Nicolas Dahlmann

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Nicolas Dahlmann (7 November 1769 – 10 February 1807) was a French cavalry general who fought in the Napoleonic Wars.

He was born in Thionville, the son of a trumpeter, and joined the French Army in 1777 at age eight, following his father and older brother into the Regiment Dauphin Cavalerie (later the 12e Régiment de Cavalerie). He served in the infantry and fought with the armies of the Moselle and the Pyrenees. He was wounded in Italy and joined the Guides-a-Cheval de Bonaparte when they formed in 1796.

Dahlmann went to Egypt with the Army of the Orient, serving at Salahieh and Aboukir. He returned to France with Napoleon in 1798 and became chef d’escadron (a major) of the Chasseurs à Cheval in October 1802. He fought at Austerlitz and was promoted to colonel-major of the Imperial Guard’s light cavalry. He also saw action at Jena and was promoted to brigadier general at the age of 36.

In the Battle of Eylau in February 1807, he was on Napoleon’s staff but asked to lead his old unit, the Chasseurs à Cheval, in a cavalry charge on February 8. He was badly wounded in the right hip and died on February 10, 1807 at the manor house of Worienen.

Napoleon granted Dahlmann’s widow a pension and, in 1811, his son was made Baron de l’Empire. On Napoleon’s orders, Dahlmann’s heart was embalmed and placed in the Pantheon in Paris.