29772: Re: 29740: Bell replies The French in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: madison bell <mbell@goucher.edu>

For exact numbers of French casualties, see AVENGERS OF THE NEW WORLD by
Laurent Dubois, or my forthcoming biography TOUSSAINT LOUVERTURE, coming
January 16.

French losses to fever were severe but also exaggerated, as the French
preferred to explain the disaster by disease rather than by battlefield
defeats.  Both were a factor.   But the first wave of fighting happened so
quickly that fever did not have time to take hold.  The Haitians basically
fought the French to a draw by the early spring of 1802-- at which point
the French had lost a great many more men on the battlefield than they were
willing to report-- many at the several battles at La Crete a Pierrot.  As
is common in many militaries, local commanders systematically
under-reported their battlefield casualties in order not to make themselves
look bad.

Yellow fever was part of Toussaint's overall strategy and probably part of
the reason he agreed to a cessation of hostilities-- he was waiting for the
summer fever season to weaken the enemy as indeed it did most
drastically.  The yellow fever epidemic at the end of the French invasion
was on a much larger scale than usual-- most likely because of the presence
of an unprecedented number of unacclimated Europeans in mosquito infested
areas.

In short, both battlefield casualties and disease did play a part in the
French defeat but disease did not become a major factor until very late in
the game.  Until  Vertieres, most of the major battles were drawn, with
both sides claiming victory.  The French won an a number of large
engagements in the sense that they forced the Haitians to retreat, but this
victories came at very high cost, and they could never control the
territory they had "conquered."   Guerilla harassment of the French army
never stopped completely, even after the temporary settlement with
Toussaint, and the French continued to take constant combat losses even as
the disease death toll was rising.

msb