Chouannerie
Chouannerie is the name given to the armed resistance of Catholics of Brittany loyal to the king against the First French Republic in the period from 1793 to approx. 1804. Chouannerie also existed as an uprising in the neighboring regions of Anjou , Maine and Normandy . In 1796, at the height of the conflict, 50,000 Chouans, including 30,000 Bretons, are said to have fought. That was around 5% of the male population in the uprising area.
Definition of terms
The insurgent Bretons were called "Chouans" from October 1793 when they joined the columns of the Vendée insurgents (Bataille de La Gravelle, October 24, 1793). Her name is said to be based on her call for understanding in the dark, which mimicked that of the owl ( French chouette ). Elsewhere, the term chat-huant 'meowing cat' or the old French choan 'howl (the cat)' is mentioned. Although the Breton resistance against the republic differed from that of the Vendée for historical and national reasons, the Chouannerie is described in French literature as part of the "civil war in the West".
"[...] especially considering the barbaric state of their country children, already cut off from all connections with the other inhabitants of France by their strange dialect, who were completely subject to the influence of the priests and were three or four times stronger in number than the Vendées With all these circumstances, La Puisaye [a leader] believed he could provoke a far more terrible uprising [than that of the Vendée]. "
Their organization in small groups or gangs was characteristic, probably corresponding to the Breton clan structure and led by a so-called "chief" (French "chief"). Their quarters and retreat areas are said to be the large forests of u. a. Fougères, Lorges or Pertre, where the Republican line troops could not operate with artillery or cavalry. Between 1794 and 1799, however, at times they also formed militarily organized divisions and armies, which were up to 30-40,000 men strong.
Contemporaries, especially supporters of the revolution and the republic, rated the significance and activities of the Chouannerie largely negatively. At the time of the White Terror and the Royalist uprising against the Convention in October 1795, the Parisian youth, the Jeunesse dorée , were particularly enthusiastic about the Chouans' fight against revolution and republicans. At the end of the century they were seen outside France as the fighters for regional independence, for the Catholic Church and the monarchy.
Information and figures on participation in fighting and victims - especially among the civilian population - differ in the reporting of the 19th century; likely influenced by whether the authors felt committed to a revolutionary, republican or conservative, clerical society.
background
Although many Bretons initially sympathized with the French Revolution with anticipation, it quickly became apparent that their interests in political independence were not being taken into account by the new central government. Local unrest in rural Brittany began in 1791, with the nationalization of church property and the deportations of local priests who had refused to take oaths on the new constitution. Even the new subdivision of the country into départements took no account of their regional sensitivities; the end of the feudal order did not necessarily lead to better living conditions for the tenant farmers. However, the dismissal and execution of King Louis XVI are the trigger for the Chouannerie . and the forced recruitment for the French army in 1793, which in the eyes of many Bretons was a reintroduction of the hated militia. The fighting in Brittany was usually a guerrilla fight with raids using sniper tactics , at night and along the main roads, against Republican troops, transports and depots. In small groups, they raided the transport of food for the inland markets, murdered Republican mayors and judges, and especially the buyers of national goods. 19th century French historians, e.g. B. Abel Hugo 1838 or Adolphe Thiers 1823, saw the rebels on the same level as highwaymen and salt smugglers:
“La guerre des Chouans, qui, dans l'origine, n'était qu'une espèce de brigandage exercé de nuit sur les grandes routes, et qui a fini a peu près de la meme facçon, fut commencée par des rassemblements de contrebandiers ruits à la misère par la suppression des gabelles. »
or
“This province [meaning Brittany] had long since shown a tendency to imitate the Vendée; incidentally, this tendency was not so general, and only a few individuals, using the nature of the locality, indulged in individual robberies. Soon, however, the ruins of the Vendé columns, which had fled to Brittany, increased the number of these partisans. Their main seat was the forest of Perche, [place presumably. only example of others] from where they crossed the country in heaps of 40 - 50 men, here and there the gendarmerie attacked and pillaged the small communities, whatever mischief they always did in the name of the royal and catholic cause. "
Revolts from 1790 to 1794
The first local uprisings, which had more of the character of a peasant uprising and which were triggered by resolutions of the revolutionary government on the food trade, increased from 1790 in their number from initially a few dozen to 5-6,000 in the battles of La Roche-Bernard in March 1792 or Lannion in September 1792. In the tradition, these rebels are mostly still the "Association bretonne", mainly led by the nobility, or the "Paysans contrerévolutionaires".
