The formation was first put under the command of Jean Baptiste Camille Canclaux and charged with fighting the War in the Vendée, combatting the Chouannerie and protecting the coasts of Brittany against a British invasion.

Over the next few years, Jean Antoine Rossignol, Jean-François-Auguste Moulin, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, Lazare Hoche and Gabriel Venance Rey led the army in turn.

[3] The Vendean nobility provided leaders for insurgent fighters who fought in wooded terrain criss-crossed by narrow lanes that were bordered by thick hedges.

[5] Republicans who prided themselves at having overthrown the monarchy were astonished to find that an entire section of the nation, with few nobles living there, in open Royalist rebellion.

[3] On 31 January 1793 the executive council ordered the formation of the Army of the Coasts under the command of Anne François Augustin de La Bourdonnaye.

[7] While the Republican forces were a motley collection of National Guards, undisciplined volunteers, conscripts and regulars, the Catholic and Royal Army was united in a moral cause.