| 词条 | Draft:Gabriel Aubaret | |
| 释义 |
Louis-Gabriel-Galdéric Aubaret (Montpellier, France 1825 – Poitiers, France 1894) was a French naval officer, linguist, diplomat, administrator and business leader, who held various important military, political, and commercial appointments in the region over a period of forty years. Aubaret‘s probably most famous work as a linguist is the first French-Vietnamese dictionary, which he authored after his dramatic exploits in Vietnam and at the Siamese court. In the 1880s, he was one of the most visible figures in Constantinople, working as the President of the Ottoman Public Debt Administration, as well as the syndicate that completed the railroad used by Orient Express. Between 1854 and 1856, Gabriel Aubaret served with the French naval squadron as a lieutenant in the Black Sea during the Crimean War (1853-1856). This flotilla played major role in the Siege of Sebastopol, an 11-month long military operation. Aubaret was born in 1825 in Montpellier to a family of lawyers. In 1841, he enrolled at the École Navale, in Brest, and joined French Navy in 1844, where he served on a variety of vessels, throughout the Mediterranean and the West Indies. Gabriel Aubaret served as a lieutenant in the Crimean War (1853-56), commanding his own vessel on several occasions, notably at the Siege of Sebastopol. During this time he learned Turkish and Arabic and developed an interest in the Ottoman Empire. At the time he also created friendships with several influential Ottoman officers and politicians, connections which would become useful later in his career. In 1856-1857 Aubaret served as the chief science officer (and second-in-command) of a prestigious expedition to discover the headwaters of the Nile, led by the explorer the Comte d’Escayrac, and backed by the Khedive of Egypt. Although the venture was well-funded and included scientists of international distinction, it was almost immediately derailed, barely making it past Cairo, due to Escayrac’s eccentric and dictatorial behaviour. After the failure of the Nile mission, Aubaret returned to France where he had a highly public romance with Rachel Félix (1821-58), better known as ‘Mademoiselle Rachel’, a world-famous French actress, which ended shortly before her untimely death. In 1860, Aubaret, as captain of his own vessel, sailed to China as part of the French involvement in the Second Opium War, and was present at the taking of Peking. This led to his appointment as a special French envoy to the Vietnamese court at Hué, whereupon Aubaret was instrumental in securing France’s annexation of the southern third of Vietnam, which became the French colony of Cochinchina in 1862. He also authored the first French-Vietnamese dictionary, Vocabulaire Français-Annamite et Annamite-Français (1861). Aubaret, promoted to French Consul-General at Bangkok, became a major figure at the Siamese court of King Mongkut. He succeeded in making France the dominant foreign player in Indochina, and the French government considered him to be one of the most tactful and successful drivers of Napoleon III’s expansive foreign policy. In 1867, Aubaret returned home from Bangkok, eager for a posting to the Balkans or the Ottoman Empire which. He also ended his long run as a bachelor, marrying Thérèse Granier, with whom he would have a happy union. In February 1868, Aubaret was appointed as the French Consul-General at Scutari (Shkodër), Ottoman Albania. The post was so challenging, that only an envoy of uncommon ability and enthusiasm could handle the file. After serving for two action-packed years in Albania, Aubaret was hastily recalled home for military service in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1). After the conflict, in 1872, Aubaret was appointed as the Consul-General at Smyrna (Izmir), the second most important French diplomatic posting in Turkey. He found the role boring, as he largely handled matters of maritime trade. In 1873, Aubaret was transferred to become Consul-General at Rustchuk (Ruse), Bulgaria, a major port city on the Danube. Bulgaria was then a directly-ruled part of the Ottoman Empire, and its Slavic people were seething with revolutionary sentiment. Aubaret relished the opportunity to promote France’s significant regional interests against the efforts of Austrian and Russian spies, in the days immediately before the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, which secured Bulgaria’s independence. Aubaret’s next assignment was to serve as the Commissioner of the Serbian-Ottoman Boundary Survey, operating largely along the Serbo-Bosnian frontier. In 1880, Aubaret was appointed as a French Minister Plenipotentiary to the Ottoman Empire, with special responsibility for affairs in Eastern Rumelia, an autonomous Ottoman region in south-eastern Bulgaria. This gave him valuable experience for his future role in overseeing the completion of the Rumelian Railway in the same area. In 1881, Sultan Abdul Hamid II ordained the creation of the Ottoman Public Debt Administration (OPDA), which became the most powerful economic entity in the Ottoman Empire. Aubaret was appointed as the OPDA’s founding President, serving several terms spanning a decade. In addition to his role at the OPDA, from 1885 to 1888, Aubaret served as the chief operating officer of a special enterprise that was responsible for completing the railway connecting Constantinople with the rest of Europe, a line that subsequently carried The Orient Express. In 1892, Aubaret retired from his place at the height of Constantinople society and moved with his family back to France, settling in Poitiers. There he died in 1894, having lived the experience of many lifetimes. Aubaret’s widow, Thérèse, wrote her husband’s biography, which was published in Poitiers in 1898. References |
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