Jean-Baptiste Broussier

Jean-Baptiste Broussier
Born	10 March 1766 Ville-sur-Saulx
Died	13 December 1814 Bar-le-Duc
Allegiance	First French Republic, First French Empire
Service/branch	Army
Rank	général de division
Battles/wars	French Revolutionary Wars Napoleonic Wars, Capture of La Spezia Wagram
Awards	Grand Officer of the Légion d'honneur Comte de l'Empire

Jean-Baptiste Broussier (10 March 1766 - 13 December 1814) was a French Divisional General of the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars.

Broussier was born in Ville-sur-Saulx.

Meant by his parents for a church career, in 1791 he instead enrolled in the 3rd battalion of Meurthe and was made a captain of the Meuse volunteers in September that year. He fought his first battles under Beurnonville in the northern campaigns and was severely wounded in the Vavrin affair in year II. Shortly afterwards he was made head of the battalion and was sent with them to armée de Sambre-et-Meuse, charged with the defence of an important post, where he was hit in the head by a musket ball.

In 1797 he moved to the armée d'Italie, where he was made chef de brigade to the 43e régiment d'infanterie de ligne. He fought with distinction at the capture of La Spezia, being one of the first to break into the fort at Chiusa, and took the Austrian general prisoner with his own hands. He was made chef de brigade in March 1797 following these actions and sent to the armée de Naples, before being charged with an expedition into the Apennines. He ambushed 12,000 peasant troops that had closed off the defile and a major carnage ensued in the Caudine Forks, the same place where the Samnites had caught the Romans. Promoted to brigadier general by Championnet for this action on the same day, he was then put in charge of the conquest of Naples, wholly destroying cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo's army, submitting the whole of Apulia after it rose against the French and captured and burned down the towns of Trani and Andria.

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