Army of the West (France)
The Army of the West did not begin as a single force. It was assembled on the 2nd of October 1793 from the wreckage of three separate armies that had been losing a brutal civil war in western France. The War in the Vendée was unlike anything the French Republic had faced from its foreign enemies. No set-piece battlefield. No uniformed opponent to track. Instead, Republican troops marched through hedgerows and narrow lanes where ordinary-looking farmers might ambush them, seize their guns, and vanish into the countryside before anyone could respond.
This documentary will trace how the Army of the West lurched from crisis to catastrophe, from an incompetent commander who could not read a map to a campaign of mass killing that horrified even the officers ordered to carry it out. It will follow the generals who tried to hold the army together, the politicians who undermined them, and the rebels who refused to stay defeated. The army was dissolved, recreated, and dissolved again. Its story is a window into the chaos and violence at the heart of the French Revolution.
Two grievances lit the Vendée on fire by April 1793. The French National Convention wanted to conscript young men from the region into the army, and it was pressing priests to take an oath under the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. The great majority of priests in the Vendée refused, and most of the local population refused to let their sons be sent to war. The country gentry stepped forward to lead the rebellion.
The landscape itself became a weapon for the rebels. Woods, hedgerows, and narrow lanes made it nearly impossible for Republican column formations to fight effectively. When Vendean fighters were pushed back, they slipped away through secret paths and reappeared at their homes as farmers. Republican forces repeatedly found that winning a skirmish meant nothing if the enemy simply dissolved.
The soldiers sent to suppress the revolt were poorly suited for the task. The 12 battalions of the Paris National Guard, commanded by Antoine Joseph Santerre, fled at the sight of the enemy more than once. The German Legion, made up of German and Swiss deserters, fought capably but many of its men then deserted to the Vendeans. Detachments stripped from the Army of the North and the Army of the Ardennes, six men per infantry company, were bundled into new battalions that had no shared training or trust. The 35th Legion of Gendarmes was a genuine exception, proving effective where others failed.
At the Battle of Saumur in early June 1793, the Vendeans routed a major Republican force and captured 46 guns. Then on the 18th of July, at the Battle of Vihiers, 12,000 rebels crushed a 14,000-man Republican army, killing or wounding 5,000 and seizing 25 of its 30 cannon. The Republic needed a different approach.
The fall of Mainz on the 23rd of July 1793 produced an unexpected dividend for the Republic. The Prussians paroled the French garrison, requiring only that they not fight Coalition armies for one year. Nothing in the terms barred them from fighting rebels at home. These 14,000 disciplined veterans were hurried west and became informally known as the Army of Mayence, commanded by Jean-Baptiste Annibal Aubert du Bayet.
Three coastal armies had been organized on the 1st of May 1793. The Army of the Coasts of Cherbourg covered the northern coast. The Army of the Coasts of Brest held the western seaboard down to the Loire. The Army of the Coasts of La Rochelle controlled everything south to the Gironde estuary. Jean Baptiste Camille Canclaux commanded the Brest forces and worked alongside the Mayence veterans near Nantes. The La Rochelle army went to Jean Antoine Rossignol, a man protected from criticism by his Jacobin political connections even as he failed to execute agreed plans.
The man who ended the careers of Canclaux and du Bayet was an intriguer named Charles-Philippe Ronsin. He persuaded Minister of War Jean Baptiste Noel Bouchotte that the two generals had caused the recent defeats. On the 7th of October 1793, both were removed without warning. Rossignol took command of the Brest forces, a transfer that itself hinted that even his backers were losing faith in him. Four days later, on the 6th of October, the newly decreed Army of the West was formally activated when Jean Léchelle assumed command of the combined force.
Jean Kléber, who had led the Mayence veterans with skill, later described his new commander Léchelle in terms so scathing they leave little room for imagination. Kléber wrote that Léchelle was "the most cowardly of soldiers, the worst of officers, and the most ignorant leader ever seen," a man who did not understand maps, could barely sign his own name, and never once moved within cannon range of the enemy.
Despite this, the Army of the West achieved a real victory on the 17th of October 1793 at the Battle of Cholet. One account gives the numbers as 25,000 Republicans defeating 40,000 rebels, killing or wounding 8,000 Vendeans while suffering 4,000 casualties of their own. Louis Antoine Vimeux commanded the right flank, François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers the center, Michel de Beaupuy the left, and Kléber the reserve. The surviving Vendean army crossed north of the Loire, hoping to reach a port and make contact with the British Royal Navy.
