Alfred van der Smissen explained

Honorific Prefix:	Lt Gen
Honorific Suffix:	2nd Baron van der Smissen
Birth Date:	1 February 1823
Death Date:	16 June 1895
Birth Place:	Brussels, United Kingdom of the Netherlands
Death Place:	Brussels
Birth Name:	Alfred-Louis-Adolphe-Graves van der Smissen
Allegiance:	Belgium, France
Rank:	Lieutenant general
Battles:	French conquest of Algeria, Second Franco-Mexican War
Relations:	Thomas Graves, 1st Baron Graves, his great-uncle

Alfred van der Smissen, 2nd Baron van der Smissen (1 February 1823 – 16 June 16 1895) was a Belgian general.^[1]

Biography

He started his career in the French Foreign Legion^[2] before serving in the Belgian Legion in the Second Franco-Mexican War.^[3]

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.^{[4] [5]}

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)

Coat of arms of the van der Smissen family
Description:	Vert, a castle open argent and masoned sable, each tower surmounted by a hand-grenade sable fired or, in each bottom canton a pile of six roundels sable.
Motto:	Vestigia nulla retrorsum.
Coronet:	A Belgian Baron's Coronet

Bibliography

• André Vander Mensbrugghe, « Alfred-Louis-Adolphe Vander Smissen », dans : Biographie nationale de Belgique, tome 22.
• Jacqueline Hons, « La légion belge au Mexique  », Ami, n^o 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

References

1. André Vander Mensbrugghe, « Alfred-Louis-Adolphe Vander Smissen », in : Biographie nationale de Belgique, volume 22.
2. Alain Libert, Les plus sombres histoires de l'histoire de la Belgique, Bruxelles : La Boite à Pandore, 2014.
3. Web site: « 54 ans après Queretaro. Quatre vingtième anniversaire. Curieux souvenirs », Article de Jean Bar publié dans La Dernière Heure du 7 juin 1920, 1920 juin AfricaMuseum - Archives . 2023-06-17 . archives.africamuseum.be.
4. Web site: Généalogie de Alfred van der SMISSEN . 2023-06-20 . Geneanet . fr.
5. Web site: Family tree of Jacques van der SMISSEN . 2023-06-20 . Geneanet . en.