Lazare Hoche (1768-1797) was a French soldier who became one of the key commanders of the French Revolutionary Army. His name is inscribed on the Arch de Triomphe. Hoche’s military career, which began in 1789 as a soldier of the National Guard, saw successful campaigns against the Austrians and Prussians in the Rhine as well as putting down the three-year long Vendée royalist revolt. It was in 1796 however that Hoche was appointed to organise an expedition into Ireland to assist the United Irishmen and its leader Theobald Wolfe Tone who had been conducting negotiations for such an expedition with the French, however his expedition failed to reach Ireland via Bantry Bay due to a fateful storm. Hoche would die the following year of tuberculosis in Germany, aged only 29. He had issued a proclamation to the French army assigned with the Irish expedition prior to its abortive attempt to land in Ireland, which has been reproduced by Cartlann.