Charles Joseph Evers

Born on 8 May 1773 in Brussels, died on 9 August 1818.

Charles Evers volunteers as dragoon in the National Guard of Brussels on 27 September 1787, becomes Sergeant in the 1st Infantry Battalion of the Brabant Army on 4 November 1788 and Lieutenant in the Namur Dragoons Regiment on 2 March 1790. He enters in the service of France on 15 July 1792 as Lieutenant in the Belgian Chasseurs Battalion and is promoted to Captain in the 2nd Belgian Chasseurs Regiment on 1st September. He becomes Major in the 17th Chasseurs-a-Cheval Regiment raised in Belgium on 1st September 1793. In 1794, when his regiment is disbanded, he is transferred as supernumerary officer in the 5th Hussars Regiment on 22 February 1795 where he gets a charge on 2 May 1799. He fights gallantly during the campaigns of 1795 to 1803 in the Armies of Sambre-and-Meuse, of Rhine-and-Moselle, of the Danube and of the Rhine and General Moreau awards him a sabre of honour.

Posted to Hanover, where the commander in chief Mortier is raising a legion of Hanoverian troops, he is appointed as provisional Colonel of the Chasseurs-a-Cheval Regiment of the Hanoverian Legion on 24 October 1803, appointment confirmed on 17 May 1804. He is awarded Knight’s cross of the Legion of Honour on 14 June 1804 and Knight’s cross of the Dutch Order of Merit on 1st January 1807. He serves in 1805 in the Army of Italy, in 1806 in the Army of Naples and is then posted in Spain in early 1808. He is allowed to take a sick leave in France in April 1810 and is promoted to Brigadier on 31 March 1812 and appointed commander of the 17th Military Division. He takes part in the Russian campaign of 1812 in Reserve Cavalry Corps of the Grand Army. Ill, he is taken prisoner in Konigsberg when this city surrenders and returns to France only in June 1814.

Louis XVIII awards him Knight’s cross of the Royal and Military Order of Saint-Louis on 8 July 1814 and he resigns from French service on next 6 September. He enlists in Dutch army on 15 September where he is employed as cavalry general inspector.