Battle of Nantes
Failure of the the Vendée NS in front of Nantes - the June 29th 1793
“The head office of Nantes is perhaps the military event most important of our revolution. Perhaps the destinies of the République were attached to the resistance of this city. ” (Turreau)
Historical context
Since the beginning of Vendean rising in March 1793, the peasant-soldiers gain impressive successes and in two months, the left bank of the the Loire is conquered. The towns of Bressuire, Thouars, Saumur, and Angers like Pornic and Machecoul fell to the hands from the “Blancs”.
After the victory of Saumur the June 9th 1793, the election of the généralissime Cathelineau the 12 and the catch of Angers, the superior council of the catholic and royal Armée meets the June 20th to decide forthcoming offensive. The opinions are divided: Rochejacquelein and Stofflet want to go on Paris, the others prefer to ensure their position Saumur and Angers, then to invest Nantes then, or to return purely and simply on their premises.
After sharp discussions, the decision is ratified: “Nantes should be taken”.
The situation of Nantes in June 1793
It is a town of 90.000 inhabitants, populated rich person traders whose residences abound in goods of any kind. It contains many ammunition and a great number of partisans Royaliste S, and it also opens for the “White” the way towards the Brittany and the Great Britain, allowing a possible junction with the Chouans.
Located mainly on Right Bank of the the Loire, it communicates with other bank by a line of bridges which joined the road of La Rochelle by the suburb Saint-Jacob close to the Rousseau bridge.
The Mayor, Rene Gaston Baco of the Vault, is a powerful Nantes figure. Lawyer at the Parliament of Brittany, Prosecutor of the king, spokesperson of the middle-class in 1788, it is named Député with the General states in 1789. It lines up among the Girondins and is elected mayor of Nantes in 1792. The people admire it and called it “King Baco” because of his speeches, its high size and its violent and authoritative nature.
The chief of the Armed with the Coasts of Brest, Canclaux arrived at Nantes the June 14th with a battalion of line and some volunteers. With the Nantes national guards and young people, 12.000 men to the maximum and powerful a Artillerie constitute the means with which Canclaux and Beysser undertake to save the city.
The project of Vendean has been known for a few days in Nantes and of the assistance was requested from the national Convention. For only answer, the Comité of Public Hello addresses to the city 500.000 books in assignats and four companies Parisian artillerists!
Royalist chiefs and Cart
It is also of Nantes that the republican forwardings directed against Cart in the Pays leave Retz. It thus seems judicious to ask him its contest and Mr. de Donissan is dispatched towards him. The two men meet with Vieillevigne, a few kilometers in the south of Nantes, and end quickly to an agreement. Cart must quite simply occupy with its troops and that of Lyrot, the left bank of the Loire in front of the suburbs of the Rousseau Bridge and Saint-Jacob. They must hold the Republicans under the fire of their artillery while the catholic and royal Armée come by the roads from Rennes, Vannes and Paris invades the city by north and is. This diversion will oblige the republican army to divide to ensure defense on the various faces. The road of Valves will be left free in order to make it possible Nantes to flee.
This finished negotiation, the royalist chiefs send to the mayor of Nantes and to the municipal officers, a project of capitulation. This ultimatum thus written and dated June 20th, is given to Baco of the Vault the 23:
As laid out with peace as prepared with the war, we hold with a hand iron avenger, and other the olive branch. … after having deliberated on it in our Council, joined together at the general headquarter in Angers, we unanimously stopped presenting a project of capitulation to you… Consequently, we invite you to deliberate and rule that the white flag of continuation and six hours after the reception of our letter, will be raised on the walls of the city. That the garrison will put the weapons low,… that all the public cases,… pareillement will pareillement be brought, that all the weapons will be given to us, that all the ammunition of war and mouth will accurately be declared to us,… That it will be given to us for hostages the deputies of National Convention… To these conditions, the garrison will leave the city… after having made oath of fidelity to the religion and the king, and the city will be preserved of any invasion, of any damage,… In the event of refusal, on the contrary, the town of Nantes, when it falls in our capacity, will be delivered to a military execution and the garrison passed to the wire of the sword.
