BONNEVAL, bon-vxl, Claude Alexandre (COUNT DE OT ACHMET PASHA), French ad venturer: b. Coussac 1675; d. Constantinople 1747. In the war of the Spanish Succession he obtained a regiment and distinguished him self by his valor as well as by his excesses. He was, in 1706, appointed major-general by Prince Eugene, and fought against his native country. At the Peace of Rastadt in 1714, by the inter ference of Prince Eugene, the process against him for high treason was withdrawn, and he was allowed to return to his estates. In 1716 he was lieutenant field-marshal of the Austrian infantry, and distinguished himself by his valor against the Turks at Peterwarden (1716). In 1718 Bonneval was made a member of the imperial council of war, but his licentiousness and indiscretion induced Prince Eugene to get rid of him by appointing him in 1723 master general of the ordnance in the Netherlands. To revenge himself on Eugene, he sent com plaints to Vienna against the governor, the Marquis de Prie; but the latter received an order to arrest Bonneval, and to imprison him in the citadel of Antwerp. Bonneval being afterward ordered to appear at Vienna and give an explanation of his conduct spent a month at The Hague before he chose to comply with the summons. He was therefore confined in the
castle of Spielberg, near Briinn, and condemned to death by the imperial council of war; but the sentence was changed by the Emperor into one year's imprisonment and exile. Bonneval now went to Constantinople, where the fame of his deeds and his humanity toward the Turkish prisoners of war procured him a kind re ception. He consented to change his religion, received instruction in Islam from the mufti, and received the name of Achmet, with a large salary. He was made a pasha of three tails, commanded a large army, defeated the Aus trians on the Danube, and quelled an insurrec tion in Arabia Petrma. His exertions, as com mander of the bombardiers, to improve the Turkish artillery, were opposed by the jealousy of powerful pashas, the irresolution of Mo hammed V and the dislike of the Turkish troops to all European institutions. He enjoyed, however, the pleasures of his situation. The memoirs of his life under his name are not genuine.