Cluseret, Gustave Paul

Born June 13, 1823, in Paris; died Aug. 23, 1900, near Aire. French political figure. Regular officer.

Cluseret was involved in the suppression of the June Uprising of 1848. In 1855 he fought in the Crimean War (1853–56). In the late 1850’s he retired from the French Army. He took part in the campaign of Garibaldi’s Thousand. During the Civil War in the USA he fought in the ranks of the Union army and became a general. After the victory of the North he was given American citizenship. In 1866–67 he aligned himself with the Fenian movement in Ireland. Returning to France, he was arrested in 1868 for his sharp attacks in the press on the government of Napoleon III; he was freed as an American citizen but exiled from France. In April 1871 he was a military delegate of the Paris Commune; he was dismissed on April 30 and handed over to a court on charges of treason, but in May he was acquitted. After the fall of the Commune he emigrated. He returned to France in 1884. In 1888, 1889, 1893, and 1898 he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies, where he aligned himself with the socialist group.