Victory title

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A victory title is an honorific title adopted by a successful military commander to commemorate his defeat of an enemy nation. This is a chiefly Roman practice, although other groups have made fairly systematical use of this practice, as well as modern empires, mainly Napoleonic.

Roman victory titles

Victory titles were treated as Latin cognomina and were usually the name of the enemy defeated by the commander. Hence, names like Africanus ("the African"), Numidicus ("the Numidian"), Isauricus ("the Isaurian"), Creticus ("the Cretan"), Gothicus ("the Goth"), Germanicus ("the German") and Parthicus ("the Parthian"), seemingly out of place for ardently patriotic Romans, are in fact expressions of Roman superiority over these peoples. Literally, this would be akin to calling Erwin Rommel, George S. Patton, Jr., and H. Norman Schwarzkopf "Rommel the African", "Patton the German", and "Schwarzkopf the Iraqi", respectively. However, the correct sense is better expressed as "Rommel of African fame", "Patton of German fame", "Schwarzkopf of Iraqi fame", and so forth. Some victory titles were treated as hereditary, while others were not.

The practice of awarding victory titles was well-established within the Roman Republic. The most famous grantee of Republican victory title was of course Publius Cornelius Scipio, who for his great victories in the Second Punic War was awarded by the Roman Senate the title "Africanus" and is thus known to history as "Scipio Africanus" (his adopted grandson Scipio Aemilianus Africanus was awarded the same title after the Third Punic War and is known as "Scipio Africanus the Younger"). Other notable holders of such victory titles include Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus, who was replaced by Gaius Marius in command-in-chief of the Jugurthine War, Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus, who commanded Roman anti-pirate operations in the eastern Mediterranean and was father of Julius Caesar's colleague in his second consulate (Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus in 48 BC), and Marcus Antonius Creticus, another anti-piratical commander and father of Caesar's master of the horse, Mark Antony (of Egyptian fame).

The practice continued in the Roman Empire, although it was subsequently amended by some Roman Emperors who desired to emphasise the totality of their victories by adding Maximus ("the Greatest") to the victory title (e.g., Parthicus Maximus, "the Greatest Parthian"). This taste grew to be rather vulgar by modern standards, with increasingly grandiose accumulations of partially fictitious victory titles.

See also: List of Imperial Victory Titles

• In a broader sense, the term victory title is sometimes used to describe the repeatable awarding of the invariable, style of Imperator (Greek equivalent Autokrator; see those articles), which is the highest military qualification (as modern states have awarded a non-operational highest rank, sometimes instituted for a particular general), but even when it marks the recipient out for one or more memorable victories (and the other use, as a permanent military command for the ruler, became in fact the more significant one), it does not actually specify one.

Medieval victory titles

After the fall of Rome, the practice continued in modified form, notably with

• the first Carolingian emperor of the Franks, Charlemagne, styling himself Dominator Saxonorum ("Dominator of the Saxons") after subdueing by force the last major pagan people in the empire, henceforward transformed into a stem duchy
• Basil II called Bulgaroktonos ("the Bulgar Slayer").

Modern victory titles

Later, the term would again be applied to titles awarded in commemoration of a major military victory, but now in the guise of a feudal aristocratic title, often hereditary, but only in appearance: an actual fief was not required, indeed they often were granted in chief of a battlefield where the awarding Monarch simply had no constitutional authority to grant anything validly under local law.

This new form also was even more specific than the Roman practice. Instead of naming the enemy -which could well need to be repeated- it linked the name of a battle, which was almost always unique. A further level of protection was available by naming a nearby place, such as 'Austerlitz' which Napoleon declared sounded better than the alternative.

Napoleonic

First Empire

As Napoleon I Bonaparte, the founder of the dynasty and only ruler (be it twice, interrupted by his Elba period, still with the protocollary rank of Emperor) of France as premier Empire, owed his success, both his personal rise and the growth of his empire, above all to his military excellence, it is hardly surprising that he bestowed most gratified honours on his generals, mainly the impressive number that got raised to the rank of maréchal (marshall).

The revival of the original victory title, created for a specific victory, was an ideal form, and all incumbents were victorious marshalls (or posthumously, in chief of the widow).

