JOMINI, ANTOINE HENRI, BARON (1779-1869), gen eral, was born on March 6, 1779, at Payerne in the canton of Vaud, Switzerland. He wished for a military life; for some time he was a clerk in a Paris banking-house, until the outbreak of the Swiss revolution. At the age of nineteen he was appointed to a post on the Swiss headquarters staff, and when twenty-one com manded a battalion. At the peace of Luneville in 1801 he returned to business life in Paris, where he devoted himself to the Traite des grandes operations militaires, which was published in 1804 1805. Introduced to Marshal Ney, be served in the campaign of Austerlitz as a volunteer aide-de-camp on Ney's personal staff. In December 1805 Napoleon made him a colonel in the French serv ice. Ney thereupon made him his principal aide-de-camp. In 1806 Jomini published his views on the impending war with Prussia, and this, along with his knowledge of Frederick the Great's campaigns, led Napoleon to attach him to his own headquarters. He was pres ent with Napoleon at the battle of Jena, and at Eylau won the cross of the Legion of Honour. After the peace of Tilsit he was made chief of the staff to Ney, and created a baron. In the Span ish campaign of 1808 he gave the marshal much good advice, but Jomini quarrelled with his chief, and was left at the mercy of Berthier, the emperor's chief of staff. He had already been invited to enter the Russian service, but Napoleon compelled him to remain in the service as general of brigade. For some years thereafter Jomini held both a French and Russian commission, with the consent of both sovereigns. When war between France and Russia broke out, he escaped from his dilemma by taking a command on the line of communication. He was thus engaged when the seat of war shifted to central Germany. He rejoined Ney, took part in the battle of Liitzen and, as chief of the staff of Ney's group of corps, distinguished himself at the battle of Bautzen, and was recommended for the rank of general of division. Berthier, however, had him arrested for failing to supply certain returns that had been called for.
How far Jomini was held responsible for certain misunderstand ings which frustrated Ney's hopes (see BAUTZEN) there is no means of knowing. But the pretext for censure was trivial and baseless, and during the armistice Jomini entered the Russian service. This was regarded by Napoleon as going over to the enemy. Jomini had indeed for years held a dormant commission in the Russian army, had declined to take part in the invasion of Russia in 1812, and was a Swiss and not a Frenchman. He with drew from the Allied Army in 1814 when the violation of Swiss neutrality was inevitable. Apart from love of his own country, the desire to study, to teach and to practise the art of war was his ruling motive. At the critical moment of the battle of Eylau
he exclaimed, "If I were the Russian commander for two hours!" On joining the allies he became lieutenant-general and aide-de camp to the tsar, and rendered important assistance during the German campaign. He declined as a Swiss patriot and as a French officer to take part in the passage of the Rhine at Basel and the subsequent invasion of France.
In 1815 he was with the emperor Alexander in Paris, and attempted in vain to save the life of his old commander Ney. This almost cost him his position in the Russian service, but he succeeded in making head against his enemies, and took part in the congress of Vienna. Resuming his post in the Russian army, he was about 1823 made a full general, and until his retirement in 1829 he was principally employed in the military education of the tsarevich Nicholas (afterwards emperor) and in the organization of the Russian staff college, which was opened in 1832. In 1828 he was employed in the field in the Russo Turkish War, and at the siege of Varna he was given the grand cordon of the Alexander order. This was his last active service. In 1829 he settled at Brussels where he chiefly lived for the next thirty years.
In 1853, after trying without success to bring about a political understanding between France and Russia, Jomini was called to St. Petersburg to act as a military adviser to the tsar during the Crimean War. He returned to Brussels on the conclusion of peace in 1856 and some years afterwards settled at Passy near Paris. He was busily employed up to the end of his life in writing treatises, pamphlets and open letters on subjects of military art and history, and in 1859 he was asked by Napoleon III. to furnish a plan of campaign in the Italian War. One of his last essays dealt with the war of 1866 and the influence of the breech-loading rifle, and he died at Passy on March 24, 1869, only a year before the Franco-German War. Thus one of the earliest of the great military theorists lived to speculate on the tactics of the present day.
See Ferdinand Lecomte, Le General Domini, sa vie et ses ecrits (1861; new ed. 1888) ; C. A. Saint-Beuve, Le General Jomini (186g) ; A. Pas cal, Observations historiques sur la vie, &c., du general Domini (1842).