War of the Pyrenees refers to the
Pyrenees front of the
First Coalition's war against the
First French Republic. Also known as
Great War,
War of Roussillon, or
War of the Convention, it pitted Revolutionary
France against the kingdoms of
Spain and
Portugal from March 1793 to July 1795 during the
French Revolutionary Wars.
The war was fought in the eastern Pyrenees, the western Pyrenees, at the French port of
Toulon, and at sea. In 1793, a Spanish army invaded
Rousillon in the eastern Pyrenees and maintained itself on French soil through April 1794. The French army drove the Spanish back into
Catalonia and inflicted a serious defeat on it in November 1794. After February 1795, the war in the eastern Pyrenees became a stalemate. In the western Pyrenees, the French began to win in 1794. By 1795, the French army controlled a portion of northeast Spain.
The war was brutal in at least two ways. First, the
Committee of Public Safety decreed that all French royalist prisoners be executed. Second, French generals who lost battles or otherwise displeased the all-powerful
Representatives-on-mission were sent to prison or the
guillotine with alarming frequency.
Army of the eastern Pyrenees commanders and generals were especially unlucky in this regard.
War
Outbreak
On 21 January 1793, the
National Convention of France executed King
Louis XVI of France by
guillotine, enraging the other monarchs of Europe. France was already at war with
Habsburg Austria, the
Kingdom of Prussia, and the...
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