Jean-Baptiste Kléber () (9 March 1753 – 14 June 1800) was a French military leader of the French Revolutionary Wars. After serving for one year in the French Royal Army, he entered Habsburg service seven years later. However, his plebeian ancestry hindered his opportunities. Eventually, he volunteered for the French Revolutionary Army in 1792 and quickly rose through the ranks.
Kléber served in the Rhineland during the War of the First Coalition, and also suppressed the Vendée Revolt. He retired to private life in the peaceful interim after the Treaty of Campo Formio, but returned to military service to accompany Napoleon Bonaparte in the campaign in Egypt and Syria in 1798. As the Egyptian campaign was deteriorating, Napoleon returned to Paris in 1799 and appointed Kléber as commander of all French forces in Egypt. He was assassinated by a student in Cairo in 1800.
A trained architect, Kléber, in times of peace, designed a number of buildings.
Early career
Jean-Baptiste Kléber was born on 9 March 1753 in Strasbourg, in the province of Alsace, where his father worked as a master builder. He briefly engaged in 1769 in the French 1st Hussar Regiment, but resigned to study, from 1770 to 1774, architecture, partly in Paris with Jean Chalgrin. His opportune assistance to two German nobles in a tavern brawl obtained for him nomination to the military school of Munich. From this education, he obtained a commission in the Kaunitz Infantry Regiment Nr. 38 of the Habsburg Austrian army. He took part in the War of the Bavarian Succession but did not see major engagements. He was stationed alternately in the garrisons of Mons, Mechelen, and Luxembourg in the Austrian Netherlands. Finding that his humble birth hindered his chances for promotion beyond that of an unterleutnant, he left the Austrian army in 1783 after serving seven years.
Architecture
On returning to France, Kléber received the appointment of inspector of public buildings at Belfort. Between 1784 and 1792, he designed a number of buildings both on public and private commission. Perhaps the most notable is the current town hall of Thann, Haut-Rhin (1787–1793), which was originally designed as a hospital but turned into an administrative building before its completion. Other surviving buildings are the château of Grandvillars (often erroneously spelled "Granvillars"), built around 1790 and the canoness houses of the Benedictine abbey of Masevaux (1781–1790). Nine of these houses had been planned but due to the French Revolution, only seven were built. The Musée historique de Strasbourg features a room dedicated to Jean-Baptiste Kléber that also displays a number of his sketches and architectural designs.
French Revolutionary Wars
In 1792, at the start of the French Revolutionary Wars, Kléber enlisted in the 4th Battalion of Volunteers of Haut-Rhin. Thanks to his military experience, he was at once elected adjutant and soon afterward lieutenant-colonel of the battalion. At the defense of Mainz in July 1793 he so distinguished himself that, though disgraced along with the rest of the garrison and imprisoned, he promptly won reinstatement, and was promoted to brigade general in August 1793.
Kléber was then posted to the Army of the Coasts of La Rochelle and deployed to Western France, where he took part in the suppression of the Revolt in the Vendée. Although beaten at the Battle of Tiffauges on 19 September 1793, he maintained good relations with the representatives on mission and managed to keep his command. A month later, Kléber contributed to the Republican victory at Cholet, earning him his promotion to general of division on 17 October 1793. In these operations began his intimacy with General François Marceau, with whom he defeated the Royalists at the battles of Le Mans and Savenay in December 1793.
When Kléber openly expressed his opinion that the Vendéans merited lenient measures, the authorities recalled him, but reinstated him once more in April 1794 and sent him to the Army of the Ardennes. He displayed his skill and bravery in the numerous actions around Charleroi, and especially in the crowning victory at Fleurus (26 June 1794). During the following years he served mostly in the Army of Sambre and Meuse on the Rhine frontier. In the winter of 1794–1795 he besieged Mainz. In 1795, and again in 1796, Kléber held the chief command of the army temporarily, but declined a permanent appointment as commander-in-chief.