Chouannerie
| Chouannerie | |||||||
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 The defence of Rochefort-en-Terre, painting by Alexandre Bloch, 1885 |
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 France (Republic - Empire) |
 Chouan rebels Vendéen rebels Émigrés Great Britain
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
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Jean-Baptiste de Canclaux Jean-Michel Beysser Jean Antoine Rossignol Jean Baptiste Kléber Lazare Hoche Jean Humbert Guillaume Brune Gabriel d'Hédouville Pierre Quantin Claude Ursule Gency |
Georges Cadoudal  Joseph de Puisaye Jean Chouan † Marie Paul de Scépeaux Aimé du Boisguy Louis de Frotté Pierre Guillemot † Amateur de Boishardy Louis de Bourmont Louis d'Andigné Pierre-Mathurin Mercier † Jean-Louis Treton Guillaume Le Métayer Charles Armand Tuffin, marquis de la Rouerie
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| Strength | |||||||
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Army of the West: 1795: 68,000 men 1799: 45,000 men 1800: 75,000 men |
1795-1800: ~55,000 men |
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The Chouannerie was a royalist uprising or counter-revolution in 12 of the western départements of France, particularly in the provinces of Brittany and Maine, against the French Revolution, the French First Republic. It played out in three phases and lasted from the spring of 1794 until 1800.
The uprising was mostly caused by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790) and the levée en masse (1793) decided by the National Convention.
A first uprising attempt was carried out by the Association bretonne to defend the French monarchy and reinstate the specific laws and customs of Brittany that had been repealed in 1789. The first confrontations broke out in 1792 and evolved to a peasant revolt, then to guerrilla warfare and eventually to full-scale battles until the Republican victory in 1800.
Shorter peasant uprisings in other départements such as in Aveyron and Lozère were also qualified as "chouanneries". A petite chouannerie broke out in 1815 during the Hundred Days and a final uprising ultimately took place during the .
In 1791, the adoption of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy caused the peasants around Vannes to rise in defence of their bishop against the Republicans of Lorient who wished him to swear the oath of loyalty to the Civil Constitution. The following spring, in the area around Quimper, a justice of the peace led several parishes in a rising in the name of King Louis XVI against the local authorities.
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