Louis Marie Turreau

Born

4 July 1756

Died

10 December 1816

Elected to command a battalion of Eure volunteers in 1792, Turreau took charge of the Army of the West at the end of December 1793, after the main Vendéan army had been destroyed at Le Mans and Savenay. He divided his forces into twelve columns to sweep the insurgent country from east to west, issuing the movement order on 17 January 1794 and supplementary instructions later that month directing that those taken in arms, women and children among them, be put to the bayonet, and that villages, farms and crops be burned. The columns killed large numbers of non-combatants over the following months without destroying Charette or Stofflet. Recalled in May 1794 and arrested after Thermidor, he refused the amnesty, was acquitted in December 1795 on the ground that he had executed orders, and was afterwards minister to the United States.

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