June 24th, Baco of the Vault communicates the ultimatum at the three conventional present in the city and it is decided to ensure defense of it. During this time, not having received an answer, the Vendean command starts its army: 40.000 men leave Angers and move towards Nantes.
The defense of the city is organized. Barricades armed with guns are established on the roads of Rennes, Vannes and of Paris. The Rousseau bridge is defended by three parts protected by a stone work. A barricade closes the way of Saint-Sebastien and a cut is made at the entry of the Pont of Pirmil with a drawbridge and two parts to defend it.
June 28th, Beysser makes post in Nantes the following order:
Any citizen Nantes is and will remain soldier as long as the seat will last… Any citizen, soldier or officer who will have given up his station to think of his own safety will be punished of death. Any soldier citizen, convinced to have, in a business with the enemy, given up or thrown loosely his weapons, will be punished ten years of irons. Any soldier found deadened, in faction or the high-speed motorboat, in the stations more close to the enemy, will be punished of death.He is expressly interdict with any woman or girl to appear with the window in the moments of alarm and to disturb the citizens by his cries; and if, the third injunction, she does not obey, it is ordered to make fire on her.
“The Nantes ones will perish or freedom will triumph”, such is the answer of Baco of the Vault to the Vendean chiefs.
The battle of the June 29th 1793
The June 26th, Cart is started at the head of 5.000 men and soon the troop meets in other quotas to form an army of 10.000 men. They spend the day of the June 27th to Saint Colomban. The June 29th, about midnight, they arrive at the hamlet of Sorinières at eight kilometers of Nantes. With the Crossroads of the Three Mills, the deployment of the troops starts. Two hours sound with the clock of the Prison of Bouffay in Nantes and, with two hours and half, the parts of Cart tackle the first cuttings off of the Republicans, with the Pont Rousseau. Nantes fire been useful very well, causes very great disorders in the Vendean rows.
Around four hours, Lyrot with 5.000 men approximately gives an opinion with the station of Saint-Jacob. At seven o'clock in the morning, the two Vendean chiefs always do not have any news of the other armies and no noise of gun is made hear in the north and the east of the Loire. They are alone and decide to slow down fire.
The catholic and royal Armée was retained by the resistance of the republican station of Nort, with thirty-two kilometers of Nantes. The officer Meuris order the 1.000 Nantes volunteers who must defend the entry of the city. the Erdre separates Nort in two parts, Meuris makes cut the bridge to prevent the advance of Vendean and installs the two guns it has. A column of the royalist army arrives the 27 at the evening and finds the bridge cut. The shooting starts. The 28 in the morning, the column is reinforced but the republicans resist until the moment when the Vendean cavalry discovers a ford with three kilometers upstream. Confusion is put in the republican rows which were unaware of the presence of this ford. They will be taken with reverse. Meuris which lost most of its men, brings back the others towards Nantes. It delayed during eight hours the passage of Erdre and its tenacity will have important consequences: it made consume approximately 50.000 cartridges and miss the appointment of the catholic and royal Army with Cart in front of Nantes.
A few hours later, whereas Cart and Lyrot slowed down fire, Bonchamps and its 8.000 men arrive by the road of Paris, for Faubourg Saint-Donatien. The combat is violent but the Vendean ones advance and arrive in seen Cathédrale Saint Pierre. Bonchamps does not hear the guns of D' Elbée and Cathelineau. Just like Cart, it starts to order the withdrawal of its troops towards Ancenis.
