The War in the Vendee

[@barbararussell9757]

Interesting video. I am a Catholic and never heard about the uprising in the Vendee until the last few years when I heard about it through Traditional Catholic sources. I had a French minor in college and read a tremendous amount in French about the Revolution and the Vendee was never covered in my college courses. I think any Catholic can’t help but feel moved at the piety and valor of the Vendeans and the extent of the sufferings they endured. That was also a fascinating bit at the end about the soldier who fought 57:20 57:20 for Pius IX and went on to fight at Little Big Horn.

[@Finnishpeasant]

Good video.

[@danwholikespie]

Great stuff! Good to see a detailed take on this underappreciated counter-revolution. I hope you keep making these videos.

[@ruthmaryprays8455]

Really interesting thanks for so much detail.

[@kathe.6889]

Great video, thanks! I don't know if you're interested in going into this topic further, but I would love to hear your treatment of Carrier and his atrocities at Nantes after the defeat of the Vendean army. I just finished a memoir dealing with the war and the its terrible aftermath, and I can't recommend it highly enough, particularly for its insights into the thinking and devotion of the Vendean people: "A Family of Brigands in 1793" by Marie de Sainte-Hermine (Angelus Press).

[@Qwalnuts]

Excellent video sir! The "tangents" are super interesting tidbits. Any advice on good books about this conflict?

[@AnotherHistorianWargamer]

Thanks mate. Unfortunately most of the books of the particular period are written in French but there are some good blogs that have translated some stuff. The best book of all time, hands down, on the French Revolution is "Louis XVI or the End of the World" by Bernard Faÿ, A French work but in English written in 1961. Bernard Faÿ was really the last European Conservative before it all just became about economics and lost it's roots in opposition to the French Revolution and he's got some amazing insights.

[@AnotherHistorianWargamer]

rodama1789.blogspot.com/2021/06/brits-revolution-and-vendee.html This blog is great and has a lot of audio links to experts. leahmariebrownhistoricals.blogspot.com/2012/03/march-6-1793-war-in-vendee.html Is also worth a read

[@MasterofArms1]

I have enjoyed the video, and will likely watch/listen again at some point. I really appreciate your perspectives on this little talked about series of events. Most perspectives I've seen come from explicitly Catholic, or at least apologetic standpoints, and I have concerns that it will colour the understanding of the War in the Vendee by painting the Catholics as unremittingly good and the victims, and the Republicans as unquenchingly evil and hateful, which can then bleed over into the wider perspective on the French revolution and secular government in general. With the anti clericalism that fuelled the attempts at control or usurpation of the Catholic church going around France in the foundations of the Revolution itself, how did the Vendeean clergy avoid the ire of the people? I appreciate what you said about the nobles being more local on account of their lower means, does the same idea apply to the local priesthood?

[@AnotherHistorianWargamer]

Thank you very much for the comment and kind words. Essentially it's the same as for the nobility, all the issues surrounding the nobility and clergy revolved around money not so much power and influence and in a place without money those issues didn't really emerge. A lot of people look at the French Revolution backwards and think it was about freedom. Maybe to a small handful of elites who were basically nobility themselves but to the average person it was about anger and resentment. That's how 99% of revolutions start, a small group of ideological people harness the resentment of the masses to get their own goals accomplished by pointing them at a suitable target. The people of the Vendee were also very Catholic, a fact overlooked by many secular historians and over emphasised by many Catholic ones. They genuinely held deep Catholic beliefs that coupled with a stable, non corrupt local Church in the area and financially poor nobility meant they weren't really open to the ideas of the Parisian urban classes. The common phrase "more money more problems" is actually a really good explanation of the reactions to the French Revolution. Full disclosure I myself am a Catholic in fact I'm a Seminarian studying for the priesthood but that shouldn't cloud our view of history. Remember it wasn't the closure of the Churches or the murder of the King that sparked the violence it was the taking of their sons. Saying it was all about one thing and the others were minor simply isn't true, all three worked together to create the uprising.