The Fall of Toulon

by Bernard Ireland

  A representative of the town’s General Committee was also summoned through his good offices. There was, however, no welcome and, having delivered the despatch, Cooke and his colleague were not permitted to land, settling down uncomfortably in their small craft to await a response.

  With day breaking, the pair were allowed finally to come ashore in the quarantine area. Hours passed before, during the afternoon, there arrived a message which decided Cooke to send the boat back and to wait on alone. As another dusk came down, a horse and guide at last arrived and, following a two-hour trek over devious paths, he reached the location where the committee awaited him.

  Having argued long and hard, the committee’s members were still in a state of some emotion but let it be known that they agreed that the British would take over the town and installations, and that all officers, both civil and military, would cooperate fully with the commander-in-chief’s requirements. Significantly, the committee insisted that the conditions of the new National Constitution of 1791 be observed. The fleet would be brought into the inner harbour. British commitments in return would include ‘doing their utmost’ to protect Toulon, to supply such grain as would be required and to make payments in coin (i.e. rather than partly in the detested assignats).

  Soon after midnight the meeting broke up and Cooke left with two committee members as guides. They reached a pre-selected point on the coast at daybreak but, in boarding a local craft, they attracted a crowd which, suspecting something, was not well disposed toward them. Cooke himself managed to convey the importance of the mission and they were allowed to proceed, eventually arriving back safely at Hyères.

  Cooke’s accompanying midshipman, meanwhile, had himself been apprehended. He was taken before Saint-Julien, who studied his papers and questioned him closely. Although the admiral threatened to hang Cooke should he be captured, the young officer was allowed to go.

  Admiral Hood’s preliminary business with the French was, however, not yet finished and, once again, Cooke’s services were called upon. He embarked in the little 9-pounder frigate Tartar, whose commanding officer, Thomas Fremantle, sent him ashore in a pulling boat at an agreed point near Cap Brun, to the east of the town. By ill luck a French frigate had elected to anchor nearby. She sent away a longboat in pursuit of Cooke’s craft and this, armed with a swivel gun, gave the British a hot time until they were able to scramble ashore.

  The coast here was rocky, backed by a low but precipitous cliff. Having slipped, the enemy frigate had got into extreme range and, presenting her broadside, loosed it at the British party, still scrambling up the cliff. Bothered ‘very much’ by the dirt and rock fragments raised by the hostile barrage, Cooke safely made the top and gratefully gained the cover of a patch of woodland. Here he was able to gain his breath as the enemy shot created a ‘confounded noise’ as it tore through the foliage above and around.

  Having walked to Toulon, a good 6 miles distant, Cooke was greeted warmly but was told that Saint-Julien had detained some of the town’s deputies and had declared his intention of returning the place to the republican cause. With the strength at his disposal, this was no light threat and Cooke knew that he needed to communicate the fact to Hood with some urgency.

  In company with a senior officer of royalist sympathy, Captain le Baron d’Imbert of the French 74-gun Apollon, Cooke made a further circuitous trip to the coast, where they took passage in a Genoese fishing boat. Hood held an immediate council, deciding to put a force ashore without further ado. Cooke was directed to go ashore with the preliminary party of sailors on the following morning. At his signal, the remainder of the force would join him and they would first occupy the key strongpoint of Fort la Malgue.*

  The Toulon in which the British were about to land was still dangerously factionalized. As Cooke shivered in his open boat during the night of 24/25 August, the General Committee had argued with heat and some bitterness over the wording of Hood’s intended proclamation.

  As could be expected, the committee embraced all shades of opinion, from outright monarchist support to vehement objection to any involvement with the British. It is unlikely that any decision would have been reached except for the knowledge that, in revolutionary eyes, Toulon was already tainted and all would certainly be punished by the state’s advancing forces.

  Opposition in the town centred upon left-wing activists in the arsenal, whose enthusiasm was buttressed by expressions of support from the crews of Saint-Julien’s Atlantic ships. Most local crews remained of moderate opinion. For the greater part, their homes and families were in the immediate area and there were real fears for their future.

  Baron d’Imbert, the delegate who was to accompany Cooke on his return, was the most vocal of the pro-royalists. A minor aristocrat who had survived the purge of the officer corps, he had been appointed temporary commanding officer of the Apollon when her previous captain, Prévost-Lacroix, had been executed with Captain Basterot for ‘counter-revolutionary activities’. The evidence is that d’Imbert was something of an opportunist, greatly overstating the level of royalist sympathy in locally crewed ships. Although he enjoyed no great degree of trust, he was at that time the best channel available to the committee, which used him to help draft an address for delivery to the ships’ crews.