The highest of these titles were four Principalities (maréchal is French for Marshall), in most cases awarded as a 'promotion' to holders of ducal victory titles:

• Eckmühl for maréchal Davout (1809, line extinguished in 1853) - see also below Auerstaed
• Essling for maréchal Masséna (1810) - see also below Rivoli
• Moskowa (Russian for Moscow, but city or river?; French would be Moscou) for maréchal Ney (1813, ext. 1969) - see also below Elchingen
• Wagram for maréchal Berthier (1809, ext. 1918)

Next in rank were eleven Dukedoms:

• Elchingen for marshal Ney in 1808, extinguished 1969) - see also above Moskowa
• Dantzig (then still a city republic, Prussian after Napoleon's defeat, now in Poland) for maréchal Lefebvre on 28 May 1807, extinguished 1820
• Abrantès (i.e. Abrantes in Portugal) for maréchal Junot in 1808, extinguished 1859, extended in female line 1869, again extinguished 1985
• Auerstaedt for Marshall Davout in 1808; extinguished 1853, extended to collaterals - see also above Echmühl
• Castiglione for maréchal Augereau in 1808, extinguished 1915
• Montebello for maréchal Lannes in 1808
• Raguse (French for Ragusa, the present Dubrownik, on the Croatian coast; conquered as part of Napoleon's own Italian kingdom, soon part of France's imperial exclave the Illyrian province) for maréchal Marmont in 1808; extinguished 1852
• Rivoli for marshal Masséna in 1808 - see also below Essling
• Valmy for maréchal Kellermann in 1808, extinguished 1868
• Albufera for maréchal Suchet in 1813.

No titles of any lower nobiliary rank are reported.

Second Empire

Although Napoleon III never came close to his predecessor's military genius, is even rather remembered for defeats, he loved tying in to numerous aspects of the First Empire, so he not only revived many of its institutions and relegitimated titles Napoléon I had awarded, but did a good number of creations in kind.

Probably for lack of memorable military exploits, this included only two victory titles, both of ducal rank:

• Malakoff (from the Crimea War) for maréchal Pélissier (1856, extinguished 1864),
• Magenta (from the Campaign of Italy; the recently discovered color was named for the same battle) for maréchal de MacMahon (1859).

British empire

The United Kingdom (then still the British Empire) awarded the titles of:

• Baron (a hereditary peerage) Napier of Magdàla to Field Marshall Robert Cornelis Napier who commanded the Abyssinian Expedition of 1868 and captured the fortress of Magdàla
• Field Marshall Sir Horatio Herbert Kitchener, in recognition of his victory in the Battle of Omdurman, was given peerages of three successive ranks, after further years of merit, Baron Kitchener of Khartoum (the less obscure but relatiely near capital of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan) since 1898, having been Administrator of Transvaal and of the Orange River Colony in 1901, was created Viscount Kitchener of Khartoum, and of the Vaal in 1902, before being created Earl Kitchener of Khartoum in 1914.
• Viscount Montgomery of Alamein to Field Marshall Montgomery in 1946, in honour of his 1942 victory in the Egyptian town of El Alamein on Rommel's Afrikakorps.

Other monarchies

• The Spanish crown has awarded similar titles, such as Duque de Ciudad Rodrigo (hereditary) for the (then, still Viscount, later promoted) Duke of Wellington; in fact it even created similar titles for peace-time merits to the state, such as a well-negotiated peace treaty.
• So did the Portuguese kingdom, as Duque de Torres Vedras for the same Duke of Wellington
• In Italy, reunited under the Savoy house of Piemonte-Sardinia: Cialdini, the Piedmontese general, received the victory title of Duke of Gaeta (ironic since this had been the chief of one of Napoleon's duchés grand-fiefs), which in 1860 it was the scene of the last stand of king Francis II of the Two Sicilies against the forces of United Italy, whose 12,000 men in the fortress, after Garibaldi's occupation of Naples, stubbornly resisted, but 1861-02-13 capitulated after the withdrawal of the French fleet made bombardment from the sea possible, thus sealing the annexation of the Kingdom of Naples to the Kingdom of Italy.

See also

• titles including protector, such as Defensor Perpétuo

Sources and references

• Heraldica.org-Napoleonic titles; also gives their coats of arms