Louis Joseph Lahure

{{Infobox military person |name=Louis Joseph Lahure |birth_date=29 December 1767 |death_date= 24 October 1853 October 24, 1853(1853-10-24) (aged 86) |birth_place=Mons, Hainaut, Austrian Netherlands |death_place=Wavrechain-sous-Faulx, Nord, France |image= Lahure.jpg |caption= |nickname= |allegiance= United States of Belgium
French Republic]]



[[File:Flag of France.svg|18px French Empire |branch=French Army |serviceyears=1787–1853 |rank= Lieutenant General |commands= |battles=French Revolutionary Wars
Napoleonic Wars |awards= Commandeur of the Légion d'Honneur
Name inscribed under the Arc de Triomphe |laterwork= }}

Louis Joseph Lahure (Mons, Austrian Netherlands, 29 December 1767 - château de Wavrechain-sous-Faulx, near Bouchain, Valenciennes, 24 October 1853) was a general from the Southern Netherlands in the service of the First French Republic and First French Empire. He was the son of Nicolas Lahure and Marie-Thérèse du Buisson. His name is inscribed on the Arc de triomphe in Paris.

Historical Significance

Commandant Louis Joseph Lahure has a singular distinction in military history — he allegedly defeated a navy on horseback.

Occupying Holland in January 1795, the French continental army learned that the Dutch navy had been frozen into the ice around Texel Island. Lahure and - by his own account - 128 men simply rode up to it and demanded surrender. No shots were fired.

The reality may be somewhat less remarkable, and the idea of a "defeat" inaccurate. Contact and an approach for surrender may already have been made, while anti-French Dutch forces were likely by this stage under order not to engage or resist Napoleon's men.