The reversal came quickly. At the Battle of Entrames on the 27th of October, 31,000 Vendeans defeated 25,000 Republicans, inflicting 4,000 casualties. Kléber and Marceau had advised against attacking immediately with the army in a single column, but Léchelle overruled them and then stayed in the rear while his subordinates led the front line into disaster. As soldiers fled in all directions, Léchelle cried out asking what he had done to deserve such cowards. A soldier answered him directly, questioning what the men had done to deserve such a commander. At the next inspection, soldiers shouted for du Bayet and Kléber. Léchelle resigned, withdrew to Nantes, and killed himself.
With Léchelle gone, Rossignol nominally assumed command. The army's generals and the political representatives-on-mission refused to accept him and appointed Marceau as commander-in-chief, with Kléber as his deputy. Marceau was only 24 years old at the time. Louis Marie Turreau was summoned from the Army of the Eastern Pyrenees to take over. The Vendean army was crushed at Le Mans on the 12th and the 13th of December, and again at Savenay on the 23rd of December.
Turreau did not formally replace Marceau until the 30th of December 1793. When he took full control, he set aside Kléber's belief that the rebellion could be ended through targeted operations. On the 24th of January 1794, Turreau launched a program that became one of the most condemned episodes of the entire Revolutionary period.
With 80,000 soldiers under his command, Turreau ordered 12 units he called "infernal columns" to sweep through the Vendée systematically. They were to confiscate crops, burn farms, and kill anyone suspected of supporting the rebellion. Women and children were not exempted. The politician Jean-Baptiste Carrier offered statements that illustrated the ideology behind the campaign, saying that the women of the Vendée were the source from which the next generation of enemies would come, and calling children vipers to be crushed. Carrier also reportedly threatened to make a cemetery of France itself.
Marceau left for the Army of the Ardennes in January 1794, openly disgusted with what he called Turreau's "diabolical plan." Kléber transferred to the Army of the North in April. The irony was that the infernal columns achieved the opposite of their purpose. The rebellion, which had been showing signs of subsiding, flared back up as survivors rallied new fighters. The columns also killed many people who had supported the Republic, because the soldiers interpreted their sweeping orders loosely.
On the 13th of May 1794, the Committee of Public Safety ordered Turreau suspended and assigned him to an obscure command. Vimeux took over. By April 1794 the army counted 103,812 soldiers on paper, but only 50,000 were fit for active campaigning. Of those, 3,000 were detached to the Army of the Western Pyrenees and 15,000 to the Rhine armies. By the 16th of August, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas received command of a force that had shrunk to 45,000 men.
The men most associated with the army's worst period met sharply different ends. Turreau was arrested after the fall of Robespierre but appeared before a court-martial and argued he had only been following orders. He was acquitted. Remarkably, he went on to command troops under the First French Empire and retained favor with the Bourbon Restoration when he died in 1816.
Rossignol crossed Napoleon Bonaparte and paid for it with exile to the Seychelles, where he died in 1802. Ronsin, who had engineered the removal of Canclaux and du Bayet, was guillotined during the Reign of Terror. Carrier, whose language had helped justify the massacres, met the same fate.
Marceau, the 24-year-old who had briefly commanded the army and left rather than participate in atrocities, was mortally wounded at Altenkirchen during the Battle of Limburg and died on the 20th of September 1796. He was 27 years old. Kléber, who had chronicled Léchelle's failures so precisely, went on to serve in Egypt under Napoleon and became one of the more celebrated generals of the era.
In October 1794, Canclaux returned to command the Army of the West, bringing Emmanuel de Grouchy with him as chief of staff. On the 17th of February 1795, representatives of both sides signed a pacification agreement. The Vendeans received full freedom of worship and exemption from military conscription for several years. In exchange, they recognized the First French Republic.
The peace lasted only months. Revolt broke out again in the Vendée on the 24th of June under François de Charette, while Canclaux was too ill to command. Grouchy took over day-to-day operations. By August 1795, the Army of the West numbered between 27,000 and 28,000 men after reinforcement from the Army of the North. Charette opposed them with between 8,000 and 12,000 infantry and 900 cavalry.
