What an event this has been for Lord Hood; such a one as History cannot prove its equal; that the strongest place in Europe and twenty-two sail of the line should be given up without firing a shot.
Horatio Nelson
The British scored only one significant victory in 1793, and it was limited by the man who eventually became Britain’s nemesis, Napoleon Bonaparte.1 Admiral Samuel Hood commanded the Mediterranean fleet headquartered at Gibraltar. On June 27, Hood sailed eastward aboard his flagship, the 100-gun Victory, with 17 other ships-of-the-line, 17 frigates, and smaller warships to blockade Toulon, France’s chief naval port in the Mediterranean Sea. The fleet anchored just beyond cannon-shot of Toulon on July 16. Over the next month, Hood’s fleet was reinforced by four 74-gun ships-of-the-line, dispatched courtesy of King Ferdinand IV of Naples and Sicily. Although he committed no warships, King Victor Amadeus III of Piedmont and Sardinia sent word that he had opened his ports to the Royal Navy.2
Blockade was tedious duty, with day after day rolling with the swells as the men awaited something to happen. This gives officers and sailors alike plenty of time to mull just why they were there and often wish they were elsewhere. Captain Horatio Nelson, then commanding the 64-gun Agamemnon, expressed such sentiments in a letter to his wife Fanny: ‘I can hardly think the war can last for what are we at war about?’3
Meanwhile, extraordinary events unfolded across France that eventually transformed the blockade into an occupation. On June 2, the radical Jacobin party overthrew the moderate Girondin party and seized power. France’s government was composed of the 12-man executive Committee of Safety chaired by Maximilien Robespierre, and the legislature then called the Convention. The Jacobins launched the ‘terror’ that imprisoned or executed thousands of Girondins whose ranks included federalists, who wanted a republic with decentralized power, and royalists, who wanted a constitutional monarchy. In July, the Girondins revolted against the Jacobins and took power in Lyon, Avignon, Aix-en-Provence, Marseille, and Toulon. In August, the Jacobins sent an army led by General Jean François Carteaux down the Rhone River valley to crush the rebels and restore Jacobin rule. Carteaux detached troops to besiege Lyon, and recapture Avignon on July 27, Aix-en-Provence on August 21, and Marseille on August 25.4
Just two days before Marseilles fell, its Girondin government sent a delegation to Hood to ask for aid. Talks ended with word that Carteaux’s army had captured Marseille and was massacring the defenders. On August 25, Hood sent Lieutenant Edward Cooke, who spoke French fluently, and an escort ashore under a truce flag to meet Toulon’s government and request that they render the port in return for the Royal Navy’s protection. The Girondins readily agreed, but needed three days to talk the French fleet’s captains into capitulating and squeezing their ships in the inner harbor to let the allied fleet anchor in the Great Road or outer harbor.
Hood assembled a force of 1,250 marines and sailors commanded by Captain Keith Elphinstone, and sent them ashore on August 28. Elphinstone deployed his men in the half-dozen forts crowning the surrounding hills. Of them, the most important was Fort Malgue with its 48 cannons overlooking the Great Road. As the British took over Toulon, Spanish Admiral Juan de Langara’s fleet of 24 ships-of-the-line arrived. Packed aboard Langara’s warships were 3,000 troops commanded by General Frederico Gravina. These troops joined the British and Girondin troops ashore in defending Toulon.
The allies would need thousands more troops to offset the army that Carteaux was massing to retake Toulon. Hood dispatched Nelson first to Oneglia, on Liguria’s coast, where he sent a letter to King Victor Amadeus at Turin, informing him that the allies had taken Toulon, and asking him to supply 4,000 troops. Nelson then sailed to Naples to deliver the same message to Ambassador William Hamilton, who requested 6,000 troops from Ferdinand IV. Nelson wrote Fanny:
I should have liked to have stayed one day longer with the fleet, when they entered the harbor, but service could not be neglected for any private gratification … What an event this has been for Lord Hood; such a one as History cannot prove its equal; that the strongest place in Europe and twenty-two sail of the line should be given up without firing a shot.5
Nelson accomplished his missions. Victor Amadeus and Ferdinand eventually sent 800 and 4,000 troops, respectively.
Meanwhile, on August 30, a report arrived that the advanced guard of Carteaux’s army had reached Ollioules, just 4 miles northwest of Toulon. Elphinstone led 300 British and 300 Spanish troops to retake the village and rout the French. Although each side suffered only a dozen or so casualties, one among the French would change the course of history. Major Eleazar Dommartin, the French army’s artillery commander, was seriously wounded and would need to be replaced.
Elphinstone withdrew his troops back into Toulon’s defenses as Carteaux’s main army arrived on September 7, and the French general setup his headquarters at Ollioules. Each French republican army had both a general and a political commissar: Antoine Christophe Salicetti oversaw Carteaux who commanded the troops. Salicetti was good friends with a young artillery captain named Napoleon Bonaparte, who reached the siege lines on September 16. Salicetti named Bonaparte the army’s artillery chief and asked him to devise a plan for taking Toulon.
