biography
| name: |
Kléber, Jean Baptiste
|
pronunciation:
[klaybair]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1753–1800)
|
| biography:
| French soldier, born in Strasbourg, NE France. He held a commission in the Austrian army (1776–82), and worked as an architect in Belfort before enlisting in the French Revolutionary army (1792). A general by 1793, he led successful campaigns in the French conquest of Belgium, accompanied Napoleon to Egypt, and won the Battle of Mt Tabor (1799). When Napoleon left Egypt he entrusted the chief command to Kléber, who concluded a convention with Sir Sidney Smith for its evacuation; but on Admiral Keith's refusal to ratify it, Kléber resolved to reconquer Egypt, destroyed the Turkish army at Heliopolis, and took Cairo. He tried to conclude a treaty with the Turks, and was assassinated by an Egyptian fanatic in Cairo. |
|
|