  This was an urgent consideration for, once the committee had determined that the best course was to seek British assistance, the hostility of Saint-Julien was a potential major obstacle. Should he carry the fleet with him and have it oppose Hood’s entry, disaster threatened, for the British would simply haul off, resume their blockade and allow events ashore to take their course.*

  D’Imbert’s address implied (falsely) that the nation in general had abandoned the Convention in Paris and had declared for King Louis XVII. The British were there to assist in a smooth return to some sort of constitutional monarchy and the French fleet would need to be temporarily immobilized to encourage the process to run with no hitch.

  In those days, when news travelled slowly and was complicated by rumour and counter-rumour, an official address such as this, read by a senior officer, carried the weight of authenticity. On this occasion it was delivered simultaneously to each crew, being met with varying degrees of incredulity but, for the moment, acceptance.

  The proposal to disarm the ships immediately, however, aroused vocal resentment on some. Heated debate followed, with officers realizing that the whole premise was unsubstantiated and, therefore, not as yet to be trusted. This conclusion fuelled outright anger, the officers leading their men in open defiance, voicing accusations of betrayal and treason.

  Those representatives of the sections that had come to assist in delivering the address had, in some cases, to be hurried ashore for their own safety. In no time, the bulk of the fleet was in open revolt at the proposal and Saint-Julien was popularly acclaimed commander-in-chief in place of the rarely seen Trogoff. Saint-Julien immediately set about organizing the fleet for resistance. In securing the inner harbour he narrowly missed capturing Lieutenant Cooke who, as already related, had to make good his escape overland. All ships were put on an action alert and boat patrols were mounted to intercept any more attempted contact by the British.

  Following a ‘tumultuous’ (but, to one account, ‘indecisive’) council of all commanding officers aboard his flagship, Saint-Julien ordered the navy to assume control of the fortifications commanding the harbour entrance. These were currently garrisoned by a jittery National Guard which knew not where its loyalties lay. Without resistance, naval detachments thus took over the batteries in the forts of L’Aiguillette and Balaguier on the western promontory and, beyond, those on the Saint-Mandrier peninsula. Although the western side of the harbour approaches were now under Saint-Julien’s control, the eastern side, including the major strongpoint of La Malgue, remained occupied by forces loyal to the town’s sections.

  Then, when no attack immediately materialized, indecisiveness reasserted itself. The local crews found that their concern for fami
lies and homes outweighed other considerations and they accepted an argument that the town was behaving treasonably not against France but against a tyrannical republic. Following debate, the fierceness of which is well recorded, a compromise was reached whereby Toulon’s proposed cooperation with the British would go ahead, while all naval personnel who remained loyal to the Revolution would be ‘repatriated’ to home ports on the Atlantic coast. One French account mentions that Hood had authorized Cooke to offer that these crews be paid, in coin, all their considerable arrears of pay, which amounted to a substantial inducement to ‘go quietly’.

  All evidence points to days of French agonizing, with either side alternately threatening and cajoling. Where, however, the arguments of the ‘hard Left’ in the fleet and the sections were largely idealistic, those of the moderates were driven by the dreadful fear of the Revolutionary armies, a fear all too graphically expressed by the many refugees arriving from Marseille. Logically, the British had more to gain by cooperation and understanding, the Revolutionaries only by indiscriminate barbarism. Grand treason, for all its grave implications, was thus the more attractive choice for the people of Toulon.

  Faced with force majeure, his ships threatened with bombardment by the federalist forts should they show signs of resistance, Saint-Julien’s newfound sense of resolute leadership deserted him. He also could not fail to be influenced by Hood’s squadron, now at full strength, being reinforced by the arrival on 27 August of the Spanish fleet under Admiral Langara.

  A final plea by Saint-Julien on the 27th was met with a powerful rebuff from the now grimly determined General Committee. This was about to signal to Hood to enter the Grande Rade, the outer roads, and ordered Saint-Julien to obey the British instruction to bring all warships into the inner harbour. Failure to do so would result in bombardment by red-hot shot. For a growing number of sailors this was the last straw. Fighting the British was one thing but being fired on by one’s townsfolk was a very different matter. The dribble of men going ashore quickly became a flood. With admirable courage, but little conviction, Saint-Julien ordered his depleted force to stand-to for immediate action.

  Then came a perfectly timed intervention from the put-upon and long underrated Admiral Trogoff. In a dramatic reappearance, he broke his flag at the masthead of the frigate aboard which he had been awaiting the moment. Finally convinced of his abandonment by the minister of marine, filled with a loathing for Jacobin extremists, he committed himself to ordering his fleet to comply. Those ships that were still sufficiently crewed got under weigh, some more reluctantly than others. Others, short-handed, remained at anchor.