Bonaparte toured the lines and carefully observed the dozen or so enemy forts capping the tall hills and ridges around Toulon. He swiftly concluded that the keys were Fort La Malgue and Fort Mulgrave commanding respectively the approaches to the eastern and western horns embracing the inner harbor. Beyond Fort Mulgrave at the twin tips of the western horn were Forts l’Aiguillette and Balguier. Beyond Fort La Malgue halfway down the eastern horn facing the outer Road was Fort Saint Louis. Bonaparte explained which fort was the ultimate objective: ‘The moment that we are masters of L’Eguilette, we will force the enemy to evacuate the two anchorages, then we will direct our attacks on the redoubt the closest before Toulon’s arsenal.’ The effort to take first Fort Mulgrave then Forts L’Eguilette and Balguier would be masked by deploying troops near the other forts on the perimeter, especially Fort Malgue.6
Carteaux ordered Bonaparte to fulfill his plan. First, Bonaparte procured all the heavy siege guns, gunpowder, and cannon balls then stored at Marseille’s arsenal, and enough men, draft animals, caissons, and wagons to drag them to the siege. After achieving that, over the next three months, he zigzagged entrenchments and batteries closer to Fort Mulgrave and other key forts while scouring the countryside for supplies.7 As each battery was completed, it opened fire. Captain William Sidney Smith explained the challenges facing Toulon’s defenders:
We are building batteries and cannonading those the enemy have raised against us all around … The nature of the ground … round this extensive bay [is such] that unless we possess and maintain every height and every point for fifteen miles in circumference, the enemy would be able to force the fleet to relinquish their anchorage. This requires us to have a chain of detached posts, at such as distance from each other that they stand entirely on their own legs without it being possible for assistance … in case the enemy should determine to force any one … The deserters from the enemy inform us preparations are making for a general in all quarters at once…. I wish I had a force to land between here and Marseille, to cut off the communication of the republican army that is against Toulon.
Smith was as pessimistic about the political as the military situation: ‘This situation does not bid well for a counter-revolution, or a cordial cooperation on part of the French themselves towards their own benefit.’8
As reinforcements swelled the allied ranks, Hood replaced as their commander first Captain Elphinstone with Colonel Henry Phipps, Earl of Mulgrave on September 7, and then Mulgrave with General Charles O’Hara on October 27. The Spanish tried to take command on October 23, when Admiral Langara informed Hood that Charles IV had promoted Gravina to lieutenant general, far outranking Mulgrave and even O’Hara when he arrived a few days later. Hood politely rebuffed Langara’s assertion. He explained that the British would continue to head allied forces at Toulon because the Girondins had rendered Toulon to the British and the kings of Sardinia and Naples had entrusted their troops to British command. Langara then noted that he had twice as many ships-of-the-line as Hood. To underline this point, Langara actually anchored three of his ships-of-the-line around Hood’s Victory, hoping to intimidate the British admiral into passing the command to Gravina. But Hood refused to yield. The standoff eventually ended after word arrived that George III had promoted O’Hara to lieutenant general.9
The French command also changed three times. Under increasing pressure from Paris to retake Toulon, Jacobin commissar Salicetti fired Carteaux and replaced him with General Amédée Doppet on November 11. After his ineptness ruined a surprise attack against Fort Mulgrave on November 16, Doppet resigned and was replaced by General Jacques François Dugommier.
Nelson, meanwhile, rejoined the armada on October 5. It is one of those fascinating quirks of history that two men whose military genius would change the world were present at Toulon. Neither, of course, had then heard of the other. Toulon was Bonaparte’s first military campaign and Nelson was a dim if rising star within the Royal Navy. Nelson did not stay long. Hood dispatched him on another diplomatic mission, this time to the Bey of Tunis.
Although the allied troops defended good positions, their quality varied. Hood condemned the Spanish and Neapolitans as ‘dastardly trash,’ although he did praise the Piedmontese.10 The allies kept up an active defense by launching several attacks against French batteries while the fleet bombarded French positions. It was during a sortie on October 1 that a musket ball wounded General Gravina’s leg as he led his men against the enemy.
Not to be outdone, O’Hara led an attack on the main battery facing Fort Mulgrave on November 29. Bonaparte was in the thick of the fighting. He later reported that the enemy assault:
… overran our advanced posts and reached the battery. They engulfed six of the twenty-four cannons. At that moment, we arrived in force. General Dugommier fought with truly republican courage. We retook the battery and captured the English general, who was wounded in the arm. We chased the enemy with our bayonets at their backs, killing four or five hundred and taking a large number of prisoners … Our soldiers, transformed by indignation, chased them off the two adjacent heights. We destroyed an earthwork that they were starting to build, and seized a large number of tents. We destroyed what we couldn’t carry away. The combat lasted seven hours … Nothing equals the courage displayed by our men this day.11
In all, the British and Spanish suffered 148 and 119 casualties, respectively, while the French lost 179 dead, 68 wounded, and 23 captured.12 The high number of French dead revealed that the allies took no prisoners in their initial bayonet assault. General David Dundas assumed command of the ground forces after O’Hara was wounded and captured.