Joseph de Puisaye made an attempt to train the peasants to form more powerful military formations. With the support of the Church, registers of Bretons capable of weapons were drawn up, which made it possible to list companies and divisions from the country's cantons. A prerequisite for receiving support from the English government and winning over the reluctant royal princes to take action for the counter-revolution. These efforts to reach agreement often failed because of the rivalry between the leaders.
Larger groups of Bretons joined the Vendée insurgents in October 1793 , who fled across the Loire after the defeat in the second Battle of Cholet and across the Loire in a train of around 25,000 fighters and a large following of old people, women and children Brittany moved to the Norman port of Granville . There they wanted to take over the announced British aid and unite with local rebels.
The train to Normandy was a disaster for the Vendéer and Chouans. As Virée de Galerne (from the Breton "gwalarn" for a violent, changeable north-west wind) passed down in French history, there was a series of skirmishes between October and the end of December 1793, which initially saw the insurgents as winners. After Granville, where they could not besiege the Republican garrison due to a lack of artillery and where English aid had not arrived, they wanted to return to the Loire demoralized. Epidemics, hunger, cold and the continued attacks by Republican troops, which had been reinforced with a new leadership and access from other armies, led to the withdrawal of many Chouans from the Armée catholique et royale de Vendée . They returned to their guerrilla tactics in small gangs, with ambushes and hiding in the woods.
"Since they were unable to take possession of the land in accordance with the war, they apparently had no other aim than to destroy it completely by deterring the citizens from accepting any office of the republic."
The Vendéer - and with them some of the remaining Chouans - were defeated on December 13, 1793 in the Battle of Le Mans and ten days later in the Battle of Savenay on the Loire. Reports speak of the massacres of the wounded, prisoners, women and children, which ended the street fighting within the two towns. In Le Mans alone there were said to have been 15,000 victims. The shooting of prisoners - often en masse - on both sides was a peculiarity of the bitter civil war in the West.
A first peace in 1795
After the temporary end of the uprisings in the Vendée, many fighters turned away from the "bosses" and returned to their villages. The uncompromisingly anti-republic core of the Chouans was limited in 1794 mainly to "[...] a profitable highway robbery which did not tire those who dealt with it in the least [...]" ( Adolphe Thiers around 1830). This phase of the more criminal guerrilla war is often referred to as the actual Chouannerie. In Paris, after the end of Robespierre and des Terreurs in the summer of 1794, the National Convention was ready for an armistice and an offer to negotiate concessions in the form of an end to the “de-Christianization” of the church, the exemption from taxes and conscription and the release of prisoners from the republican side, from the insurgent side, the recognition of the republic and the renunciation of federalist efforts. In February 1795, after discussions among themselves, the most important generals of the Vendée (except Stofflet ) signed the Treaty of La Jaunaye. The Chouans, who agreed on a peace treaty in La Mabilais the following April after heated internal disputes, were less willing to compromise. Only 21 of the 121 bosses present signed. The republican side was not expected to be faithful to the treaty and the military pressure on the rebels increased, but tried to win the population for the republican state with conciliation.
In June 1795 there was the long-awaited arrival of English relief supplies and royalist troops in the bay of the Quiberon peninsula near Carnac . Lured by promises of money, weapons and food and the arrival of the royal prince and future king, Comte d'Artois , to restore the monarchy, several thousand Chouans - viewed suspiciously and disdainfully by the emigrants - are supposed to be with their families despite peace agreements in the Morbihan department .
Inadequate planning and coordination among each other caused chaotic conditions at the landing sites. Enclosed on the peninsula by General Lazare Hoche , they were beaten, disarmed and executed until the end of July if they surrendered in English uniformed and armed. There are reports of mass executions of 952 Chouans who were arrested in English uniform. Refugees who reached the English invasion ships at anchor were released on the offshore islands, where many perished from hunger, cold and epidemics. Many Chouans managed to escape to the interior of Brittany, where they practiced their way of partisan fighting again in small groups and blamed the British, the royalists and their own commanders for the invasion disaster.
