JOURDAN, JEAN BAPTISTE, COUNT marshal of France, was born at Limoges on April 29, 1762. He was apprenticed to a silk merchant of Lyons, but served in a volunteer regiment in the American War of Independence. Invalided from the army in 1784, he set up business in Limoges, but at the out break of the Revolution he volunteered for the army and rose rapidly in the service. In 1793 Carnot appointed him commander in-chief of the army of the North, and he won the victory of Wattignies (Oct. 15-16, 1793). Suspected of moderation in poli tics and of pessimism as to the military outlook, he then spent some months in retirement, but was re-instated and appointed (1794) to the command of the army operating on the Sambre. His victory at Fleurus (June 26, 1794) was followed by a cam paign on the Rhine in 1795.
In 1796 his army formed the left wing of the advance into Bavaria. The whole of the French forces were ordered to advance on Vienna, Jourdan on the extreme left and Moreau in the centre by the Danube valley, Bonaparte on the right by Italy and Styria. The Austrians were at first driven back by Moreau and Jourdan almost to the Austrian frontier. But the archduke Charles threw his whole weight on Jourdan, who was defeated at Amberg and Wiirzburg, and forced over the Rhine after a severe rearguard action. Apart from Bonaparte's marvellous campaign in Italy, the operations of the year were disastrous, chiefly owing to the vicious plan of campaign imposed by the government. Jourdan was made the scapegoat of the government's mistakes and was not employed for two years. He occupied himself with politics, and framed
the famous conscription law of 1798. In 1799 Jourdan was placed at the head of the army on the Rhine, but again underwent defeat at the hands of the archduke Charles at Stockach (March 25), and, disappointed and broken in health, handed over the command to Massena. He resumed his political duties, and opposed the coup d'etat of 18 Brumaire, after which he was expelled from the Council of the Five Hundred. He accepted from Napoleon fresh military and civil employment and in 1804 was made a mar shal of France. In 1806, Joseph Bonaparte, king of Naples, selected him as his military adviser, and he followed Joseph into Spain (1808). After the battle of Vittoria be held no important com mand under the Empire. Jourdan gave in his adhesion to the restoration government of 1814, and though he rejoined Napoleon in the Hundred Days, he submitted to the Bourbons again after Waterloo. He refused, however, to be a member of the court which tried Marshal Ney. He was made a count, a peer of France (1819), and governor of Grenoble (1816). In politics he was a prominent opponent of the royalist reactionaries and supported the revolution of 183o. Marshal Jourdan died on Nov. 23, 1833, and was buried in the Invalides.
He wrote Operations de Pantile du Danube (1799) ; Memoires pour servir a l'histoire sur la campagne de 1796 (1819) ; and unpublished personal memoirs. See Gachot, La campagne de 1799; Jourdan en Allemagne et Brune en Hollande (1906).