17 October 1793, the 'blue' Republican army near Cholet defeated the 'white' Vendéan insubordinate army and all surviving Vendée residents, counting in tens of thousands, fled over the river Loire north into Brittany. A Convention's representative on mission in Nantes commissioned in October to pacify the region did so by simply drowning prisoners in the river Loire: until February 1794 he drowned at least 4,000. By November 1793, the revolts in Normandy, Bordeaux and Lyon were overcome, in December also that in Toulon. Two representatives on mission sent to punish Lyon between November 1793 and April 1794 executed 2,000 people by guillotine or firing-squad. The Vendéan army since October roaming through Brittany on 12 December 1793 again ran up against Republican troops and saw 10,000 of its rebels perish, meaning the end of this once threatening army. Some historians claim that after that defeat Convention Republic armies in 1794 massacred 117,000 Vendéan civilians to obliterate the Vendéan people, but others contest that claim. Some historians consider the civil war to have lasted until 1796 with a toll of 450,000 lives.