Battle of Entrammes
Wounding of Général Michel de Beaupuy
(fictional painting by Alexandre Bloch 1857–1919, he was not wounded on site, but at the bridge over the Jouanne )
| date | October 26, 1793 |
|---|---|
| place | Entrammes and Château-Gontier |
| output | Vendées victory |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
|
|
|
| Troop strength | |
| 20,000 | 30,000 to 40,000 |
| losses | |
|
4,000 killed or wounded, 19 cannons lost |
400 killed, 1200 wounded |
The battle of Entrammes took place on October 26, 1793 as part of the uprising in the Vendée . The Republican Western Army met here again in the pursuit of the Armée catholique et royale de Vendée .
prehistory
The vanguard of the Republican army, under the command of François-Joseph Westermann and Michel de Beaupuy , had been defeated in the battle at Croix-Bataille , and the two generals had withdrawn to Château-Gontier with what was left of their men . The next day, most of the Republican army took turns arriving here. Jean-Baptiste Kléber reacted with anger at the defeat, but the army was exhausted from several days of marching. Kléber then decided to let the army rest for a day or two before launching a counterattack. But he hadn't counted on François-Joseph Westermann's impatience. The latter managed to convince the commander-in-chief Jean Léchelle to undertake an immediate attack over the hills of Entrammes on Laval, still held by the Vendéens .
The battle
On October 26th, they attacked the Republicans. Westermann and Louis Michel Auguste Thévenet took over the vanguard, with 300 riders first taking control of the bridge over the Jouanne at Entrammes.
Before that, Henri de La Rochejaquelein gathered his entire army and marched north of Entrammes. When the Vendéens began to deploy their troops, Westermann was ordered to evacuate his position, so the bridge was temporarily abandoned.
In accordance with the instructions of the National Convention , Jean Léchelle had forced his plan on the other generals: attack in column formation "majestic and massive". The generals realized how stupid this plan was, but they had no choice but to obey. On Léchelle's orders, Michel de Beaupuy's Armée de Mainence, followed by Kléber's troops, attacked in lines of two to two.
On the side of the Vendéens, Henri de La Rochejaquelein had put his men in a semicircle on the advice of the injured Louis de Salgues de Lescure . Jean-Nicolas Stofflet in the middle, Antoine-Philippe de La Trémoille , Charles de Royrand and Charles Marie Auguste de Beaumont d'Autichamp on the right and the Chouans , led by Jean Cottereau on the left. When the Republicans appeared, the artillery of Gaspard de Bernard de Marigny opened fire on Beaupuy's column, whose vanguard was decimated by massive rifle fire. The Vendéens then attacked and Beaupuy, who was about to be encircled, had to back down. His column withdrew in good order to the Jouanne where Beaupuy was seriously injured. Only the reinforcement by Kléber made it possible for the Republicans to hold their positions.
But Henri de La Rochejaquelein launched several simultaneous attacks that allowed him to cross the river in some places. The panic then began to spread in the republican ranks, Kléber and François Séverin Marceau had difficulty gathering a few troops a little further. But they were quickly massively attacked and pushed onto the bridge over the Ouette River in disarray . However, the terrain of the valley offered them favorable terrain and they resisted for a while before being attacked from the other side as well. Meanwhile, the columns led by Alexis Chalbos and François Muller had finally arrived when the first refugees were already leaving the battlefield. Infected by the spreading panic, they also fled without fighting in the direction of Château-Gontier . Léchelle himself, who had stayed behind, gave the order to retreat and then fled in turn. The withdrawal was general and the whole army fled to Château-Gontier, pursued by the Vendéens who drove the refugees before them.
When they arrived at Château-Gontier, the Vendéens would not let the Republicans rest and they immediately tried to take the city.
