Franz Joseph, Marquis de Lusignan (23 June 1753 – 23 December 1832), a Spaniard, joined the Habsburg army and fought against Prussian soldiers and Belgian rebels.

[1] While an Oberstleutnant, Lusignan commanded 800 infantry and 100 cavalry during two days fighting near Virton, a town in modern-day Belgium near the border of France.

On 22 October, his force was attacked at Latour village by Jean-Baptiste Cyrus de Valence's Advance Guard of the Army of the Ardennes, altogether 3,500 French infantry, 1,500 cavalry, and six field pieces.

In 1795, he fought on the Upper Rhine River under the command of Dagobert von Wurmser and captured a redoubt during the Battle of Mainz in 1795.

[3] In January 1797, Jozsef Alvinczi assigned Lusignan command of the 1st Column during the fourth attempt to relieve the Siege of Mantua.

[4] "Lusignan was faced with the almost Herculean task of leading his men along the top of the chain of mountain peaks (collectively known as Monte Baldo) that separates the Adige from the northern arm of Lake Garda, and runs parallel with them.

In the winter, it was a featureless wasteland of snow and ice, the highest point of which lay ten miles north of Rivoli, and rose to the not inconsiderable height of 7,279 feet.

During the Battle of Rivoli, Alvinczi instructed him to make another flank march, this time to a position in rear of Napoleon Bonaparte's French army.

Attacked from the north by André Masséna's troops and blocked from the south by a division under Gabriel Venance Rey, Lusignan tried to break out to the west.