Infernal Columns

One indicates under the name of infernal columns the operations carried out by the general Turreau at the time of the Guerre of the Vendée in order to eliminate any resistance in the Vendean campaigns, after the failure of the Virée of Galerne.

Note: in a different context, the Basque Chasseurs constituted a column known as infernal column at the time of the combat of 1793 on the Spanish border .

Military context

December 1793, the Vendean ones are demolished with the Bataille of Savenay, vis-a-vis Kléber and Marceau, at the end of the Virée of Galerne: only a few thousands of the 80.000 participants of the Virée of Galerne could join the Vendée. Cart lost Noirmoutier and has nothing any more but a few hundreds of men in the marsh of Retz.

Turreau must thus finish the war of the Vendée. Already, on November 7th, the department was renamed Vengé . It has the choice between two methods: pacification, possibly muscular, and repression forces. He proposes a plan of Amnistie to the Comité of public hello on the councils of his general Jean-François Moulin:

The considerable desertion which starts to appear among the rebels in-on this side the Loire proves enough that the stringcourse of the error tears; that the priests who directed their steps do not have any more the same empire on their opinions. Would the moment thus have sometimes happened to proclaim in the middle of these fanatics the truths that one denatured to them hitherto? It is feared that while thus acting with the same rigor with regard to the many deserters, one does not reduce the others to despair.

not having an answer, it prepares a new plan, in strict application of the decrees of Convention.

Political context

This one indeed adopted two decrees of repression of the revolt of the Vendée, initially on August 1st, then a second on October 1st, 1793, which renews the first essentially. That of August 1st, 1793 specifies that:

It will be sent in the Vendée of the combustible materials of all kinds to set fire to wood, the coppices and the brooms. The forests will be cut down, the dens of the destroyed rebels, cut harvests and the seized cattle. The race rebels will be exterminated, the destroyed Vendée.

This decree in addition envisages to carry out the good citizens out of the rebellious area and to make disappear the bad ; and he also recommends to treat with regard the women, the children and the old men (article VIII). The decree of October 1st extends this measurement to the men without weapons. The rebellious dens must be destroyed without pity.

It is of these two decrees that Turreau is inspired for its second plan, that he addresses on January 16th, 1794 to the committee. It envisages to rake using twelve columns advancing the rebellious country in parallel, of is in west, to track the insurrectionists, and to destroy their goods, of Brissac in north, with Saint-Maixent in the south. The Comité of public hello is then attacked at the same time on its right-hand side and left by the Indulgents, around Danton, which denounce the incapacity of the revolutionary government to complete the war and excesses of the Terreur, and the Hébertistes, around Hébert, which always push with the higher bid. For Robespierre, the civil war is finished; but Hébertistes preach a repression without indulgence, in reprisals of the massacres made by the Vendean ones.

Detailed plan

The plan of Turreau comes into force on January 21st. It has its provision six divisions in the east of the Vendée, each one is divided into two columns. One of the problems of the republican troops during the war of the Vendée having been coordination, it gives to all places of precise appointment, with date to be held. The routes are indicated common by commune. The chiefs of columns must correspond between them and with the general-in-chief twice a day to keep a good coordination; to avoid the combat, except in the event of unquestionable victory; and to use all the means to unearth the rebels, to burn all that can burn, to requisition all vivres. Thirteen republican communes are exempted.

the first division is directed by Duval, its columns are ordered by Daillac and Prevignaud. The two columns start from Saint-Maixent and Parthenay and must arrive with Caillere and Tallud-Holy-Gem;
the second division is directed by Grignon, its columns are ordered by itself and Lachenay: the two columns start from Bressuire and must arrive at Flocellière and Pouzauges;
the third division is directed by Boucret, its columns are ordered by itself and Caffin: the two columns start from Cholet and must arrive at the Epesses and with Saint-Laurent-on-Separates;
the fourth division is directed by Turreau, its columns are ordered by itself and Bonnaire: the two columns start from Doué and must arrive at Cholet;
the fifth division is directed by Cordellier, its columns are ordered by itself and Crouzat: the two columns start from Brissac and must arrive at Jallais and May;
the sixth division is directed by Jean-Baptiste Moulin, it comprises only one strong column of 650 men which will leave the Bridge-of-C for Holy-Christine.

In complement, Turreau charges the general Haxo, who hitherto continued Cart on the west coasts of the Vendée, with forming eight columns which will traverse the Vendée of west in is, active with the meeting held on the twelve others.

Application

The instructions sent by Turreau are little ambiguities:

the villages, smallholdings, wood, moors, brooms and generally all that can be flaring will be delivered to the flames ;
will have passed by the weapons the brigands found the weapons to the hand or convinced to have taken them , including the girls, women and children who will be in this case .

Initially, its plan is carried out in one week; but of the small groups of Vendean infiltrate in the scrap-metal between the columns; more important groups, sufficiently not to be worried by manpower of Blue, are constituted. He thus asks the Committee public Safety to prepare the compensations for those which will be evacuated, in order to empty the country of his population and to fight the insurrectionists more easily.

