DUFOUR, WILHELM HEINRICH (GUILLAUME HENRI) (1787-1875), Swiss general, was born at Constance, of Genevese parents temporarily in exile, on Sept. 15, 1787. He studied at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, served in the French army, and returned to Switzerland after 1815. He became chief instructor at the military school at Thun, where he had Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III.) among his pupils. He carried out the trigonomet rical survey of Switzerland, which was thirty-two years in the making. In 1847 Dufour was made general of the Federal Army, which was employed in reducing the revolted Catholic cantons, a task in which he showed conspicuous skill and moderation. In politics he belonged to the moderate conservative party, and he consequently lost a good deal of his popularity in 1848. In 1856, in the conflict with Frederick-William IV. of Prussia over the possession of Neuchatel, Dufour was put at the head of the republican army and was sent to Paris to obtain the mediation of Napoleon III. ; and again in 1859 at the time of the French an nexation of Savoy, he was in charge of the negotiations at Paris concerning the neutrality of northern Savoy. (See SWITZERLAND : History.) In 1864 he presided over the international conference which framed the Geneva Convention as to the treatment of the wounded in time of war, etc. He died on July 14, His works include: De la fortification permanente (185o) Memoire sur l'artillerie des anciens et sur celle du moyen age (184o) ; Manuel de tactique pour les officiers de toutes armes (1842), and various other works in military science. His memoir, La Campagne du Sonderbund (Paris, 1876), is prefaced by a biographical notice.
See Das Buck des Generals Dufour (6th ed., 1897) .