Adam Philippe de Custine

Adam Philippe, count de Custine (February 4th 1740, Metz - August 28th 1793, Paris) is a French general.

Before the French revolution

Officer admiror of the Prussian methods, Adam Philippe de Custine is also a partisan of the novel ideas. Being one of the generals more the unlucky persons of the revolutionary wars, Adam de Custine began his career as captain lasting the Guerre Seven Year old (1756 - 1763) and were used as colonel during the countryside of the Guerre of American independence in the task force as Jean Marie Donatien de Vimeur de Rochambeau. With the return it is named Brigadier (brigadier general) and governor of Toulon.

Under the French revolution

Political career

Appointed of the nobility of Metz to the General states of 1789, he votes often on the left, then is one of the first to be adopted the Tiers state, vote the Déclaration of the human rights but takes the defense of the emigrants and of the goods of the clergy, defends the royal prerogatives.

Military career

Named lieutenant-general with the dissolution of the legislative Parliament (1791), he endeavors to restore the discipline in the army. At the beginning of the war, on April 29th 1792, it takes Porrentruy. It receives in 1792 the command of the Armée with the Rhine in the place of Nicolas Luckner and in September 1792 occupies the south of the the Rhineland with the towns of Spire, Mainz (October 21st, 1792) and Francfort-sur-le-Main. It then enters into the negociations with the Prussians for a separate peace. They fail and the Prussians take again the offensive in March 1793. A garrison of 20.000 men resists in besieged Mainz. Custine then offers its resignation which is refused, Maximilien de Robespierre declaring even to the Jacobins: " I estimate his frankness, this general served the patrie" well;. Custine then sends a letter to the Parliament where it implies that the fatherland can be saved only by one dictator and that this dictator can be only one general. Attacked by the Jacobins, it however obtains Convention the command as a chief of the joined together armies of the Rhine, North, of the Moselle and the Ardennes with for mission the reconquest of the Belgium.

Adam de Custine is then transferred to the Armée with North (April 13rd, 1793). But its strength in the discipline, its independence with regard to the Convention, its defeats in the Rhineland, finally the catch of Condé-sur-Escaut by the Austrians make it suspect. The fall of the Of Gironde, the denunciation of Jacques Rene Hébert on parts produced by the general secretary of the ministry for the War, François-Nicolas Vincent, of the reports/ratios of Adam Philippe de Custine with the high command austro-Prussian, involves the convocation with Paris of Adam Philippe de Custine and his arrest on its arrival, on July 22nd, 1793. Translated in front of the revolutionary Tribunal where its lawsuit is shortened on the threats of Jacques Rene Hébert and Robespierre, he is condemned and guillotine the August 28th 1793.

He is the father of Armand-Louis-Philippe de Custine and the grandfather of Astolphe de Custine.

Literature

Arthur Chuquet : the Forwarding of Custine (1892)

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