The columns are especially active at the time of the first two months, as from February the Vendean ambushes enormously slow down the columns which are sometimes reduced to the opposition to progress.

Until May 17th, the infernal columns (Turreau called them the massacreuses columns ) massacre and plunder. Those placed under the orders of the Cordellier generals, from the general adjudants of cavalry Bin or Amey are well beyond the orders: rapes and exactions follow one another. Turreau, with the current, is unable of authority and to make them cease. He asks to be raised several times.

Certain generals carry out their columns in another manner. Haxo constitutes its eight columns, but as objective the capture of Cart assigns to them; it does not make make any barbarous act with its men, saving even the Gentilhommière of Cart with Fonteclose.

On his side, the general adjudant Cortez makes shoot Goy-Martinière, the second of Bin to have destroyed cities and villages in republican zones.

Course of the infernal columns

Course of the first and second column

Commanders : General adjudant Prévignaud and General Adjudant Daillac

Course of the third column

Commander : General of brigage Louis Grignon

January 19th the column plunders Sanzay and Saint-Clémentin.
January 21st has Nickle silver-Castle, Grignon declares with its men: Comrades, we enter in insurgent country. I give you the order to deliver to the flames all that is likely to be flaring and to pass to the wire of the bayonet all that you will meet inhabitants on your passage. I know that there can be some patriots in this country; it is equal, we owe all immoler .
January 22nd several tens of people are killed with Étusson and Voultegon. 79 people are killed with Saint-Aubin-of-Lime pit.
January 24th 300 people, men, women and children are massacred with Bressuire whereas the city was to be saved.
January 25th Oil cake written in Turreau: let us kill we more than one hundred per day.
January 27th the column is with Châteaumur, ten people are carried out.
January 28th Flocellière is destroyed.
January 29th the column is with the Boupère, but Grignon does not dare to order the fire, the village having 150 national guards to defend oneself.
January 30th has Pouzauges, 30 captive are violated by the officers of the column, before being carried out.
January 31st Grignon joined the General Amey with Saint-Fulgent.

Course of the fourth column

Commander : Adjudant Général Lachenay

January 19th Lachenay is with Grignon.
January 25th the columns of Lachenay and Oil cake separate.
January 26th Saint-Andre-on-Separates is destroyed.
January 27th All the population of Saint-Mesmin is massacred.
January 28th the church of Pouzauges is burnt with all its population inside, among which; national guards local.
January 29th Meilleraie-Tillay is destroyed, 85 died.
January 30th Lachenay joined Grignon with Pouzauges, they separate the following day.
January 31st the column attacks Boupère, that Grignon had not destroyed, 200 died.

Course of the fifth column

Commander : Brigadier general Jean-Pierre Boucret

January 21st Departure with Cholet
January 22nd the population of Tessoualle and Moulins is massacred.
January 23rd Châtillon-on-Separates (today Mauléon) is burnt.
January 25th the column is with Saint-Amand-on-Separates.
January 26th the column is with the Epesses.
January 28th a refractory priest is shot close to Saint-March-the-Réorthe.
January 31st the column is with Chambretaud.
February 4th the column is with Gaubretière, 85 shot people.
February 9th the column is with Chantonnay.

Course of the sixth column

Commander : Brigadier general Jean Alexandre Caffin

Course of the seventh column

Commander : Major general Louis Marie Turreau

Course of the eighth column

Commander : Brigadier general Louis Bonnaire, then Florent Joseph Duquesnoy

Course of the ninth column

Commander : Brigadier general Etienne Cordellier, 8.000 men

January 21st Départ of Brissac (currently Brissac-Quincé)
January 23rd Beaulieu is destroyed
January 25th 20 people are shot with Jumellière
January 26th the column reached Jallais
January 31st the column is with Montrevault which is not burnt
Cordellier is beaten by Stofflet with Gesté and is folded up on Montrevault
February 5th the column turns over to Gesté, several people are shot in the castle. She camps then with Montfaucon
February 6th the column gains Tiffauges
February 7th the column reached the Moors Génusson, all the population, that is to say 98 people; men, women and children, is massacred.
February 9th Cordellier takes again Cholet that Stofflet gave up after it itself took it again in Moulin.
February 13rd the column sets fire to Chemillé which it had found deserted.
February 14th Cordellier is beaten by Stofflet.
February 15th Junction of Cordellier and Crouzat with Montaigu.
February 22nd the column carries out 15 people with Vieillevigne and massacres of them 100 others with the Brouzils
February 25th Cordellier joined Turreau and attacks Cart. The Republicans are victorious but the Vendean ones manage to flee without undergoing too many losses. Cordellier and Turreau separate after the battle.
February 26th 35 people are carried out with Vieillevigne and Montbert.
February 27th Vieillevigne, Saint-Andre-Thirteen-Ways, the Saint-Sulpice-the-Verdon, Rocheservière and Mormaison is set fire to, in all 80 people are massacred.
February 28th the column is attacked and put in rout by Cart. However, Matincourt, lieutenant de Cordellier goes to the Lucs-on-Boulogne, 564 people, whose 130 children are massacred in the church.

