rhine, and was mourned throughout France.
See Desprez, Lazare Hoche d'apres sa correspondance (1858; new ed., 188o) ; Bergounioux, Essai sur la vie de Lazare Hoche (2852) ; E. de Bonnechose, Lazare Hoche (1867) ; H. Martin, Hoche et Bonaparte (1875) ; Dutemple, Vie politique et militaire du general Hoche Escaude, Hoche en Irlande (1888) ; Cuneo d'Ornano, Hoche (1892) ; A. Chuquet, Hoche et la lutte pour l'Alsace (a volume of this author's series on the campaigns of the Revolution, 1893) ; E. Charavaray, Le General Hoche (1893) ; A. Duruy, Hoche et Marceau (1885) .