Unfortunately, the brilliance of an individual can overcome the other components that enable it as with Alexander the Great and his generals Parmenion, Cleitus, and Hephastion. Napoleon Bonaparte rose through the ranks of the French artillery during the chaos of the Revolution to eventually establish a short-lived empire that permanently altered the Western World. He rose because of his charisma and capability, but his continued success must be recognized from the ability of his generals and the determination of the French people. One man that sought to make France great but not for the glory of the new emperor was Thomas-Alexandre Dumas.
A mulatto born in present-day Dominican Republic to an enslaved black woman and lower French nobleman, Dumas was the only one of his siblings to reach Europe. After business disagreements with his brother terminated his sugar plantation investments, Dumas's father sold all of his slave-born children to pay for his return to France. Four years later, his father bought back only Dumas and freed him in France in 1776.
Forced to sell some of his estates because of his failed enterprises shortly before Alexandre's arrival in Europe, his father spoiled him with the best education and noble hobbies. However, ten years later, in 1786, his father married a French woman and cut off Dumas's allowance. Free but black, Dumas sought employment in the military, but because his skin forced him to enlist in the infantry, his father refused him his noble surname. Disowned and penniless, Thomas-Alexandre abandoned his noble heritage and enlisted in the French army under the surname of his slave-mother, Dumas.
Courageous, brutally strong, charismatic, and strategically intelligent, Dumas enjoyed enormous success in all of his military endeavors. Proven in the skirmishes along the French border and as a riot policeman in Paris, Dumas was recruited as Second in Command into the "Black Legion," composed of free Frenchmen of color from the Americas. Thus, after eight years in the service, he was a general and led 53,000 men along the French border to defend against Italian and Austrian forces.
Along this border on March 23, 1797, at Clausen along the Eisack River, a French battalion was pinned down and unable to cross the river by Austrian forces. Leading a small group of twenty-five or so light cavalry, including eye-witness Dermoncourt, the small assault succeeded in pushing the Austrians off the bridge. Every man was injured from bullets or sabre wounds. After the initial charge that pushed past the barricades, the French were pinned down and sought cover behind the bodies of the dead. Dumas, employing his strength, wielded his sword and engaged the Austrian enemy gallantly and alone. He struck down all that came at him until relieved by reinforcements.
Having taken several severe wounds while succeeding in taking the bridge, Dumas earned the nickname "the Black Devil" from the terrified Austrians. His success inspired the interest of Napoleon who sent him a letter to compliment his achievement and comparedal him to the Roman hero Horatius Cocles.
The next year Dumas accompanied Napoleon to Egypt, but division between the two emerged. While Napoleon sought his own glory, Dumas wanted French security and disproved of Napoleon's pride. With his impressive size and physique, Dumas towered over Napoleon and was mistaken by enemies as the leader of the French force. These insults burned hatred into Napoleon against Dumas culminating in signing orders for Dumas to leave Egypt for France.
Dumas's return ship was damaged and forced to dock in Italy where he was captured and imprisoned for two years. Eventually his wife, who he has married in 1792, succeeded in petitioning his release and return to France. Upon Dumas's arrival home, Napoleon was emperor and refused to re-instate Dumas into the military and back-pay for the years of imprisonment. Seeking legal recourse as his health and finances diminished, Alexandre Dumas died of cancer in 1806.
Napoleon's treatment of Dumas has been blamed on racism, fear, and jealousy, but regardless of the cause, his actions robbed France of a dauntless Republican general whose love for France outshone his love for his own life. Even as a general, dark-skinned Dumas suffered the effects of racism and had a unique perspective: the highest military honors and the lowest social tolerance.
Isaac Newton credited his achievements to "standing on the shoulders of Giants." Napoleon is granted the remembrance and fascination of history, but his success came through the strength and ferocity of the French people, those fierce, loyal patriots that conquered Europe and that rushed at death with sabre and musket.
Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, the Black Devil, lived a rough life from slavery to military glory and political betrayal. Bold, daring, and strong, he breathed for France. That fervor distilled in his son, Alexandre Dumas, who became one of the great French writers as well as one of the most influential men in modern world literature. In the spirit and darring-do of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte-Cristo, Alexndre Dumas never surrendered.
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