Among the difficulties which the execution of all military plans met
with in La Vendee, the nature and degree of which may be judged of
from the local dispositions and the kind of warfare carried on by the
royalists, there was one which was invincible, and which singularly
retarded the operations of the republicans. Whenever they were
desirous of sending an order from head quarters to a division at the
distance of twelve or fifteen leagues, the messenger was often obliged
to travel fifty or sixty in order to avoid passing through the
revolted country. Hence the impossibility of attempting any
expedition, however necessary or desirable, which required to be
executed without delay. The Vendeans would appear one day at a certain
point to the number of several thousand men; measures were concerted
for attacking them the next day, but before that arrived they were
eight or ten leagues distant from the place where they had showed
themselves the day before.
Thus were the republicans exposed to fruitless victories or disastrous
checks, which exhausted their men and resources. Masters of the field
of battle, they found, says one of their generals, nothing but wooden
shoes and some slain, never any arms or ammunition. The Vendean when
perceived, would either hide or break his gun, and in surrendering his
life, seldom left his weapon. Being well acquainted with the country,
and more dexterous than the republicans, they carried scarcely any
artillery with them, four or five pieces sufficed for an army of
thirty or forty thousand men; these were generally light field pieces.
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