Thread by @akoz33

Here is a fragment, which I just translated, from a book by the Polish historian Paweł Jasienica entitled “Thoughts about civil war”.
It was written in communist Poland and only published in 1993, after the author’s death and the fall of communism.

https://twitter.com/urdailyhistory/status/1328384083198664705

On the 17th of October took place the battle of Cholet, which, although at first successful for the rebels, ended in their defeat. Their fanaticism could not match the military skills of regular soldiers Marceau and Kléber.

In a critical moment in front of the division of the latter there appeared, running away in a panic, a political commissar and member of the National Convention, Jean-Baptiste Carrier

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Bapt…

"Soldiers, make way for Citizen Representative and let him go to the back" called to his men Kléber. "He will do his killing after the battle".
It was an unfortunate prediction that the fearless Alsatian made.

Soon after that carrier was appointed Plenipotentiary Commissar for Nantes and the cruelties lightly described earlier were his doing.
It is hard for me to decide how correct is Jacob Boroche, to whom I owe much of the information that I try to convey here.

He asserts that the sadism of the concentration camps of the Second World War did not exceed the level of Nantes. The
population of the city was about one hundred thousand, the terror is said to have taken the lives of 13,000.

Among the victims were inhabitants of Nantes and its neighbourhoods, prisoners of war and all kinds of suspects of various origins, status and age.

Many women brought from the Loire gave away their children to bystanders, pushing them into the silent crowd. An official decree ordered those who showed untimely mercy, under the penalty of death, to bring the "bandit offspring" to overcrowded prisons

where people were dying in huge numbers. There was no food, heating, medical care.
Carrier started by organising a guard to ensure his personal safety and an execution unit, colled "the Marat company". He also protected himself by making sure not to sign anything.

He practiced the eternal method of pushing all responsibility on his direct subordinates. Thanks to that care even after being recalled to Paris, for a long time he was left in peace. In December 1794, almost five months after the coup of the 9th of Thermidor,

he was sentenced and beheaded.
He was betrayed to the tribunal by the National Convention, that is, his own colleagues, who were also covered with blood. When Carrier cold-bloodiedly and cynically massacring Nantes,
Barras, Fouche, Tallien, Freron were also committing massacres

in other French cities: Talon, Marseille, Lyon... None of them paid for this with his head, some even made splendid careers on the new wave of history.
On the republican side generals Marceau, Kleber, Hoche
behaved humanly, fought very bravely,

refused to participate in atrocities. Fate decided that none of these young officers should live into the XIX century: the first one died of wounds, the second of disease, the third of assassins knife in far away Egypt. h the battle of Cholet was killed one of the most

brilliant commanders of the Vendee, Artus de Bonchamps. Dying in Saint-Florent he made his comrades in arms promise to free 4,000 prisoners intended for a retaliatory execution.