War of the Pyrenees
The War of the Pyrenees, also known as War of Roussillon or War of the Convention, was the Pyrenean front of the First Coalition's war against the First French Republic. It pitted Revolutionary France against the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal from March 1793 to July 1795 during the French Revolutionary Wars.
| War of the Pyrenees | |||||||||
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| Part of the War of the First Coalition | |||||||||
Battle of Boulou | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
| French Republic |
Spain Portugal | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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Louis de Flers Eustache d'Aoust Luc Dagobert Louis Marie Turreau J. Dugommier † Dominique Pérignon Barthélemy Schérer Bon-Adrien Moncey Pierre Augereau Pierre Sauret Claude Victor-Perrin Henri Delaborde |
Antonio Ricardos Luis de la Union † Jerónimo Girón José de Urrutia Gregorio Cuesta Pedro Téllez-Girón Juan de Lángara Federico Gravina João Forbes Count of Feira G. Freire de Andrade Count of Subserra | ||||||||
| Units involved | |||||||||
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Army of the Eastern Pyrenees Army of the Western Pyrenees |
Army of Catalonia Army of Assistance to the Crown of Spain | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
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5,052 men | |||||||||
The war was fought in the eastern and western Pyrenees, at the French port of Toulon, and at sea. In 1793, a Spanish army invaded Roussillon in the eastern Pyrenees and maintained itself on French soil through April 1794. The French Revolutionary Army drove the Spanish Army back into Catalonia and inflicted a serious defeat 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. The Committee of Public Safety decreed that all French royalist prisoners be executed. Also, French generals who lost battles or otherwise displeased the representatives-on-mission often faced prison or execution. Commanders of the Army of the Eastern Pyrenees were especially unlucky in this regard.