No Surrender! A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee

In the world's history, there is no more striking example of heroic
bravery and firmness than that afforded by the people of the province
of Poitou, and more especially of that portion of it known as La
Vendee, in the defence of their religion and their rights as free men.
At the commencement of the struggle they were almost unarmed, and the
subsequent battles were fought by the aid of muskets and cannon wrested
from the enemy. With the exception of its forests, La Vendee offered
no natural advantages for defence. It had no mountains, such as those
which enabled the Swiss to maintain their independence; no rivers which
would bar the advance of an enemy; and although the woods and thickets
of the Bocage, as it was called, favoured the action of the irregular
troops, these do not seem to have been utilized as they might have
been, the principal engagements of the war being fought on open ground.
For eighteen months the peasants of La Vendee, in spite of the fact
that they had no idea of submitting either to drill or discipline,
repulsed the efforts of forces commanded by the best generals France
could furnish; and which grew, after every defeat, until at length
armies numbering, in all, over two hundred thousand men were collected
to crush La Vendee.

The losses on both sides were enormous. La Vendee was almost
depopulated; and the Republicans paid dearly, indeed, for their
triumph, no fewer than one hundred thousand men having fallen, on their
side. La Vendee was crushed, but never surrendered. Had the British
government been properly informed, by its agents, of the desperate
nature of the struggle that was going on; they might, by throwing
twenty thousand troops, with supplies of stores and money into La
Vendee, have changed the whole course of events; have crushed the
Republic, given France a monarch, and thus spared Europe over twenty
years of devastating warfare, the expenditure of enormous sums of
money, and the loss of millions of lives.


G. A. Henty