Lucien de Montagnac

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Lucien-François de Montagnac (17 May 1803 – 23 September 1845) was a French lieutenant colonel. Sent to Africa in 1845, he was responsible for several massacres of civilians during the French conquest of Algeria and was killed at the Battle of Sidi-Brahim.

Montagnac was born in Pouru-aux-Bois. He took part in the Spanish expedition of 1823 and rose to lieutenant on 30 December 1827. He severely put down the June Rebellion in 1832 but refused the Légion d'honneur he was offered in reward by Louis-Philippe of France, explaining he was "resolved to await this reward on an occasion I will better deserve it."

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Colonel de Montagnac was quoted as saying while in Algeria, "I have some heads cut off, not the heads of artichokes but the heads of men."

"All populations who do not accept our conditions must be despoiled. Everything must be seized, devastated, without age or sex distinction: grass must not grow any more where the French army has set foot. Who wants the end wants the means, whatever may say our philanthropists? I personally warn all good soldiers whom I have the honour to lead that if they happen to bring me a living Arab, they will receive a beating with the flat of the saber. This is how, my dear friend, we must make war against Arabs: kill all men over the age of fifteen, take all their women and children, load them onto naval vessels, send them to the Marquesas Islands or elsewhere. In one word, annihilate everything that will not crawl beneath our feet like dogs."^[1]