In the summer of 1796 the pressure on the Chouans increased. General Hoche formed small, mobile units (colonnes mobiles), which forced the chiefs to give up by tracking down and smashing the Chouantrupps. The last to sign a peace agreement on June 19, 1796, was Georges Cadoudal . For the government, the problem seems solved. She lets General Hoche begin an invasion of Ireland and England and sends troops from the western armies to the borders of Germany, Austria and Italy.
The domestic and foreign political difficulties of France in the years 1797 to 1799, which the Chouans showed themselves especially in the poorly equipped and poorly supplied republican troops, caused them to mobilize again larger armies for counter-revolution. In October 1799, 18,000 Chouans des Morbihans and 10,000 of the departments of Ille-et-Vilaine and Mayenne were in the uprising. But they did not succeed in taking larger cities permanently; after a storm they contented themselves with opening the prisons and burning the administrative files.
The war with the Chouans tied up troops and resources that would have to be in Germany and Italy. The First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte reacted with a “double strategy of forbearance and repression” to the problem of the recurring anti-republican violence in the western departments. In the unsuccessful ceasefire negotiations with the leaders, even those kept secret with Cadoudal, he saw only maneuvers to gain time. The Western Army was instructed in January 1800 to respect the people's freedom of belief, but examples were to be made of those communities that believed they could only sustain their society with the restoration of the monarchy
"[...] some leasehold farms and larger villages are supposed to go up in flames. Only if you let them feel the horrors of war will their residents unite against the troublemakers [the Chouans] and finally understand that the sympathies they have so far harbored for them are very detrimental. "
Various chiefs of the Chouans surrendered in February 1800. Cadoudal and Napoleon met secretly in Paris, but without reaching an agreement. Cadoudal received impetus for further resistance in May from the British Conservative Prime Minister William Pitt , who promised the landing of 30,000 soldiers to be led by the Chouans against Paris.
Napoleon's successes in foreign policy, his concessions on religious issues, but also the war weariness of the Breton population, let another uprising die out. Cadoudal, who is said to have been involved in an assassination attempt (on December 24, 1800 in the Rue Saint-Nicaise in Paris), and several leaders with him, emigrated to England, others were tried.
In 1803 Cadoudal was back in France and conspired with royalist opponents to overthrow Napoleon. In 1804 he was tried and sentenced. On June 25, 1804, the most popular Chouan was guillotined in Paris.
After 1815, surviving Chouan leaders were made marshals and generals by the Bourbons and "received large rewards that depressed the treasury."
Chouans leader (selection)
Jean Cottereau called Jean Chouan, 1757–1794, is said to have been in the Mayenne department as a young man, charcoal maker or clog maker . He is known as the first gang leader of the Chouannerie, who fought the republic as a "counter-revolutionary". He began with raids in his native Mayenne, joined the rebels of the Vendée in 1793 and was one of the most wanted Chouans after their defeats at Le Mans and Savenay. In July 1794 he was killed in a battle. Three brothers and two sisters, also known as opponents of the republic, died in fighting or were guillotined as convicted royalists.
Georges Cadoudal , 1771-1804, came from a wealthy farming family in the Morbihan department . He started out as a “partisan for the French Revolution”, but became their opponent because of the anti-church policies of the Jacobins. In 1793, as commander of the Breton Chouans, he followed the Vendée uprising until its defeat at Le Mans and Savenaye. He then gathered the rebellious Bretons of south-west Brittany and in 1795, after the debacle of the invasion of Quiberon, became the supreme chief of the "Catholic and Royal Army of the Morbihan Department ." In 1798 he again organized a royalist uprising - probably also on English announcements of aid - and weakened the republican side in several battles. With the takeover of the First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, the fight against the royalists was no longerleft tothe gendarmerie alone, but led by experienced officers and line troops. Cadoudal had to leave France and took part in preparations for the overthrow of the republican government and the restoration of the monarchy from London.