Course of the tenth column

Commander : Brigadier general Joseph Crouzat, 8.000 men

January 21st Départ with Brissac (currently Brissac-Quincé)
January 22nd the column reached Thouarcé
January 23rd the column arrives at Gonnord, 200 civilians are massacred, 2 women and 30 children are buried alive. Crouzat declares: one excavates initially the houses, one tears off from them the women, the children, the old men, the patients who must attend with the plundering of their residences and the bag of the church; then one puts fire everywhere. Then, one aligns the inhabitants at a place or with another, and one shoots them. .
January 24th the column reached Chemillé which is saved in exchange of spoils.
January 25th the column travrese Chanzeaux and Melay some houses are set fire to, 71 people are shot.
January 26th Crouzat joined Cordellier with Jallais
January 27th the column is with the May-on-Èvre
January 28th It passes by Romagna and Saint-Macaire-in-Mauges
January 29th the column is attacked and beaten by the men of Stofflet, it folds up on It May-on-Èvre
February 2nd Jonction of the troops of Crouzat with those of Cordellier.
March 25th Crouzat takes the command of all division.
of the 25 to the March 27th division excavates the forest of Vezins, 1.500 people who had taken refuge there are massacred.
March 28th Counter-attack of the troops of Stofflet, several republican battalions are massacred.

Course of the eleventh column

Commander : Brigadier general Jean-Baptiste Mill, 650 men

February 24th the column leaves the Bridge-of-C and sets fire to Mozé-on-Louet but saving the Rochefort-on-Loire.
February 25th Moulin is with Holy-Christine, which it does not destroy.
January 27th the column destroyed Saint-Laurent-of-the-Plain and turns over to set fire to Holy-Christine.
January 29th the column reached Cholet, Turreau gives him the order to be maintained there.
February 8th the column is attacked by Stofflet which takes again Cholet. During the battle, Moulin, wounded commits suicide not to fall alive between the hands from the Vendean ones.

Course of the twelfth column

Commander : Brigadier general Jean-Baptiste Bin, 1.500 men

February 15th the column is in garrison with Cholet
February 26th the column sets fire to Mortagne
February 27th the column massacres the inhabitants of Gaubretière (500 to 800 dead) and of Verrie, only the children are saved. Saint-Malô-of-Wood and Saint-Laurent-on-Separates are also plundered but the population was flees.
February 28th the column returned in Cholet.
March 4th part of the column is put in rout by Stofflet.
March 6th the population of Vezins is massacred.
March 25th Huché takes the command of the garrison of Luçon.
March 30th the General Adjudant Goy-Martinière massacres 80 people with Bellenoue (Castle-Guibert).
April 11th All the massacres made by Goy-Martinière had proceeded on territories which never had revolted against the Republic and had located apart from the military Vendée, Goy-Martinière is thus shot on order of the Cortez General.

End of the infernal columns

Through slaughters, republican municipalities and representatives of the Comité of public hello end up being moved. Joseph Lequinio for example, shows, in a report/ratio intended for Robespierre, Turreau unnecessarily to prolong the war.

Moreover, the political situation in Paris changed. At the end of March, the hébert ists, then the danton ists are eliminated by the committees from public hello and general security. As of at the beginning of April, the columns are slowed down in their activity. It should be waited on May 17th so that Turreau is suspended. September 28th, he is issued of charge and is imprisoned.

Assessment

In 1794, under the Convention thermidorienne, Gracchus Babeuf, then adversary of the Jacobins, a lampoon writes to denounce Carrier, in which it creates the term of populicide , vis-a-vis the extent of the depopulation of the military Vendée.

According to Jean-Clement Martin, which analyzed the censuses of 1790 and 1801, a lack of approximately 220 000 with 250 000 inhabitants is to be noted in the normal increase that should have known the “military Vendée” without the civil war. The assessments vary, between deaths with the combat, deaths indirect because of the bad living conditions, the exiles of the Republicans. Harvests of 1788 were also bad. Certain historians allot until 200 000 died in Turreau.

Currently, the historians tend to reduce the share of the assessment charged to Turreau. According to Louis Marie Clénet, Turreau is responsible for at least 40 000 of the 200 000 Vendean deaths of the wars of the Vendée. Roger Dupuy speaks about a fork of 20 000 with 40 000 dead.

Finally according to Reynald To dry, historian, author of the Vendée-Avenged work which makes authority, " 117 257 people at least disappear between 1792 and 1802, are 14.38% of the population" according to the primary sources available.

See too

External bonds

the Vendée January-May 1794
Twelve columns with the one, by Gilles Marchal

Sources

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