Charles-Marie Denys, comte de Damrémont (8 February 1783–12 October 1837) was a French general and military governor of French Algeria. He was killed in combat during the siege of Constantine.
Early life
Charles-Marie Denys was born in Chaumont, Haute-Marne on 8 February 1783.
His father was Antoine Denys de Damrémont (1730-1807) who belonged to a family of merchants from Bologna and who got rich in forges in the 17th century.
Military training
He entered the military school at Fontainebleau in 1803.
After graduating from the school on 1804 he became a lieutenant in the 12th regiment of chasseurs à cheval.
Campaigns of Napoleon
He took part in the Wars of the Third and Fourth Coalitions. In 1807 he became aide-de-camp to general Defrance and afterwards to Marshal Marmont.
In 1811 and 1812 Damrémont served in the Peninsular War but in 1813 he transferred to the Grande Armée with which he fought in the campaigns in Germany (1813) and France (1814).
During the Hundred Days Damrémont became a colonel.
On 25 April 1821 Damrémont was promoted to Maréchal de camp.
In 1823 he was given command of a unit in the 5th Corps in the Army of the Pyrenees, which took part in the French invasion of Spain.
From 1823 to 1829 he served as inspector of the infantry and was named as a member of various military commissions.
Conquest of Algeria
In 1830 he commanded an infantry brigade in the French invasion of Algeria. On 13 December 1830 Damrémont was promoted to lieutenant-general.
Back to France
After his participation with the troupes coloniales at the start of the French conquest of Algeria, Damrémont returned to France where he was given command of the 8th military division in Marseille on 6 February 1832.
On 15 September 1835 he was named Pair de France.
Governor of Algeria
On 12 February 1837 Damrémont was appointed governor-general of French Algeria.
He was appointed to this strategic post after General Bertrand Clauzel (1772–1842) failed in 1836 during the First Battle of Constantine.
Damrémont was to resume the attempt to besiege and submit this city in the impregnable Constantine until then.
Governor Charles-Marie Denys had in his new mission to gather human reinforcements and adequate resources in order to succeed in the conquest of the Constantinois region.
The alliance between Ahmed Bey (1786-1851) in the Constantinois with the Emir Abdelkader (1808–1883) in Orania was a stake and a squirrel that General Damrémont had to overcome in order to establish the French colonial power over the entire Algerian territory.
Mitidja
General Damrémont spent the first half of 1837 in partial engagements with rebels affiliated with Emir Mustapha (1814–1863) in the Algerian Sahel and Mitidja.
Indeed, the Emir Mustapha organized from his stronghold of Médéa in the Titteri massif, guerrilla attacks against the French camps in Mitidja and harassed the villagers who came to collaborate with the colonial authorities.
This conflicting situation at the gates of the Casbah of Algiers caused worry and hassle in Damrémont which could not quickly organize decisive expeditions and military campaigns outside the Mitidja.
He took advantage of the presence of General Thomas Robert Bugeaud (1784–1849) in Algeria to send him to Orania to attack the capital of the Emirate of Abdelkader in order to open up the region of Algérois and to devote himself to preparing the ultimate expedition against Constantine.
But Damrémont's military strategy saw before it the Khachna and Djurdjura mountains where the Kabyle tribes and the marabouts of the zawiyas of the Rahmaniyya Sufi brotherhood could compromise and defeat the next campaign towards Constantine.
This is how took place on 8 May 1837 the attack on Reghaïa in Mitidja against a colonial farm of 3000 hectares in area by the Kabyles of Beni Aïcha, Issers and Amraoua.
General Damrémont took advantage of the disarray which settled in Algiers among the French, the day after the raid on Reghaïa, to organize a punitive expedition to pacify the eastern region of Mitidja which borders the Kabylia of rebels subservient to the Emir Mustapha and the marabouts.
Kabylia
Governor Damrémont decided in the aftermath of the Mitidja troubles in 1837 to hold General Alexandre Charles Perrégaux (1791-1837) responsible for the mission to subdue the coastal town of Dellys from where the Amraoua Kabyles left to devastate the French agricultural concessions in the Mitidja.