Portrait of Antoine-Henri Jomini , Baron of the empire
Born in Payerne in the Swiss canton of Vaud on March 6, 1779. He started out working as a bank clerk in Basel and later in Paris, but his real interest was the military. In 1798 he joined the Swiss army, eventually becoming secretary general of the Ministry of War and reaching the rank of battalion commander. He resigned in 1802 due to political turmoil in Switzerland.
He entered the French army in 1804, serving first as aide-de-camp to Michel Ney and then becoming Ney’s chief of staff in 1807. Jomini took part in the campaigns in Germany, Prussia, and Poland, and wrote analytical works on strategy, including his famous Traité des grandes opérations militaires. Napoléon made him a baron in 1808.
Tensions with Ney pushed him to consider entering Russian service in 1810, but Napoléon kept him by promoting him to brigadier general. In 1812, during the invasion of Russia, Jomini served as governor of Wilna and then Smolensk, and he was the one who found the route to the Berezina that prevented the French army from being encircled.
During the 1813 Saxony campaign he reconciled with Ney and performed exceptionally at Bautzen, earning a nomination for major general. Marshal Alexandre Berthier, who disliked him and his criticisms, removed his name from the promotion list and even had him briefly arrested. On August 14, 1813, Jomini left French service and joined the Allies. Tsar Alexandre I made him a lieutenant-general and took him on as an aide-de-camp.
Jomini opposed the invasion of France in 1814–1815, so he attended the campaigns only as an advisor. He also worked to protect Switzerland’s independence and served as a consultant during the Congress of Vienna and later meetings of the Holy Alliance. In Russia, he continued a distinguished career, tutoring the future Nicolas I and later Nicolas’s son. Made général-en-chef in 1826, he again advised the Tsar during the Crimean War, and Napoléon III later sought his counsel in 1859.
In declining health since the retreat from Russia, Jomini died in Passy on March 22, 1869, shortly after turning ninety, and was buried in the Montmartre cemetery.
Jomini was sometimes accused of betraying France by giving the Allies French plans for the 1813 campaign, but Napoléon himself rejected these claims. Some of Ney’s victories were credited largely to Jomini’s staff work, one reason for the tension between them.
