Augustin de Lespinasse (8 October 1737 – 23 November 1816) commanded French artillery during the French Revolutionary Wars. After fighting in the Seven Years' War he switched to the artillery branch. He advanced in rank to major by 1788 and was attached to the Army of the Rhine in 1791. After transferring to the Army of the Western Pyrenees as chief of artillery, he coolly directed the successful defence of the Sans Culottes Camp in February 1794. He was soon promoted to general of division but the Minister of War blocked his continued employment.
Lespinasse transferred to the Army of Italy under Napoleon Bonaparte in 1796. He fought with distinction at Castiglione, Rovereto, Arcole and Mantua. Thereafter he published a treatise on the organization of artillery. After becoming emperor Napoleon appointed Lespinasse to the Senate and gave him other honors. LESPINASSE is one of the names inscribed under the Arc de Triomphe, on Column 35.
Early career
Lespinasse was born in Pouilly-sur-Loire on 8 October 1737. He joined the Black Musketeers of the Maison du Roi and later in 1759 he transferred to the carabiniers with the rank of cornet. He fought in the final campaigns of the Seven Years' War as aide-de-camp to Colonel de Poyanne. After the war's end in 1763 he switched to the artillery branch with the rank of lieutenant. The Minister of War Étienne François, duc de Choiseul, noting Lespinasse's intelligence, assigned him to write a treatise on practical trigonometry and leveling. This paper was published in 1768.
Lespinasse had been promoted to captain on 24 March 1767. Other officers were jealous of his promotion and he was obliged to fight a number of duels in which he showed himself courageous and generous. He was attached to the fortress of Strasbourg and became inspector of the weapons manufacturers at Saint-Étienne and Maubeuge. On 25 May 1788 he received promotion to major and put in charge of setting up an artillery depot on the Loire River, but the French Revolution ended that project.
French Revolution
On 1 January 1791 Lespinasse was promoted colonel of the 5th Foot Artillery Regiment. On 26 March 1793 he became chef de brigade of the 2nd Artillery Regiment with the Army of the Rhine. He subsequently transferred to the Army of the Western Pyrenees. In 1793 this army had 15 artillery companies with Lespinasse as chief of artillery. The army's artillery establishment needed to be set up from "almost nothing" according to one historian. Besides receiving field guns from the interior, 535 pieces were seized from the Spanish over the course of the War of the Pyrenees. Most of the captured guns lacked carriages, but Lespinasse managed to provide carriages for the pieces. He also equipped a pontoon train and a siege train, though a severe shortage of draft horses limited their usefulness. His fertile mind came up with the idea of forming armorer companies to repair the stockpile of captured Spanish muskets.
The French built the Sans Culottes Camp covering the village of Urrugne near the Bay of Biscay. The camp was used as a place to train new conscripts. One notable feature of the Sans Culottes Camp was that the soldiers lived in huts instead of tents. Jacques Léonard Muller organized his army into 40 battalions in five divisions, despite having to send 8,000 troops to other armies in January 1794. The 26 best battalions were distributed among the front-line divisions of Jean Henri Guy Nicolas de Frégeville, Bon-Adrien Jeannot de Moncey and Henri François Delaborde while the remaining 14 were parceled out to the divisions of Jean-Antoine Marbot and Jean Mauco. Lespinasse was in charge of building fortifications during the winter. These earthworks consisted of forts connected by breastworks. The entire front from Hendaye to the sources of the Nive River was covered by mutually-supporting redoubts.
The Spanish army consisted of 20,000 troops of whom half were militia. The Spanish commander Captain General Ventura Caro y Fortas determined to seize two strong redoubts near Hendaye called the Croix des Bouquets and the Calvaire d'Urrugne. The Spanish right wing under Pedro Téllez-Girón, 9th Duke of Osuna held Burguete, the center under José de Urrutia y de las Casas was in the Baztan Valley and the left wing under General Gil was near Irun. On 5 February 1794, 13,000 Spanish infantry and 700 cavalry and gunners under Urrutia attacked the French defenses in the Battle of Sans Culottes Camp.