The infernal columns (
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
: ''colonnes infernales'') were operations led by the
French Revolutionary
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are consider ...
general
Louis Marie Turreau
Louis-Marie Turreau (4 July 1756, Évreux, Eure – 10 December 1816, Conches), also known as ''Turreau de Garambouville'' or ''Turreau de Linières'', was a French general officer of the French Revolutionary Wars. He was most notable as the ...
in the
War in the Vendée
The war in the Vendée (french: link=no, Guerre de Vendée) was a counter-revolution from 1793 to 1796 in the Vendée region of France during the French Revolution. The Vendée is a coastal region, located immediately south of the river Loir ...
, after the failure of the Royalist
Virée de Galerne
The Virée de Galerne was a military operation of the War in the Vendée during the French Revolutionary Wars across Brittany and Normandy. It takes its name from French ''virée'' (turn) and Breton ''gwalarn'' (northwest wind).
It concerns th ...
. Following the passage on 1 August 1793 and 1 October 1793 by the
National Convention
The National Convention (french: link=no, Convention nationale) was the parliament of the Kingdom of France for one day and the French First Republic for the rest of its existence during the French Revolution, following the two-year National ...
of laws, the National Convention stated that the goal was to exterminate "brigands" in the area south of the river
Loire
The Loire (, also ; ; oc, Léger, ; la, Liger) is the longest river in France and the 171st longest in the world. With a length of , it drains , more than a fifth of France's land, while its average discharge is only half that of the Rhône ...
(the so-called
Vendée
Vendée (; br, Vande) is a department in the Pays de la Loire region in Western France, on the Atlantic coast. In 2019, it had a population of 685,442. ), 12 army columns were formed and sent through the Vendée to exterminate the local anti-Republican population. In January 1794, Turreau wrote to the National Convention's Minister for War, to lay out his proposed tactics: "My purpose is to burn everything, to leave nothing but what is essential to establish the necessary quarters for exterminating the rebels." It has been estimated that from 16,000 to 40,000 inhabitants were killed during the first quarter of 1794.
[ Nicolas Delahaye et Pierre-Marie Gaborit, ''Les 12 Colonnes infernales de Turreau'' (in French), p. 53.]
The employment and actions of these "infernal columns" continues to be a subject of heated debate, both in France and abroad. French historian
Reynald Secher
Reynald Secher (born 27 October 1955) is a French historian famous for his work on the War in the Vendée.
Vendée
Under the supervision of Jean Meyer at the Paris-Sorbonne University, Secher wrote a history of his home town, La Chapelle-Basse-Mer ...
has gone so far as to characterise their operations as a "Franco-French
genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...
," while Claude Langlois of the Institute of History of the French Revolution has derided Secher's claims as "quasi-mythological." The debate has become highly politicized. The term 'infernal column' has also been used for a similar movement in the
Voulet-Chanoine Mission.
See also
*
State terrorism
State terrorism refers to acts of terrorism which a state conducts against another state or against its own citizens.Martin, 2006: p. 111.
Definition
There is neither an academic nor an international legal consensus regarding the proper def ...
References
External links
www.rembarre.fr.La Vendée de janvier à mai 1794 (in French).
1793–1993. Un autre bicentenaire (in French).
War in the Vendée
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