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Adam Philippe, Comte de Custine (4 February 1740 – 28 August 1793) was a French general. As a young officer in the Bourbon Royal army, he served in the Seven Years' War. In the American Revolutionary War he joined Rochambeau's ''Expédition Particulière'' (Special Expedition) supporting the American colonists. Following the successful Virginia campaign and the Battle of Yorktown, he returned to France and rejoined his unit in the Royal Army. When the French Revolution began he was elected to the Estates-General and served in the subsequent National Constituent Assembly as a representative from Metz. He supported some of the August Decrees, but also supported, generally, royal prerogative and the rights of the French émigrés. At the dissolution of the Assembly in 1791, he rejoined the army as a lieutenant general and the following year replaced Nicolas Luckner as commander-in-chief of the ''Army of the Vosges''. In 1792, he successfully led campaigns in the middle and upper Rhine regions, taking Speyer and Mainz and breaching the Wissembourg lines. Following Charles François Dumouriez's apparent treason, the Committee of Public Safety investigated Custine, but a vigorous defense mounted by the Revolutionary lawyer Robespierre resulted in his acquittal. Upon return to active command, he found the army had lost most of its officer corps and experienced troops, and in 1793, following a series of reversals in the spring, the French lost control of much of the territory they had acquired the year before. Ordered to take command of the Army of the North, Custine sought first to solidify French control of the important crossings of the Rhine by Mainz. However, when he failed to relieve the besieged fortress of Condé the following year, he was recalled to Paris. After Condé, Mainz and Speyer had all been lost, he was arrested. He was prosecuted in a lengthy trial before the Committee on Public Safety's Revolutionary Tribunal by Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville, and Jacques Hébert continued to attack Custine through his publication Le Père Duchesne. Custine was found guilty of treason by a majority vote of the Tribunal on 27 August, and guillotined the following day. His son was also executed a few months later, and his daughter-in-law suffered for several months in prison before she was released in the summer of 1794. She managed to recover some of the family property and emigrated to Germany, and later, Switzerland, with her son, Astolphe-Louis-Léonor. The fate of the family is representative of the fates of many of the minor aristocracy in France, especially those in the military and diplomatic corps, whose reputations the Montagnards tarnished in the Reign of Terror. ==Military service== Custine began his career at the age of eight, in 1748, at the end of the War of Austrian Succession in Germany under Marshal Saxe, who continued his tutelage during peace time. During the Seven Years' War (1756–63), Custine served in the French army in the German states; in 1758, he was a captain of dragoons in the Schomberg regiment.〔 Adam Philippe Custine, (''Mémoires sur les guerres de la République'' ). Introduction by Charles Francois Dumouriez. Paris, Ladvocat, 1824. pp.ii–xii.〕 While fighting the Prussians, Custine learned to admire their modern military organization, which later influenced his own military style.〔Émile Auguste Nicolas Jules Bégin (''Biographie de la Moselle'' ), Verronais, 1829, vol. 1, pp. 320–370.〕 By the end of the Seven Years' War, Custine was ''maestre de camp''. The Duc de Choiseul recognized his talent and created a regiment of dragoons for him, but Custine exchanged this for a regiment of infantry that was heading for America, where he could continue military action, acquire additional experience, and obtain promotion.〔Thomas Balch, ''The French in America during the War of Independence.'' nl, Porter and Coates, 1895, pp. 90–91.〕 His regiment, the ''Regiment de Saintonge'' (1,322 men and officers), embarked for the Thirteen Colonies in April 1780 from Brest. There, he served with distinction against the British as a colonel in the expeditionary force of Count Rochambeau in the War of American Independence. The regiment participated in the Virginia campaign of 1781 and received distinguished commendations for action at the Battle of Yorktown; Custine received individual recognition of merit and a brevet from the United States government.〔Appleton Prentiss Clark Griffin and United States Congress, Joint committee on the Library. ''Rochambeau: A commemoration by the Congress of the United States of America of the Services of the French Auxiliary Forces in the War of Independence.'' Washington, DC, S. Government Printing Office, 1907. pp. 570–572.〕 Rouchambeau's reports praised his honesty, zeal, courage and talents.〔 Following the surrender of the British, his regiment wintered in Williamsburg, Virginia and departed for the Antilles in December 1782, with the rest of the expeditionary force. On his return to France, Custine was named ''maréchal de camp'' (brigadier general) and appointed governor of Toulon.〔Bégin, p. 321.〕 He also resumed responsibilities as the proprietor of the dragoon regiment ''de Rouergue.''〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Adam Philippe, Comte de Custine」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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