The columns of Elbée and Cathelineau which had a way a little longer to traverse, appear finally. Canclaux informed, orders with the troops which have just pushed back Cart to reinforce fear them while going ahead of of the enemy. D' Elbée grapeshot of its fourteen guns fears it Beautiful-Air on the road of Rennes. Cathelineau by the road of Vannes seizes the Poste of the Ford Moreau and advances until the place of the Farmers. They are not any more but with some steps of the center of the city. The exit of the battle seems favorable… It is at this time that the Prince de Talmont and Stofflet attack the road of Valves, not respecting the plan initially envisaged in the Council and obliging the Nantes ones which escaped, to turn over to fight in Nantes.
At this moment, another considerable event occurs: Cathelineau is mortally wounded. D' Elbée tries to involve the army ahead but the discouragement seizes the Vendean ones. The troops disperse. After one night calm, the cannonade starts again with the Rousseau Bridge, the station Saint Jacques and on the road of Paris. But very quickly, the troops make retirement.
Nantes is saved!
Causes of the royalist failure
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Pear tree of Beauvais: “The greatest fault, in my opinion, it is not to have not, as of the shortly after our entry with Saumur, directed like a feature the large army towards Nantes. It had been supplements, the enemy would have learned the news of the rendering of Saumur only with that from the arrival of the royalists, and it would not have had time to make preparations for the defense of the city. ”
So on the human plan, the project of capitulation formulated by the Vendean ones and given to Baco, offers honourable possibilities, from a military point of view, it does not leave six hours but well nine days to the municipality of Nantes to prepare its defense. Indeed, the Vendean ones fixed the attack of Nantes at June 29th and they are always in Angers when they address the 23 this ultimatum.
Moreover, the plan of attack envisaged by the “White” requires a perfect organization and execution. Without an exemplary synchronization of the various troops, Nantes defense can be ordered according to the point of attack and its force is not divided any more as it would have owed the being. But how to make achieve by peasants, a plan already difficult to realize by a professional army?
The unforeseen resistance of the station of Nort then comes to destabilize the Vendean army. Meuris and its some volunteers played a great part in the republican victory by stopping during one day the Catholique army and Royal, making him miss its go with Cart.
But whereas the Vendean ones progress towards the center of the city and that the victory seems with their range, they stop the combat and move back. Why? Their new généralissime, Cathelineau, in which they has a great confidence, is mortally wounded. They are dismayed and discouraged.
Nantes also owes its triumph with its geographical location: its river (the Loire) and its two rivers (Separates it and Erdre). In the south, Cart cannot make the junction with Lyrot, the two armies being separated by Separates. They cannot link their force against artillery of Beysser and Boisguyon. They were not informed of the combat of Nort and from the delay of the Large army because they were separated by from it the Loire. No messenger crossed the river. Bonchamps knew the same problem, separated from the army from Elbée and Cathelineau by Erdre. Their delay of a few hours could not be to him meant. Although the Vendean army knew to constitute a cavalry and an artillery, it did not succeed in joining together a fleet which would have been quite necessary to him.
Lastly, Nantes owes especially its victory with the heroic resistance of Nantes themselves which disconcerted the Vendean ones up to now accustomed to easier successes.
Did Nantes have to be attacked?
“Main of this big city which ensured the arrival of the English convoys to them, the royal armies could without danger operate on two banks of the the Loire and threaten Paris”. (Napoleon)
“If they took the port, the White invested the Fonderie of Indret, of which they made them Arsenal. Paimbœuf succumbed to an attack combined by ground and water. Holding the course of the Loire to its mouth, they had an open communication with the English who, if they wanted it, gave them helps. Nantes became the main door of the emigrants. The arrival of the one of the French princes enlarged there the party of all the enemies whom the revolutionary mode made with the Republic”. (a military administrator of the Republican armies)
If the Vendean ones had succeeded in taking Nantes, it is very probable that they could not have been maintained there. How to retain the peasants in Nantes whereas they never could confirm the catch of the other cities and on their premises remain distant from more few days? The Brittany and the the joined together Vendée, would they have known to benefit from its successes to move towards Paris? The hesitant Great Britain, would it have taken the initiative to come into contact with the royalist chiefs after the catch of this large port?
Was the Republic saved by Nantes?
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