The Avranches massacre took place on 21 November 1793 in the context of the savage "Vendée" civil war that broke out in the west of France between 1793 and 1796, during the French Revolution. It involved the killing by firing squad at Avranches of approximately 800 counter-revolutionary prisoners by Republican troops.[1]
Although Avranches itself is some distance to the north of the Vendée region, the victims of the massacre had arrived in the area as part of the large but poorly coordinated counter-revolutionary force that had originated in the Vendée, and like many aspect of the War in the Vendée the Massacre of Avranches generated passionate and contrasting interpretations from commentators, throughout and beyond the nineteenth century.[2]