Comte de Rochambeau
The Comte de Rochambeau commanded the French army in America and made Yorktown possible. Born Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur in Vendôme in 1725, he was a second son intended for the church and entered the army when his elder brother died. He served through the Wars of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War, was wounded repeatedly, and fought at Minorca and Klostercamp. He was appointed in 1780 to command the expeditionary force sent to support the American revolution — some 5,500 men — with instructions to place himself under Washington's orders, which was an extraordinary subordination for a French lieutenant general and which he observed scrupulously. He landed at Newport in July 1780 and spent a year there, blockaded and inactive, imposing a discipline on his troops so strict that they paid for everything in hard currency and left no complaints behind them — which did a great deal for the alliance's standing among a population that had expected the worst of Catholic Frenchmen. The strategic argument came in 1781. Washington wanted to attack New York. Rochambeau had received word that de Grasse's fleet was coming to the Chesapeake and argued for Virginia instead, and Washington accepted it. The two armies marched some 700 kilometres south in secrecy, and the combined siege forced Cornwallis to surrender about seven thousand men on 19 October 1781. He returned to France, was made a marshal in 1791, was arrested during the Terror and narrowly escaped the guillotine, and died in 1807. His son fought at Waterloo and was killed there.
- Lived: 1725 CE – 1807 CE
- Nationality: French
- Roles: general, military_leader