A conference was held at Nantes on the 22nd of August between the key commanders, including Lazare Hoche, du Bayet, Grouchy, and the still-ailing Canclaux. They agreed that three armies must operate jointly against the insurgents. The French government then appointed Hoche as commander-in-chief of the Army of the West. When the Count of Artois landed with a Royalist force on the Ile d'Yeu on the 2nd of October 1795, Grouchy's coastal defenses were solid enough that the Count gave up and sailed back to England.
On the 26th of December 1795, the French government merged the Army of the West with the armies of the Coasts of Brest and Cherbourg into a single Army of the Coasts of the Ocean under Hoche. The nominal strength of the new combined force was listed at 182,956 but the actual number present for duty was around 100,000. On the 6th of January 1796, the Army of the West formally ceased to exist.
The Army of the West came back into existence on the 17th of January 1800, when the Army of England was renamed and reorganized to cover the 12th, 13th, and 22nd Military Divisions. Guillaume Brune served as commander-in-chief until the 16th of April. Gabriel Marie Joseph d'Hedouville held the position provisionally until the 2nd of May, when Jean Baptiste Bernadotte took over.
Bernadotte commanded until the 10th of October, was replaced by an interim commander, then reassumed command on the 5th of May 1801 and held it until mid-November. By the 23rd of September 1801, the army's operational area had been reduced to just the 13th Military Division. Henri François Delaborde served as interim commander through the final months. On the 20th of May 1802, the Army of the West was suppressed for good. Bernadotte, who led the army during most of its second existence, would later become King of Sweden and Norway, a trajectory that makes his time in the Vendée one of the quieter chapters in a career that ended on a throne.
Up Next
Common questions
When was the French Army of the West created?
The Army of the West was created by a decree on the 2nd of October 1793 and activated on the 6th of October when Jean Léchelle assumed command. It was formed by merging the Army of the Coasts of La Rochelle, the Army of Mayence, and part of the Army of the Coasts of Brest.
What were the infernal columns of the French Army of the West?
The infernal columns were 12 military detachments ordered by General Louis Marie Turreau starting on the 24th of January 1794. Commanding 80,000 soldiers, Turreau directed these columns to sweep the Vendée, confiscate crops, burn farms, and kill suspected rebels. Women and children were not spared, and the campaign was later condemned as one of the worst atrocities of the French Revolutionary period.
What caused the War in the Vendée that the Army of the West fought?
The War in the Vendée was triggered by two measures imposed by the French National Convention: mandatory conscription of young men and the requirement that priests swear an oath under the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. The great majority of priests in the region refused the oath, and the local population resented conscription, leading to full rebellion by April 1793.
Who commanded the Army of the West during the Vendée rebellion?
The army cycled through multiple commanders in quick succession. Jean Léchelle was the first, from the 6th to the 27th of October 1793, followed by Alexis Chalbos, Jean Antoine Rossignol, François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers, and Louis Marie Turreau, among others. Lazare Hoche commanded the army during its final phase before it was absorbed into the Army of the Coasts of the Ocean in January 1796.
What happened to General Turreau after the infernal columns campaign?
Turreau was suspended from command on the 13th of May 1794 and later arrested after the fall of Robespierre. He argued at court-martial that he had only been following orders and was acquitted. He went on to command troops under the First French Empire and remained in favor with the Bourbon Restoration until his death in 1816.
How did the first Army of the West end and when was it re-formed?
The first Army of the West was absorbed on the 6th of January 1796 into the newly formed Army of the Coasts of the Ocean under Lazare Hoche, after a pacification agreement failed to hold and further campaigning was needed. It came back into existence on the 17th of January 1800 when the Army of England was renamed, and was finally suppressed on the 20th of May 1802.
All sources
4 references cited across the entry
- 1bookTableaux des Armées Françaises pendant les Guerres de la RévolutionCharles Clerget — Librarie Militaire R. Chapelot et Cie — 1905
- 2bookFrancois-Severin Marceau (1769–1796)Thomas George Johnson — George Bell & Sons — 1896
- 3bookThe Armies of the First French Republic: Volume III The Armies in the West 1793 to 1797 And, The Armies In The South 1793 to March 1796Ramsay Weston Phipps — Pickle Partners Publishing — 2011
- 4bookThe Napoleonic Wars Data BookDigby Smith — Greenhill — 1998