Alphonse Gibert (11 August 1769 – 29 June 1837) was a colonel of the French Army during the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars.
Biography[]
Gibert was born in Chamboulive in western France in 1769. He joined the French Army in 1786 at the age of seventeen and was a Sergeant in the army by the time of the revolution in 1789; he was the son of a cobbler, so he could not advance past the rank of a non-commissioned officer. Gibert was made a captain in the National Guard at the start of the French Revolutionary Wars and saw no fighting, and retired in 1800.
When France came under threat from foreign invaders in 1814, Gibert was offered the rank of colonel and given the command of a regiment of National Guardsmen in eastern France. He fought at the Battle of Chatillon-sur-Seine on 5 February 1814, where his regiment fought well despite their inexperience. Gibert remained in the National Guard even after the Bourbon Restoration and was still a colonel at the time of his death in 1837.