Quiberon expedition (1795)
키브롱 상륙 (1795)
The landing of 3,500 French émigré troops by a British fleet at Carnac on the Quiberon peninsula in Brittany on 27 June 1795, meant to revive the Chouan and Vendéan risings and restore the monarchy. The command dispute between Puisaye and d’Hervilly lost the advantage of surprise, and Hoche’s counter-attack forced a capitulation on 21 July. Of more than 6,000 prisoners, 748 to 750, the émigré noble Sombreuil among them, were shot at Auray on the verdict of a military commission.
In depth
Joseph de Puisaye, who had fled to Britain in 1794, persuaded the Count of Artois and the prime minister Pitt to back an expedition by claiming an army of 40,000 men in Brittany, but Britain provided ships and equipment without troops, and an agent of the Count of Provence tried to have the comte d’Hervilly appointed commander. On 23 June a fleet under Warren and Hood sailed with two émigré divisions of 3,500 men and muskets, uniforms and food for 40,000, and Villaret-Joyeuse’s Brest fleet lost two ships of the line off the Île de Groix and withdrew. When the fleet anchored off Quiberon on 26 June d’Hervilly produced his letter of nomination and claimed supreme command, and a day was lost in the quarrel between Puisaye, who wanted to attack at once, and d’Hervilly, who wanted to fortify the peninsula. The émigrés landed at Carnac on 27 June and joined several thousand Chouans gathered by Cadoudal, and on 3 July Fort Penthièvre, which the Republicans called Fort Sans-culotte, surrendered.
Hoche, at Vannes with 2,000 men, had gathered 13,000 by 4 July, recaptured Carnac on 6 July and all but sealed the peninsula on the 7th. On 10 and 11 July two Chouan columns in British uniforms were to land behind the Republican lines by sea, but one dispersed and the column of Tinténiac and Cadoudal was diverted towards Saint-Brieuc on orders from the royalist agency in Paris; Tinténiac was killed in an ambush on 18 July. On 15 July 2,000 émigrés under Sombreuil reinforced the peninsula, but the attack of the 16th failed and d’Hervilly was mortally wounded. On the stormy night of 20 July Hoche attacked Fort Penthièvre, Republican prisoners enrolled in the émigré force delivered it to him, and Puisaye withdrew to the British flagship, 2,500 men escaping in British boats. Sombreuil capitulated on the morning of 21 July. Of 6,332 prisoners the women and children were freed, but Tallien took charge of the prosecution and Sombreuil and 750 companions were shot at Auray, 430 of them nobles. Sombreuil’s letter on the eve of his execution denouncing Puisaye’s flight shocked the Chouans, and a council of officers in Morbihan sentenced Puisaye to death in absentia. A British fleet with the Count of Artois then appeared off the Vendée in August but stayed on the Île d’Yeu and sailed home in October, and Charette executed 100 to 300 Republican prisoners at Belleville on 9 August in reprisal for the Quiberon executions.