Kléber, Jean-Baptiste

(1753-1800)

   military figure

   A commander who played prominent roles in the War of the First Coalition (1793-97) and in the Egyptian campaign (1798-1800), Jean-Baptiste Kléber was born in Strasbourg and studied at the military school in Munich, Germany (1776-82), then pursued an architectural career in France. During the revolution of 1789, as a French officer in charge of a battalion of Alsatian volunteers, he distinguished himself at Mainz (1792) and was consequently made a general. The next year, he suppressed an uprising in the vendée, but was recalled after complaints that he showed excessive leniency toward the insurgents. In 1794, he served in campaigns in Belgium and on the Rhine under Marshal jean-baptiste jourdan, winning the Battle of Fleurus and taking Maastricht. But following a difference of opinion with Jourdan, Kléber resigned and began work on his memoirs (1796). In 1798, however, he was given command of a division as part of the expedition to Egypt undertaken by Napoléon Bonaparte (napoleon i). There, Kléber was wounded during the capture of Alexandria. He was made governor of that city and the next year won a brilliant victory at Mt. Tabor over the Turks in Syria. After Napoleon's return to France in 1799, General Kléber was left in command of the French Army in Egypt. He defeated Turkish forces at Heliopolis and retook Cairo, where an insurrection against the French had occurred. It was shortly afterward that he was assassinated there.