Auguste Mercier (8 December 1833-3 March 1921) was War Minister of France from 3 December 1893 to 24 January 1895, succeeding Julien Leon Loizillon and preceding Emile Zurlinden.
Biography[]
Auguste Mercier was born in Arras, France on 8 December 1833, and he graduated from the École Polytechnique fourth in a class of 106. In 1854, Mercier chose to enter the French Army artillery, and he later served in horse artillery before serving in Mexico from 1862 to 1864, running his regiment's foundry during the Siege of Puebla. During the Franco-Prussian War, he was taken prisoner at the Siege of Metz, but he later escaped and fought in the Siege of Paris. After the war, he was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in 1876, Colonel in 1879, Brigadier-General in 1884, Major-General in 1889, and War Minister from 1893 to 1895. During his tenure as War Minister, Mercier presided over the Dreyfus affair, in which he and the military high command framed the Jewish artillery officer Alfred Dreyfus for Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy's treachery and attempted to silence Georges Picquart's investigation into the affair. Even after Dreyfus was exhonerated in 1906, Mercier - who was serving as a Nationalist senator for Lower Loire from 1900 to 1920 - voted against Dreyfus' reinstatement into the military. He died in Paris in 1921.