1. Jean-Baptiste Billot was a French general and politician.
11 Facts About Jean-Baptiste Billot
1. 2.
Jean-Baptiste Billot entered the Ecole speciale militaire de Saint-Cyr in 1847, and on leaving it in 1849 joined the staff with the rank of sous-lieutenant.
3.
Jean-Baptiste Billot refused the post of under-secretary of state for war under emperor Maximilian.
4.
Jean-Baptiste Billot fought in the Franco-Prussian War, at first as Chief of staff under general Laveaucoupet, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division integrated into 2nd Army Corps of general Frossard.
5.
Jean-Baptiste Billot participated in the battles of Sarrebruck, Forbach where he was mentioned in dispatches, Borny and Noiseville.
6.
Jean-Baptiste Billot managed to escape after the capture of Metz and put himself in the service of the Government of National Defence.
7.
Jean-Baptiste Billot was promoted to colonel, then general de brigade and provisional general de division.
8.
Chief of staff then commander of the 18th Army Corps, Jean-Baptiste Billot was beaten at Beaune-la-Rolande on 28 November 1870.
9.
Jean-Baptiste Billot was elected deputy for Correze in 1871 as a member of the Gauche republicaine parliamentary group, before representing this departement as "senateur inamovible" from 1875, sitting among the Republicans.
10.
Jean-Baptiste Billot alternated military commands with political posts: vice-president of the Conseil superieur de la Caisse des offrandes nationales and member of the Conseil superieur for war from 1883 to 1896, commander of the 1st Army Corps from 1884 to 1888, then minister for war in the Meline government from 1896 to 1898.
11.
Grand-Cross of the Legion d'Honneur in 1896 and Medaille militaire in 1897, general Jean-Baptiste Billot was grand-cross of the order of Cambodia, then a French protectorate, in 1898 and of the order of the Crown of Romania.