Something for the weekend. Le Régiment de Sambre et Meuse. The poem on which the march is based was written in the wake of the French devastating battlefield defeats in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 by Paul Cezano. Music for the poem was composed by Robert Planquette in 1871. In 1879 the familiar military march arrangement was written by Joseph François Rauski. The march proved very popular in the United States as any fans of Ohio State football can attest.
The army of Sambre et Meuse was commanded by some of the best generals the Revolution produced: Kléber, Moreau, Reynier, Marceau, and Ney. At the same time, the army of the Rhine was commanded by Hoche, Desaix, and St. Cyr and the army in the Apennines was commanded by Bonaparte and Masséna.
Not without reason, they are referred to as “the generation of genius.”