mythology. These women soldiers were thought to have become common in the Fon army due to the extreme losses suffered by Dahomey during wars with neighboring kingdoms. Some official French propaganda from the period may be seen in prints depicting these so-called Amazons. One source claims that in one of the battles an Amazon killed a French officer by ripping out his throat with her sharpened teeth. Parallel accounts of the event handed down in Benin describe the Amazon as a trusted wife of Béhanzin who had sworn to avenge members of the royal family who had been executed by Béhanzin for treachery after divulging battle plans in return for bribes from French agents. The French officer she is said to have killed was allegedly the head of French military intelligence who committed the 'savage' act of corrupting family members to betray their own. The Amazon was reduced to using her teeth after her ammunition ran out at the battle's peak. Through superior intelligence gathering, superior strategy, superior weaponry, bribery, and a campaign of psychological warfare that included cutting down most of the sacred trees in the Oueme and Zou, the French defeated Dahomey, one of the last African kingdoms to succumb to European colonization, with very few French losses. Instead of attacking Abomey directly by marching straight north from Calavi just north of Cotonou, French General Alfred Dodds attacked from Porto-Novo, moving up the Oueme valley until he was within striking distance of Abomey, via Cove and Bohicon, while the Fon continued to pattern their attacks in predictable melee combat style just before dawn, with shorter machete weapons and swords that had difficulty breaking disciplined French Bayonet lines. Over a series of battles and guerilla warfare by the Fon attempting to slow the French march towards the Dahomey capital of Abomey, the French were victorious, sustaining only 85 casualties to the estimated 2000 to 4000 killed among the Fon. On November 5th 1894, following the loss of the royal palace, Béhanzin sent a truce mission to the French forces, but it failed. King Béhanzin, refusing to let the capital fall into enemy hands, burned and evacuated the city. He and the remnants of the Dahomey army fled north as the French entered the capital on 17 November, and installed Béhanzin's brother Agoli-agbo as the new King. After failing to rebuild his army, King Béhanzin eventually surrendered to the French