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The Quibéron mutinies were cases of major mutinies that occurred in the Brest squadron of the French Navy in September 1793, at the height of the Reign of Terror. They offered reasons and pretexts for the Jacobins to purge the Navy from most of its officers of noble extraction. The event was interpreted as both a culmination of the disorganisation of the French Navy from 1790, and a cause of its disorganisation in the following years.〔Cormack, ''French Navy and the Struggle for Revolutionary Authority'', p.31〕 After several months of cruise, a large squadron stationed off Quiberon mutinied and demanded to sail back to harbour. The mutineers took pretext of the surrender of Toulon to the Anglo-Spanish, arguing that their presence in Brest was required to prevent Royalist conspirators from surrendering Brest as well; in the face of overt rebellion, and incapable of maintaining discipline and order, Vice-admiral Morard de Galles took upon himself to order the return to Brest. In consequence, Représentant en mission Jean Bon Saint-André, the naval expert of the National Convention, was called to Brest to reestablish order and reorganise the Navy. The following repression claimed relatively few lives in the Navy, but argued of a putative Royalist plot by Navy officers loyal to the Ancien Régime to explain the incident. In consequence, a number of officers were relieved of duty and arrested, including two admirals. == Background == The collapse of the French absolute Monarchy with the French Revolution had an important impact on the French Navy: the Navy was strongly linked to the monarchy by its officer corps, largely recruited from the nobility, and trained in highly technical disciplines; it was also enormously dependant on funds and supplies to maintain ships and crews. The collapse of Royal power triggered a shift of authority towards local governments, the revolutionary municipalities. These municipalities were both the rivals of the former detentors of authority under the Ancien Régime, and potential rivals to the central power in Paris. The fleet was weakened by supply difficulties, such as a chronic lack of clothes which made the crews suffer greatly at sea.〔 At Quibéron, the crews were isolated from the shore, and started to run low on food.〔 After four months at sea, they were fed mostly with salted food.〔〔Kerguelen, p.353〕 Chronic indiscipline reigned amongst the crews:〔 sailors would quit their ships after reviews, or refuse to depart, arguing that the ships were being sailed in order to be surrendered to the British; the municipalities had to intervene and help the Navy convince these sailors to obey.〔〔 The climate deteriorated to the point that in the night of 6 August, part of ''Northumberland'''s standing rigging was sabotaged.〔 In March, after ''Jean Bart'' and ''Trajan'' were sent to Vannes, a significant proportion of their crews deserted.〔Nofficial, p.10〕 In May, in the face of rapid devaluation of the currency, crewmen from the frigates ''Engageante'' and ''Proserpine'' refused to embark unless they were paid in advance; consequently, on 17 May, 150 men from ''Proserpine'', out of a 260-man complement, failed to report for duty.〔Nofficial, p.10)〕〔 Some of the crewmen considered their duty to scrutinise their own officers, and regarded themselves, as representative of the French people, to be legitimate sources of authority.〔 Sailors had lost their trust in their officers, who tended to be suspicious of each other as well.〔 Navy officers from the French Royal Navy of the Ancien Régime, the ''officiers rouges'', openly despised the new social order brought about by the French First Republic, and were particularly frustrated by the lack of discipline generated by the philosophy of ''égalité'', as highly detrimental to the organisation of the Navy. Nevertheless, some of these officers, the first of them Morard de Galles, were actually dedicated to the Republic and its egalitarian principles — all the more, in fact, since they hoped that the advent of the Republic would fill the authority void caused by the collapse of the Monarchy.〔Cormack, ''French Navy and the Struggle for Revolutionary Authority'', p.33〕 Others, such as Kerguelen or Lemarant-Boissauveur, had suffered humiliations from the naval establishment of the Ancien Régime, doubling the republican loyalty of their political convictions with personal resentment against the old order.〔Cormack, ''French Navy and the Struggle for Revolutionary Authority'', p.41〕 Rear-admiral Landais would carry revolutionary fervour and suspicion to the point of denouncing Lelarge and Morard de Galles as suspect, and be considered as paranoid by Jeanbon Saint-André.〔Cormack, ''French Navy and the Struggle for Revolutionary Authority'', p.42〕 On the other hand, Officers enlisted from the merchant Navy, felt insulted by the perceived arrogance of their comrades, and suspected their allegiance to the Republic.〔 Captain Coëtnempren would be arrested and eventually sent to the guillotine upon a denounciation by a junior officer who accused him from withholding his advancement because he was a commoner from the merchant navy.〔 Due to the desertions of high-ranking officers of noble extraction or Royalist convictions, these merchant officers were promoted very quickly to fill the ranks; this both transformed the social composition of naval staff, and promote officers of little experience to command positions.〔 In January 1793, Morard de Galles was promoted to Vice-admiral, and given overall command of the naval forces of Brest.〔 Aware of the sorry state of his fleet,〔 Morard de Galles wrote to the Committee of Public Safety to express his concerns, but was ignored.〔 France declared war to Britain on 1 February 1793, and very quickly, the British took contact with Royalist guerrilla forces in Vendée and Brittany. This made it necessary not only to protect merchant convoys in the English Channel from the depredation of the Royal Navy, but also to cover the shores of France and prevent landing of British support to the Chouans.〔Troude, vol.2, p.285〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Quibéron mutinies」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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