The siege settled back into the daily and nightly routine of the French steadily digging forward amidst exchanges of bombardments. The allied army was thinly deployed despite peaking in early December at around 18,700 troops, including 7,000 Spanish, 6,200 Neapolitans, 2,000 British, 2,000 Piedmont-Sardinians, and 1,500 French. They faced more than 38,000 French troops, including 36,000 infantry, 1,650 artillerymen, and 350 cavalry, that stretched around Toulon. Sickness depleted the ranks of both armies. Bonaparte concentrated 11 batteries and 12,700 troops against Fort Mulgrave, which was defended by 400 British, 700 Spanish, 700 Neapolitans, 300 Piedmontese, and 250 French, with a 1,200-man reserve, half Spanish and half Neapolitan, a quarter mile behind the fort.13
The decisive battle came at daylight on December 17, when, after an allnight bombardment, two columns of French troops surged across the lines toward Fort Mulgrave. Rain soaked the men’s gunpowder so they savagely bayoneted and clubbed each other. The allies repulsed the two columns. Bonaparte led the reserve troops in an assault that surged over the fort and slaughtered or routed the defenders.
Upon learning of Fort Mulgrave’s capture, Hood hosted a council of war with his own generals and Spanish leaders Langara and Gravina. They quickly concluded that Fort Mulgrave’s loss rendered Toulon indefensible, and thus the allies should immediately begin evacuating the port and heading to sea. The withdrawal was complicated by the thousands of federalists and royalists who begged to be carried to safety. The council agreed to pack the refugees aboard the armada. They would also try to sail away with as many French warships as possible and destroy the rest along with the arsenal and warehouses. Captain William Sidney Smith volunteered to oversee that duty.
Inexplicably, Hood and the allied council never considered transferring French ships, munitions, thousands of allied wounded, and thousands of royalist citizens to safe havens during the three months that the siege lines crept closer and the French army swelled before them. The result on December 18 and 19 was utter chaos as nearly 18,000 soldiers and 6,000 civilians pressed to get aboard vessels tied to wharves or into longboats and rowed to vessels anchored across the harbor. Meanwhile, Smith deployed his men to pack explosives in the arsenal and warehouses that they would detonate after all the refugees were safely aboard and sailing to sea. He selected and manned the best French warships and prepared to burn the rest. Smith and his sailors eventually sailed to safety in the wake of the allied fleet. It was a close escape. Bonaparte reported that ‘had the wind delayed them for four hours they would have lost all. A frigate whose sails were poorly unfurled, was late to depart and found itself beneath our batteries at L’Eguilette … We heated our cannons balls red-hot, and in sight of the entire flotilla, burned it.’14
The allied fleet sailed to the Hyères Islands 20 miles eastward to regroup for several days. The fleet then split up. Detachments conveyed the Piedmontese and Neapolitan troops back to their respective countries. Langara and his warships headed first to Port Mahon on Minorca then to Cartagena. Hood led most of his warships first to Elba then to Gibraltar to refit.
Despite their evacuation, the allies scored a significant but hardly overwhelming victory at Toulon. They escaped while sailing away with 3 French ships-of-the-line, 3 frigates, and 7 corvettes, setting fire to 13 ships-of-the-line, and carrying away or burning a portion of supplies packed in Toulon’s warehouses. Nonetheless, they not only failed to eliminate the entire French fleet, but abandoned plenty of their own cannons, equipment, provisions, and munitions in the forts.15 The French recovered intact or doused the flames on 9 ships-of-the-line and 5 frigates; as part of the August deal to occupy Toulon, Hood had previously allowed 4 ships-of-the-line to sail away with republican sailors. So 13 of the original 26 ships-of-the-line at Toulon when Hood arrived remained in French hands. Bonaparte reported that:
… we found in Toulon the same number of cannons that were there when the enemy entered. It is true that they were spiked but … more than half have been unplugged. They only succeeded in improving the fortifications … and today Toulon is more defensible than ever. In their hasty retreat the enemy left behind most of their tents and baggage, which fell into our hands. They had no time to burn all the vessels, and we recovered fifteen. They did not burn the magazines … Everything they did is repairable … We found in Toulon 40,000 pounds of gunpowder.16
The most important result of the Toulon campaign was to transform Napoleon Bonaparte from an unknown artillery captain into a brigadier general and national hero. Through genius and luck he would rise ever higher in power and achievements until his hubris destroyed the empire than he had ruthlessly conquered.