Lazare Hoche

Divisional-General Louis Lazare Hoche was a French Army officer and politician who served as the Minister of War in 1797. He enlisted in the French Royal Army's French Guards Regiment in 1784, and joined the National Guard in 1789 following the beginning the French Revolution. Hoche was commissioned as an officer in 1792, and successively served in the Flanders campaign, War in the Vendée and Chouannerie along with several other engagements. The British historian Richard Holmes described Hoche as "quick-thinking, stern, and ruthless... a general of real talent whose early death was a loss to France."