Army of the North to fight in the War in the Vendée in December 1794. On 1 September he was sent with 6,000 men from the Cherbourg army to assist Lazare Hoche in defending Nantes and battling the rebel leader François de Charette. He led the 3rd Mobile Column in action against the rebels at Saint-Florent-le-Vieil on 4 October. From 12 November 1795 to 8 January 1796, Bonnaud served as the provisional commander-in-chief of the Army of the Coasts of Cherbourg. He took over from Jean-Baptiste Annibal Aubert du Bayet who became Minister of War. On 26 December 1795, the French Directory ordered the Army of the Coasts of the Ocean to be created by merging the Cherbourg army, Army of the West and Army of the Coasts of Brest. The order was put into effect on 8 January 1796 and Hoche became the new army's commander-in-chief. Rhine Campaign: 1796 On 3 February 1796, Bonnaud assumed command of the cavalry reserve of Jean-Baptiste Jourdan's Army of Sambre-et-Meuse. The Rhine Campaign of 1796 began on 1 June when the army's left wing under Jean Baptiste Kléber advanced south from Düsseldorf. After Kléber defeated the Austrians in the Battle of Altenkirchen on 4 June, Jourdan sent three infantry divisions plus Bonnaud's cavalry to the east bank of the Rhine at Neuwied. On 15–16 June, Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen with a superior Austrian army beat Jourdan at the Battle of Wetzlar and the French army retreated, Bonnaud and the same three divisions recrossing to the west bank at Neuwied. Jourdan's thrust and withdrawal was intended to allow Jean Victor Marie Moreau's Army of the Rhine and Moselle to get across the Rhine farther south. Moreau's army having established a bridgehead, Jourdan's army advanced again on 28 June and Bonnaud's troopers crossed the Rhine at Bonn on 2 July. After capturing Frankfurt on 16 July, Jourdan left 28,545 soldiers under François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers to blockade Mainz and Ehrenbreitstein Fortresses and moved east. By late August the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse faced the Austrian army of Wilhelm von Wartensleben along the Naab River with Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte's division watching its southern flank. Jourdan hoped that Moreau's Army of the Rhine and Moselle would pin down the Austrians in southern Germany, but this did not occur. On 22–23 August Bernadotte's 6,000 troops were attacked by Archduke Charles with 28,000 Austrians. Jourdan sent Bonnaud's cavalry to help, but