Leclerc’s invasion force was already wrecked by supply shortages and disease.

Evidence

In Saint-Domingue, on the day he declared war against Louverture, Leclerc wrote in desperation to the colonial minister in Paris to “come quickly to his aid” and to send him “thirty thousand pairs of shoes,” for his troops were “barefoot.” He had been told in Brest that there were 15,000 pairs of shoes on board, only to find on the other side of the Atlantic that in fact there were only 4,000 “bad pairs.” … There was, finally, an even more serious problem: disease. “I already have 1,200 men in the hospital,” he announced, and warned the minister to prepare for a “considerable consumption of men in this land.” — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 949

Categorization

• XREF: The pattern of European expeditions collapsing to disease and logistics failure in Saint-Domingue mirrors the broader Caribbean mortality crisis described later in the book.