{{Short description|19th-century Italian-British military officer}} {{Use dmy dates|date=March 2021}} [[Image:Pierre Louis Napoleon Cavagnari.png|thumb|right|Pierre Louis Napoleon Cavagnari]]'''Sir Pierre Louis Napoleon Cavagnari''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|KCB|CSI}} (4 July 1841 – 3 September 1879) was a British soldier and military administrator.
Cavagnari was the son of Count Louis Adolphus Cavagnari, of an old family from [[Parma]] in the service of the [[House of Bonaparte|Bonaparte]] family, by his marriage in 1837 with an [[Anglo-Irish]] woman, Caroline Lyons-Montgomery. Cavagnari was born at [[Stenay]], in the [[Meuse (department)|Meuse]] [[département]], [[France]], on 4 July 1841.<ref name=Dey>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/lifecareerofmajo00deykrich |title=The life and career of Major Sir Louis Cavagnari |publisher=Calcutta, J. N. Ghose & co. |author=Dey, Kally Prosono |year=1881 |accessdate=23 February 2016}}</ref><ref name=EB>{{cite EB1911|wstitle=Cavagnari, Sir Pierre Louis Napoleon |volume= 05}}</ref> He was killed on 3 September 1879 during the [[Siege of the British Residency in Kabul|siege of the British Residency ]] (then at [[Bala Hissar, Kabul|Bala Hissar]]) in [[Kabul]] in [[Afghanistan]].
He was educated at [[Christ's Hospital]] school, starting at the age of 10 years.<ref name=Dey/> He had obtained [[naturalization]] as a [[British people|British subject]], and entered the military service of the [[British East India Company|East India Company]]. After passing through college at the [[Addiscombe Military Seminary]], he served through the [[Awadh|Oudh]] campaign against the mutineers in 1858 and 1859. In 1861 he was appointed an assistant commissioner in the [[Punjab region]] of [[British India]], and in 1877 became deputy commissioner of [[Peshawar]] (now in [[Pakistan]]) and took part in several expeditions against the [[Pashtun tribes]].<ref name=Dey/><ref name=EB/>
His character was described as "a man of rash and restless disposition and overbearing temper, consumed by the thirst for personal distinction, and as incapable of recognizing and weighing the difficulties, physical and moral, which stood in the way of the attainment of his end".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hanna |first=H. B. |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.284489 |title=The Second Afghan War, 1878–79–80: Its Causes, Its Conduct and Its Consequences |publisher=Archibald Constable & Co. |year=1899 |volume=1 |location=Westminster |pages=119-120}}</ref>
[[Image:Pierre Louis Napoleon Cavagnari.jpg|thumb|left|150px|Cavagnari sitting with a group of Afghan tribesmen.]] [[File:Mohammad Yaqub Khan with British officers in May of 1879.jpg|thumb|right|Mohammad Yaqub Khan with British officers in May 1879]] [[File:Guides Memmorial.JPG|thumb|Queen's Own Corps of Guides Memorial, Cavagnari's Arch in [[Mardan]]|right]]
In September 1878 he was attached to the staff of a British mission to [[Kabul]], [[Afghanistan]], which the [[Pashtuns|Afghans]] refused to allow to proceed through the [[Khyber Pass]]. In May 1879, after the [[Second Anglo-Afghan War|British-Indian forces had invaded Afghanistan]], and the death of Afghan [[Emir]] [[Sher Ali Khan]], Cavagnari negotiated and signed the [[Treaty of Gandamak]] with Sher Ali Khan's son and successor, [[Mohammad Yaqub Khan]]. With this treaty, the Afghans agreed to admit a British representative to Kabul, and the post was conferred on Cavagnari, who also received the [[Order of the Star of India|Star of India]] and was made a [[Order of the Bath|KCB]]. He took up his residence in July 1879. On 3 September 1879, Cavagnari and the other European members of the mission, along with their guards who were made up of [[Corps of Guides (British India)|The Guides]], [[Siege of the British Residency in Kabul|were killed]] after he refused the demands of mutinous Afghan troops.
Cavagnari married in 1871 Mercy Emma Graves.<ref name=Dey/><ref name=EB/> After her husband′s death, Lady Cavagnari was allowed the use of apartments in [[Hampton Court Palace]] by [[Queen Victoria]].<ref>{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=Court Circular|date=16 February 1903 |page=9 |issue=37005}}</ref>
==See also== *[[European influence in Afghanistan]] *[[Siege of the British Residency in Kabul]] *[[The Great Game]] *[[Sir Alexander Burnes]]
==References== {{Reflist}} *{{EB1911|wstitle=Cavagnari, Sir Pierre Louis Napoleon}}
==External links== * {{Internet Archive author |sname=Pierre Louis Napoleon Cavagnari}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cavagnari, Louis}} [[Category:British East India Company Army officers]] [[Category:1841 births]] [[Category:1879 deaths]] [[Category:Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath]] [[Category:People educated at Christ's Hospital]] [[Category:Graduates of Addiscombe Military Seminary]] [[Category:British military personnel of the Indian Rebellion of 1857]] [[Category:Companions of the Order of the Star of India]] [[Category:Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom]] [[Category:British people of the Second Anglo-Afghan War]] [[Category:French emigrants to the United Kingdom]] [[Category:People from Meuse (department)]] [[Category:French people of Italian descent]] [[Category:French people of Irish descent]] [[Category:British people of Italian descent]] [[Category:British people of Irish descent]]