Returning to France in 1803, the plot was uncovered and Cadoudal was arrested, tried and executed in 1804. After 1815 he was by King Louis XVIII. posthumously appointed Marshal of France and raised his family to the nobility.
Joseph de Puisaye , 1755–1827, count from the Norman aristocracy, nobility representative of his home region Le Perche in the National Assembly, advocated the transformation of the state into a constitutional monarchy. In 1791 he was an officer in the National Guard of Évreux . After the execution of Louis XVI. he took sides for a short-lived, federalist counter-revolution and was the commander of the avant-garde of the "Federal Army of Normandy", in which Bretons from the eastern departments of Brittany also fought. The lack of popular support and the victory of the Montagnards against the Girondins in the government ended the movement. Puisaye then reorganized the Chouans of the Ille-et-Vilaine and Morbihan departments underground , which were to carry the counter-revolution throughout the country with an invasion of the royalists. From September 1794 he was in London to organize the invasion of Brittany with the British government and the emigrants. Recognized as the driving force of the uprising in Brittany and Normandy, he received officer rank in the British Army and was appointed lieutenant general in the royal emigre army by the pretender to the throne, Count von Artois , with which he landed on the coast of the Quiberon peninsula in June 1795 .
The invasion ended in disaster for the royal cause and the counter-revolution was suppressed by the republican armies across the west by autumn. Puisaye fled to England and died there in 1827. He is said to have received a handsome pension from the British government.
Jean Cottereau called Chouan
Georges Cadoudal
Count de Puisaye
- see also: Army of Emigrants
literature
- Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) processed the uprising of the rebels loyal to the king in his historical novel Les Chouans ou La Bretagne in 1799, first published in 1829 and in its final version since 1834 .
- Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly designed the true fate of the spy and Chouans Des Touches in his novel Le Chevalier Des Touches, first published in 1864 . Barbey had met Des Touches himself shortly before his death in 1859.
- Adolphe Thiers , History of the French Revolution, 6 volumes, trans. A. Walthner, Mannheim 1844, original version 1823–1827
- Axel Kuhn, The French Revolution, Reclam No. 17017, Stuttgart 2009
- Abel Hugo, France militaire. Histoire des armées françaises de terre et de mer de 1792 à 1837, Tome 2, Paris 1838
- Johannes Willms, Napoleon, Munich 2005
- Meyers-Konv.-Lexikon, 3rd edition, Vol. IV, Leipzig 1874
- Berthold Volz, Illustrated History of the New Age, Volume 1, Leipzig 1883
annotation
- ↑ Roger Dupuy: Les Chouans. 1997, p. 186
- ^ A. Hugo: France militaire ..., Vol. 2, Expédition de Quiberon
- ↑ A. Thiers: Gesch. the French Revolution, Vol. 4, pp. 217ff.
- ^ B. Volz, Geschichte der Neuesten Zeit, Vol. 1, Leipzig 1883, p. 169
- ^ Rolf H. Reichardt: Das Blut ..., p. 47
- ^ A. Hugo, France militaire ..., Vol. 2, Expédition de Quiberon
- ↑ A. Thiers: Gesch. the French Revolution, vol. 3, p. 482 ff
- ↑ A. Thiers, Gesch. the French Revolution, Vol. 4, p. 218
- ↑ A. Thiers: Gesch. the French Revolution. Vol. 4, p. 216 ff.
- ↑ Various sources - also from more than 2000 specified executions - make no distinction between Chouans, emigrants etc.
- ↑ J. Willms, Napoleon, pp. 252 ff.
- ^ J. Willms quoted from Napoleon's correspondence with General Brune in Napoleon, p. 252 ff
- ↑ u. a. the generals Moreau and Pichegru
- ↑ Meyers-Konv.-Lexikon, 3rd ed., Vol. IV, 1874
- ↑ Honoré de Balzac: The Chouans, rebels of the king. Roman ("Les Chouans, ou la Bretagne en 1799"). Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 1996, ISBN 3-458-33617-6 (translated from the French by Johannes Schlaf ).
- ↑ cf. the afterword by Gerhard Krämer, in: Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly: The Chevalier des Touches. Novel. Matthes & Seitz Verlag, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-88221-622-6 , pp. 265-288