General Louis Blosse, who remained in reserve at the beginning of the battle in the city, tried to intervene with his division on the bridge in front of the city, in the process he was killed and his division repulsed. Under the energetic direction of La Rochejaquelein, the Vendéens then succeeded in conquering Château-Gontier. This eventually forced the Republicans to evacuate the city at dusk without being followed by the Vendéens. They bivouacked in the open and returned to Le Lion-d'Angers the next day .
For the Vendéens it was a complete victory. La Rochejaquelein thought for a moment about taking the opportunity to return to the Vendée, but since the women and children and part of the army had remained in Laval, he had to turn back.
Effects
The Republican army was in a sorry state, with 4,000 of the 20,000 soldiers lost, according to Charles-Louis Chassin. It would take days to reorganize the army. The anger of the soldiers and even the generals against Léchelle, whose catastrophic scheme had led to a massacre, was great. Above all, Kléber did not have enough harsh words to denounce the insanity of the Commander-in-Chief's plan. Fearful of being scapegoated, he wrote a letter to the National Assembly denouncing the incompetence of his superior and, conversely, praising La Rochejaquelein's military qualities. But he himself had to bear his share of responsibility, as he carried out Léchelle's orders with reluctance and delay. To make up for the lost time, his men had to cover nine kilometers in two hours and immediately go into battle. And it was one of his maneuvers towards the bridge over the Ouette that caused some of the panic.
Shortly afterwards, Léchelle wanted to check which of his troops were still operational. After he had accused his soldiers of cowardice, Léchelle was yelled at by his people with the cry "À bas Lécchelle - Vive Kléber" (down with Léchelle, long live Kléber). The soldiers also called for the return of Generals Jean Baptiste Camille de Canclaux and Jean-Baptiste Annibal Aubert du Bayet .
After this incident, it was obvious to the mission's representatives (also known as political commissioners) that Léchelle could no longer be left in charge. Despite protests from Jean-Baptiste Carrier and the Sansculottes, Léchelle was released, arrested and taken to Nantes on November 11th under unexplained circumstances, on the orders of Representative Antoine Merlin de Thionville.
The Abbé Angot points out that the account of the battle published by Arthur Duchesne contains strong exaggerations according to the notes of soldier Bellanger. The matter of the 27th with the pursuit of Entrammes to Château-Gontier is described more precisely and consistently for him in other sources, in particular the attack on the left wing of Léchelle and the role of the artillery ( La guerre des Chouans , p. 67– 70).
literature
- Charles-Louis Chassin: La Vendée Patriote (1793-1800). Volume III, Édition Paul Dupont, 1893–1895, pp. 202 to 206
- Émile Gabory: Les Guerres de Vendée. Editeur Robert Laffont 2009 pp. 274/275.
- Yves Gras: La Guerre de Vendée. Éditions Economica, 1994, p. 83.
- Jean Tabeur: Paris contre la Province, les guerres de l'Ouest. Éditions Economica, 2008, p. 171.
- Auguste Billaud: La Guerre de Vendée. Fontenay-Le-Comte, 1972, impr. Lussaud, pp. 152-153.
Web links
Footnotes
- ^ Ernest Colon: Cartes de lieux de batailles durant la guerre de Vendée
- ↑ La Croix-Bataille is now a suburb of Laval (Mayenne)
- ↑ On the basis of the memoirs of Jean-Baptiste Kléber and Anne Marie René Savary, several authors name October 27 for this battle. But according to the military documents, it was October 26th. (Pierre Gréau La bataille d'Entrammes )
- ↑ These were the troops who had been given free withdrawal after the surrender of the besieged Mainz, with the stipulation not to fight the coalition for at least a year - it had nothing to do with the Armée de Maynence of 1797
- ↑ Ref.: Article additif "Croix Bataille" in Dictionnaire historique, topographique et geographique de la Mayenne Alphonse-Victor Angot and Ferdinand Gaugain éd. Joseph Floch, Mayenne, 1962, Volume IV, p. 272.
Coordinates: 47 ° 59 ′ 45 " N , 0 ° 42 ′ 50" W.