Sigismond Frédéric de Berckheim (9 May 1775 – 28 December 1817) became a French division commander during the last years of the Napoleonic Wars.

These show that Chrétien joined the French military service as a guide for Jean Victor Marie Moreau on 22 March 1800 and was promoted to chef d'escadron (major) on 4 November 1813.

Despite counterattacks by Austrian horsemen and blasts of canister shot from the guns, the Allies seized the hill, capturing most of the cannons.

As Saint-Sulpice's division led the pursuit, it encountered two battalions of Austrian grenadiers formed in squares and completely smashed them.

[16] At the Battle of Aspern-Essling on 21–22 May, the division of Saint-Sulpice reached the battlefield late on the first day as Napoleon found himself with 31,400 soldiers facing 100,000 Austrians with a river at his back.

This attack pressed back the Austrians until their army commander Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen led forward the Reserve Corps.

Despite a series of cavalry charges, the French were pushed back into their small bridgehead and forced to retreat that night.

[19] At mid-morning a crisis arose as the Austrian III and VI Corps advanced menacingly against Napoleon's left flank.

While the Austrians were occupied in fending off the French heavy cavalry, Napoleon collected a battery of over 100 artillery pieces backed by Jacques MacDonald's corps and the Imperial Guard.

At the same time the French emperor ordered Marshal André Masséna to march his corps from the center to the left flank.

[20] These measures were successful in halting the Austrian advance, but the heavy cavalry lost 1,200 horses, not counting the human casualties.

[6] Berckheim was appointed aide de camp to Napoleon's equerry Alexis Jean Henri Duverger.

The brigade was part of Jean-Pierre Doumerc's 3rd Cuirassier Division in the III Cavalry Corps under Emmanuel de Grouchy.

The Russian commander Peter Wittgenstein ordered a cavalry counterattack led by elements of the Chevalier Guard Regiment that broke through a gap in the Franco-Allied lines.

[25] That day Marshal Nicolas Oudinot with 11,000 infantry and Doumerc's cuirassiers assumed a position covering the key bridges over which Napoleon's army was escaping.

Doumerc's horsemen made a climactic charge and crushed the Russians with heavy losses; after that, they declined to close with the French.

[1] During the Battle of Leipzig on 16–19 October 1813, the 1st Light Cavalry Division numbered 1,850 sabers and had nine artillery pieces attached.

The three cavalry brigades were led by Hippolyte Piré, Aime-Sulpice Pelletier de Montmarie and Cyrille Simon Picquet.

[35] At the beginning of the Allied invasion of France at the end of December 1813, the commander of the V Cavalry Corps, Édouard Jean Baptiste Milhaud suggested to Napoleon that Alsatian volunteers might be formed into a cavalry-infantry legion.

[36] In March 1814, Berckheim took command of an 1,807-strong cavalry division consisting of two brigades under Jean Nicolas Curely and Pierre Mourier.

In a skirmish with Allied cavalry the following afternoon, Letort's division was driven back to Méry despite the assistance of Curely's brigade.

[40] On 22 March, Berckheim's division accompanied Napoleon's army as it moved east, crossing the Marne River near Vitry-le-François.

This deeply troubled his older sister Henriette, who was married to the banker Augustin Perier and opposed to Napoleon's return.

[42] Under the Bourbon Restoration Berckheim was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for Haut-Rhin on 2 August 1815 and again on 4 October 1816, voting with the Constitutional Royalists.