- Source: Alfred van der Smissen
Alfred van der Smissen, 2nd Baron van der Smissen (1 February 1823 – 16 June 1895) was a Belgian general.
Biography
He started his career in the French Foreign Legion before serving in the Belgian Legion in the Second Franco-Mexican War.
Family
Alfred van der Smissen is the second son of Jacques Van der Smissen, 1st Baron van der Smissen, a Belgian artillery officer who enlisted in 1807 in Napoleon's Grande Armée, where he obtained the rank of major. His mother was Louise Catherine Colleton Graves, daughter of Rear Admiral Richard Graves (1758-1836) and niece of Thomas Graves, 1st Baron Graves, who took part in the landing of the French expeditionary force of Jean-Baptiste-Donatien de Vimeur de Rochambeau near Yorktown.
Honours and arms
Grand Officer of the Order of Leopold
Commander of the Legion of Honour
Order of the Lion and the Sun First Class
Order of the Medjidie Third Class
Military Cross
Order of Saint Anna, 1st class with diamonds
Grand Cross of the Order of the Red Eagle
Grand Cross of the Order of Charles III
Cross of Honour 1st Class of the Princely House Order of Hohenzollern
Order of Guadalupe
Grand Cross of the Order of Aviz
Order of the Gold Lion of the House of Nassau
Imperial Order of the Mexican Eagle
Commemorative medal of the Mexico Expedition
Knight of the Order of Leopold (Austria)
2nd Class Order of the Crown (Prussia)
Bibliography
André Vander Mensbrugghe, « Alfred-Louis-Adolphe Vander Smissen », dans : Biographie nationale de Belgique, tome 22.
Jacqueline Hons, « La légion belge au Mexique », Ami, no 26, novembre 1981.
Eric Taladoire, Les contre-guérillas françaises dans les terres chaudes du Mexique (1862-1867), l’Harmattan 2016
Charles Daubige, Les vestes rouges au Tamaulipas, 1876
Modeste Loiseau, Le Mexique et la légion belge (1864-1867), Bruxelles : J. De Cocq, 1870
Emile Walton, Souvenirs d’un officier belge au Mexique (1864-1866), Ch. Tanera Éditeur, Paris, 1868, p. 172