page_title: Jean Antoine de Collaert
section_title: French service: 1811–1814
hierarchical_section_title: Jean Antoine de Collaert / French service: 1811–1814
caption_attribution_description: Général_Samuel_François_Lhéritier_de_Chézelles 1772-1829
context_page_description: Jean Marie Antoine Philippe de Collaert led the Dutch-Belgian cavalry division at the Battle of Waterloo. He became an officer in the Habsburg Austrian cavalry in 1778 and later served in the Dutch Republic army until 1786. After the armies of the First French Republic overran the Dutch Republic in 1795, Collaert became a lieutenant colonel of hussars in the new army of the Batavian Republic, a French satellite state. He fought with distinction at the Battle of Castricum in 1799 and was badly wounded fighting the Austrians in 1800. He was promoted colonel in 1803. Under the Kingdom of Holland he became a major general in 1806 and colonel-general of the King's Bodyguard in 1808.
  After Holland was annexed to the First French Empire, Collaert entered French service as a general of brigade and was assigned to garrison duty for two years. In 1813 he was appointed to command a French cavalry brigade in the German Campaign. That year he led his horsemen at Dresden, Leipzig and Sainte-Croix-en-Plaine. In 1814 he fought at La Rothière, Mormant and Saint-Dizier. Going to the newly created Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815, he was soon appointed lieutenant general of its cavalry.
context_section_description: After the First French Empire absorbed the Kingdom of Holland, Collaert joined the French army as a general of brigade on 2 January 1811. He was sent to the Illyrian Provinces where took command of the 1st Brigade of Alexis Joseph Delzons' 1st Division of the Observation Army of Italy. From 1811 until 1 April 1813 he commanded the garrison of Zadar (Zara). On 25 March 1813 he was appointed to lead a cavalry brigade in Germany. At his new assignment in Jean-Toussaint Arrighi de Casanova's III Cavalry Corps he served in Samuel-François Lhéritier's 5th Heavy Cavalry Division.
  On 10 August 1813 the 5th Heavy Cavalry Division was transferred to the V Cavalry Corps and from that day until 5 October Collaert was the acting division commander. During this period, he led the division at the Battle of Dresden on 26–27 August while Lhéritier led the corps. The division included the 2nd, 6th, 11th, 13th and 15th Dragoon Regiments and counted 61 officers and 851 troopers. During the Battle of Leipzig on 16–19 October, Collaert led one brigade in Lhéritier's 1,700-strong 5th Heavy Cavalry Division with Pierre Claude Pajol commanding the corps. Collaert's brigade was made up of four squadrons of the 11th Dragoons, two squadrons of the 13th Dragoons and three squadrons of the 15th Dragoons.
  Formations of the Allied army of Karl Philipp, Prince of Schwarzenberg began crossing the Rhine River at Basel on 21 December 1813. In the lead was an Austro-Bavarian raiding force of 700 cavalrymen led by Karl von Scheibler. When he received news of the invasion, Marshal Claude Perrin Victor ordered Édouard Jean Baptiste Milhaud to take the 3,500 troopers of V Cavalry Corps and scout enemy movements. On 23 December, now reinforced with two regiments of Don Cossacks, Scheibler's force moved north through Mulhouse. Meanwhile, his 200-man spearhead captured 12 artillery caissons, reached Colmar, learned Milhaud's corps was due the next day and fell back to join the main force. On the morning of 24 December at Sainte-Croix-en-Plaine, Scheibler's 800 horsemen were routed by 1,000 French dragoons led by Gabriel-Gaspard Montélégier. As the Allies galloped to safety they found the two lead squadrons of Collaert's brigade blocking their escape route. Scheibler received three wounds but most of his force managed to cut its way out of the trap, suffering the loss of nine officers and about 200 troopers. French casualties were 80 but they recaptured the lost caissons. Though it was only a skirmish, Schwarzenberg became very cautious, believing that strong French forces were nearby. In fact, Schwarzenberg's 75,000 soldiers vastly outnumbered Victor's 10,000.
  On 25 March 1814, Collaert commanded the 5th Heavy Cavalry Division in Milhaud's cavalry corps. The division was made up of a 1,037-strong brigade that included the 2nd, 6th and 11th Dragoons and an 872-man brigade that counted the 13th and 15th Dragoons. He led a brigade consisting of the 22nd and 25th Dragoons in Lhéritier's 6th Heavy Cavalry Division during the Battle of La Rothière on 1 February 1814. Led by Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, 80,000 Allies defeated Napoleon's 45,000 French troops. In response to the initial attack by Fabian Gottlieb von Osten-Sacken's Russian army corps, Lhéritier charged but was slowed by wet ground and stopped by intense artillery fire. After heavy fighting, the division was employed in covering the retreat of the French army.
  At the Battle of Mormant on 17 February 1814, Napoleon's army encountered a Russian force of 2,500 infantry and 1,800 cavalry under Peter Petrovich Pahlen. The leading French formations arranged themselves into an arrow shape with Victor's infantry in the center. François Étienne de Kellermann led the right flank cavalry with the divisions of Lhéritier and Anne-François-Charles Trelliard while Milhaud led the left flank cavalry with the divisions of Hippolyte Piré and André Briche. Kellermann hurled Lhéritier's division at Pahlen's Cossacks while Trelliard went after the Russian infantry. Auguste Etienne Lamotte's brigade defeated two Cossack regimen
caption: Samuel Lhéritier
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