Joseph Franz Canto d'Irles or Canto d'Yrlès (29 March 1726 – 11 April 1797) was an Austrian general officer who led his troops against Napoleon Bonaparte's French army during the Siege of Mantua in 1796–1797. He joined the Austrian army as a teenager and fought in the Seven Years' War. He was promoted to Colonel (Oberst) during the War of the Bavarian Succession and to Generalmajor during the Austro-Turkish War. He was promoted to Feldmarschall-Leutnant in 1795 and assigned to command the fortress of Mantua in Italy. For successfully defending the fortress for two months, he received the Commander's Cross of the Military Order of Maria Theresa in August 1796. He was superseded in command during the later part of the siege and died two months after the fortress surrendered in February 1797.
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Generalmajor in the context of Babi Yar
Babi Yar (Russian: Бабий Яр) or Babyn Yar (Ukrainian: Бабин Яр) is a ravine in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and a site of massacres carried out by Nazi Germany's forces during its campaign against the Soviet Union in World War II. The first and best documented of the massacres took place on 29–30 September 1941, in which some 33,771 Jews were murdered. Other victims of massacres at the site included Soviet prisoners of war, communists and Romanies. It is estimated that a total of between 100,000 and 150,000 people were murdered at Babi Yar during the German occupation.
The decision to murder all the Jews in Kiev was made by the German military governor Generalmajor Kurt Eberhard, the Police Commander for Army Group South, SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln, and the Einsatzgruppe C Commander Otto Rasch. Sonderkommando 4a as the sub-unit of Einsatzgruppe C, along with the aid of the SD and Order Police battalions with the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police backed by the Wehrmacht, carried out the orders. Sonderkommando 4a and the 45th Battalion of the German Order Police conducted the shootings. Servicemen of the 303rd Battalion of the German Order Police at this time guarded the outer perimeter of the execution site.