French troops wavered upon realizing their besieged black enemies were fellow republicans

Evidence

The French, strengthened by the arrival of a unit under the command of Rochambeau, surrounded the fort and began bombarding it with cannon fire. After an artillery barrage, Rochambeau ordered a new frontal assault, only to see his troops shattered as they approached the fort, retreating after the loss of several hundred soldiers. At night, wrote Lacroix, the attacking soldiers heard their enemies singing “patriotic songs” that celebrated “the glory of France.” Hearing these songs, some soldiers looked to their officers as if to say: “Could our barbaric enemies be right? Are we no longer soldiers of the Republic?” Had they become, they wondered, “servile instruments” of politics, fighting for an immoral cause? The conflict in Saint-Domingue was, after all, one being fought between “two French armies, two enemy sisters,” with veterans of the long revolutionary wars facing off against each other. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 969

Categorization

• QUESTION: This portrait of French republican soldiers doubting their cause against black republicans complicates any simple colonialist framing of the expedition - worth tracing how Leclerc and other officers managed this morale.
• XREF: Echoes the reader’s understanding of how revolutionary ideology cuts both ways in colonial revolts, comparable to debates over whether the Rights of Man extended to colonized peoples.