Adolphe Kégresse (1879, Héricourt, Haute-Saône - 1943) was a French

military engineer Military engineering is loosely defined as the art, science, and practice of designing and building military works and maintaining lines of military transport and military communications. Military engineers are also responsible for logistics ...

who invented the

half-track A half-track is a civilian or military vehicle with regular wheels at the front for steering and continuous tracks at the back to propel the vehicle and carry most of the load. The purpose of this combination is to produce a vehicle with the cro ...

and

dual clutch transmission A dual-clutch transmission (DCT) (sometimes referred to as a twin-clutch transmission) is a type of multi-speed vehicle transmission system, that uses two separate clutches for odd and even gear sets. The design is often similar to two sepa ...

. Born at Héricourt, and educated in

Montbéliard Montbéliard (; traditional ) is a town in the Doubs department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in eastern France, about from the border with Switzerland. It is one of the two subprefectures of the department. History Montbéliard is ...

, he moved in 1905 to

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

to work for the Russian

Tsar Tsar ( or ), also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar'', is a title used by East and South Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word ''caesar'', which was intended to mean "emperor" in the European medieval sense of the ter ...

Nicholas II Nicholas II or Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov; spelled in pre-revolutionary script. ( 186817 July 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer,. was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Pol ...

. To improve the mobility of the imperial car park, he invented the

Kégresse track A Kégresse track is a kind of rubber or canvas continuous track which uses a flexible belt rather than interlocking metal segments. It can be fitted to a conventional car or truck to turn it into a half-track, suitable for use over rough or soft ...

to modify normal motor vehicles into half-tracks. He was also a personal chauffeur of

Tsar Nicholas II Nicholas II or Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov; spelled in pre-revolutionary script. ( 186817 July 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer,. was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Polan ...

and the Head of the Mechanical Department of the Russian Imperial Garage at

Tsarskoye Selo Tsarskoye Selo ( rus, Ца́рское Село́, p=ˈtsarskəɪ sʲɪˈlo, a=Ru_Tsarskoye_Selo.ogg, "Tsar's Village") was the town containing a former residence of the Russian imperial family and visiting nobility, located south from the c ...

. The Aide-de-camp to Tsar Nicholas II, Prince Orlov wrote in a letter to the Tsar's Minister of the Court on May 15, 1914: "... I consider Kégresse an irreplaceable worker and I am afraid his leaving will be a great loss for the garage. Your Highness knows, of course, how much His Majesty appreciates Kégresse." In 1908, the architect Lipsky VA designed a second two-storeyed Art Nouveau building for the Russian Imperial garage at Tsaskoye Selo / Pushkin, Saint Petersburg it had a total area of 367.6 sq. M. It housed the garage-residence Adolphe Kégresse. The building is noteworthy and identifiable for inclusion of a grand staircase with an external bas-relief image of one of the first car races held regularly in Tsarskoe Selo before the First World War. After

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

Kégresse was forced to return to his home country, where he was from 1919 employed by the

Citroën Citroën () is a French automobile brand. The "Automobiles Citroën" manufacturing company was founded in March 1919 by André Citroën. Citroën is owned by Stellantis since 2021 and previously was part of the PSA Group after Peugeot acquired 8 ...

company during the 1920s and 1930s to design half-track vehicles, together with engineer

Jacques Hinstin Ancient and noble French family names, Jacques, Jacq, or James are believed to originate from the Middle Ages in the historic northwest Brittany region in France, and have since spread around the world over the centuries. To date, there are ove ...

. After leaving the Citroën company he developed in 1935 the AutoServe gearbox-transmission system. In 1939 he pioneered the development of modern small guided tracked bombs. Kégresse died in 1943 at

Croissy-sur-Seine Croissy-sur-Seine (, literally ''Croissy on Seine'') is a commune in the Yvelines Departments of France, department in the Île-de-France Regions of France, region in north-central France. It is a suburban town on the western outskirts of Paris. M ...

Gallery

File:Russian Imperial Tsar's Garages Puskin Tsarskoye Selo 5.jpg, Tsar Nicholas II Car Garages, Pushkin, Saint Petersburg where Kégresse was Head of the Mechanical Department File:Russian Imperial Tsar's Garages Puskin Tsarskoye Selo 4.jpg, bas-relief image of a car race, Tsar Nicholas II Car Garages, Pushkin, Saint Petersburg Image:Kegresse pt1913.jpg, Kégresse's 1913 design File:Automobil mit Schneeraupe, Skiern, Mannschaftsschlitten - CH-BAR - 3241598.tif,

1914-18 at Tsar Nicholas II Car Garages, Pushkin, Saint Petersburg File:Automobil mit Schneeraupe, Skiern, Mannschaftsschlitten - CH-BAR - 3241598. 15.07.17.jpg, Former Tsar Nicholas II Car Garages, Pushkin, Saint Petersburg in July 2017 File:Automobil mit Schneeraupen beim Geländefahren - CH-BAR - 3241596.tif, Kégresse Track 1914-18 at Tsar Nicholas II Car Garages, Pushkin, Saint Petersburg File:Automobil mit Schneeraupen beim Geländefahren - CH-BAR - 3241596. 15.07.17.jpg, Former Tsar Nicholas II Car Garages, Pushkin, Saint Petersburg in July 2017 File:Automobil mit Schneeraupe und vorne Skiern - CH-BAR - 3241597.jpg, Kégresse Track outside

Alexander Palace The Alexander Palace (russian: Александровский дворец, ''Alexandrovskiy dvorets'') is a former imperial residence near the town of Tsarskoye Selo in Russia, on a plateau about south of Saint Petersburg. The Palace was ...

, January 1917 File:Russo-balt5.jpg, " Russo-Balt "C24-30" from the garage of Tsar Nicholas II with

design of Adolphe Kégresse. Adolphe Kégresse possibly seated on the right of the photograph Image:Kegresse tsar17.jpg, A

Packard Packard or Packard Motor Car Company was an American luxury automobile company located in Detroit, Michigan. The first Packard automobiles were produced in 1899, and the last Packards were built in South Bend, Indiana in 1958. One of the "Th ...

Twin-6 car with

from the personal car park of the Tsar Nicholas II File:Automobil mit Schneeraupen im Tiefschnee - CH-BAR - 3241599.tif, Russia 1914 File:Automobile mit Schneeraupen und Skiern ausgerüstet - CH-BAR - 3241595.jpg, Russia 1914 File:Austin-Kegress «Ukrainets» in Zhytomyr, 1920.jpg, An Austin-Putilov Armoured Car with

s of the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian language, Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist R ...

which was damaged during the

Polish–Soviet War The Polish–Soviet War (Polish–Bolshevik War, Polish–Soviet War, Polish–Russian War 1919–1921) * russian: Советско-польская война (''Sovetsko-polskaya voyna'', Soviet-Polish War), Польский фронт (' ...

. In the area of

Zhytomyr Zhytomyr ( uk, Жито́мир, translit=Zhytomyr ; russian: Жито́мир, Zhitomir ; pl, Żytomierz ; yi, זשיטאָמיר, Zhitomir; german: Schytomyr ) is a city in the north of the western half of Ukraine. It is the administrative ...

, 21 March 1920 File:Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost Kégresse.jpg,

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...

's Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost with

, converted by the Putilov plant, at Gorki Leninskiye

References

Informationen über Leben und Werk von Adolphe Kégresse
(German language)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kegresse, Adolphe 1879 births 1943 deaths People from Héricourt, Haute-Saône French military engineers 20th-century French engineers 20th-century French inventors French expatriates in Russia

Gallery

See also

References