Army of the Western Pyrenees

Army of the Western Pyrenees
The defenses of Pamplona, the object of French advances, remained in Spanish control during the war.
Active	1793–1795
Country	First French Republic
Type	Army
Role	Operations in Basque Country and Navarre
Engagements	War of the Pyrenees
Commanders
Notable commanders	Jacques Léonard Muller Bon-Adrien de Moncey

The Army of the Western Pyrenees (Armée des Pyrénées occidentales) was one of the Republican French armies of the French Revolutionary Wars. From April 1793 until 12 October 1795, the army fought in the Basque Country and in Navarre during the War of the Pyrenees. After indecisive fighting during the first year of its existence, the army seized the Spanish port of San Sebastián in August 1794. By the time the Peace of Basel was signed on 22 July 1795, the Army of the Western Pyrenees held a significant portion of northeastern Spain.

The army commanders with the longest tenure were Jacques Léonard Muller, who served from October 1793 to August 1794, and Bon-Adrien Jeannot de Moncey, who served from August 1794 until the army was disbanded. Emperor Napoleon appointed Moncey a Marshal of France in 1804 during the First French Empire.

The Army of the Pyrenees was formed on 1 October 1792 and a former Minister of War, Joseph Marie Servan de Gerbey was appointed to lead it. The War of the Pyrenees between Republican France and the Kingdom of Spain began on 9 March 1793. Accordingly, the original Army of the Pyrenees was split on 30 April into the Army of the Western Pyrenees with Servan in command and the Army of the Eastern Pyrenees. Servan's new army covered a front from the Garonne River in the Pyrenees to the Bay of Biscay, then up the coast to the Gironde estuary. Historian Ramsay Weston Phipps called the Army of the Western Pyrenees the "least interesting" of the armies of the French Republic, contributing only one future marshal. On 19 May 1804, Napoleon elevated Bon-Adrien Jeannot de Moncey to the rank of marshal.