  Saint-Julien, in a last flourish, led his Revolutionary minded crews ashore, encouraging them to march westward to join up with the army of General Carteaux. The admiral himself did nothing of the sort. Once ashore in now hostile Toulon, he feared for his life and went to ground in a safe house, not to be seen again until he emerged to surrender to coalition forces.

  AT 47 YEARS OF AGE, Captain the Hon. George Keith Elphinstone was no longer a young man. He had come to the attention of his superiors back in the American War of Independence when, in 1780, he had shown considerable aptitude for combined operations. In command of a force of troops, he had played a decisive role in the American defeat at Charleston, the colonists’ greatest reverse of the war.

  Now, in Toulon, having patched his storm-damaged Robust into something of an operational condition, he was selected by Admiral Hood for further work ashore. This was an age when it was common for a commanding officer to lead his men into combat ashore and on 28 August Elphinstone received the following order:

  As I am about to take possession of the town and forts of Toulon and mean to appoint you Governor of it [sic], I do hereby authorise you to accompany the troops into the Great Fort and to take upon you the charge and command of it, as well as of the town, and all Officers both Civil and Military are to obey you as Governor. [Signed] Hood.

  All British troops, only 12,000 all told, were transferred to a selected group of ships, the Robust, Egmont, Colossus and Courageux (all 74s), the Meleager 32 and Tartar 28. At 7.30 on the morning of 28 August, the squadron stood in towards the coast near Fort Sainte-Marguerite, some 2 miles east of the ‘Great Fort’, i.e. Fort la Malgue (now spelled ‘Lamalgue’). This, the first objective, had, as required, raised a blue flag.

  The troops, under Elphinstone, would be followed by about fifteen hundred seamen. These, commanded by the ubiquitous Lieutenant Cooke, would have the main responsibility of taking over and manning the shore batteries. Cooke was ordered to assume the style of ‘Lieutenant Governor’.

  Most ships had to contribute to the force, their contingent being noted in their logs. The Britannia, for instance, recorded first transferring two companies of the 69th Regiment to the Courageux to be landed then, later, putting ashore a force of one lieutenant, two midshipmen and fifty seamen via the Meleager frigate. Forty-five men, with a similar command structure, were detached from the Princess Royal, and so on.

  Elphinstone’s own account of proceedings can hardly be bettered:

  It was near 9 before all the troops were on shore … I began the march keeping the high ground towards Fort la Malgue and from the heights I first discovered the Spanish fleet at a great distance. About midday the British troops got into Fort la Malgue and so soon as the necessary guards were taken by them to render the place secure, the troops were assembled on the parade, and I had the honour to proclaim Louis XVII King of France in French and English to the apparent joy of all present. Soon after this a deputation came and said there were many displeased I had not proclaimed the Law and Nation, to which I replied that to whatever the Commander-in-Chief had agreed I would bring myself to fulfil but I apprehended that could go no further than the Constitution the late King had himself accepted of [author’s italics]. With this the late French governor of the Fort made the French acquainted and by their applause they seemed perfectly satisfied. I then proceeded to read my authority to govern and had the keys delivered to me. Soon after, deputations came from different orders of Toulon to pay their compliments, and to request that I would send troops to the City as they apprehended tumult on the part of the factions and by the seamen from St. Julien’s Fleet who were landing in crowds. I ordered the 69th Regiment into Toulon and pointed all the cannon of the different Forts towards the Fleet. Four ships slipped their cables and came into the inner harbour and about 3 o’clock I received information that St. Julien had fled and that all ships had submitted.

  During the evening of that first day Hood sent Elphinstone his congratulations, giving him a free hand with respect to troop dispositions with the proviso that, of the forts, ‘Lamarge’ was to take precedence. He added that he was sending a general proclamation which would be published by the town’s sections. He added that General Casteaux was known to be on the march from Marseille. His force was estimated at about ten thousand and any attack by him was likely to be supplemented by another from the east, whence two separate groups from the Army of Italy were advancing under Generals la Barre and Lapoype.

  The critical opening phase appeared to have been negotiated without any major hitch, and Cooke was able to note that by the following morning, there were about five thousand men ashore, the British having been joined by about fourteen hundred Spanish troops, ‘including 200 Bombardiers’. The force was in the process of being distributed around the defences and Cooke judged that the number was sufficient to defend the town ‘tolerably well’. Alas, the very ease with which the allies assumed power underlines the old dictum that wars are much more simple to get into than to get out of.

  The following day, the 29th, was one of furious activity and consolidation. For Elphinstone, civic duties intruded heavily upon his military responsibilities. As he related:

  I repaired to the City of Toulon and was there, upon reading my authority in the presence of the Committee General of War and Safety, presented with the keys. Those of the Gates and Arsenal I delive
red to the Fort Major, such as related to the Civil Government I returned after the ceremony that had taken place at la Malgue. I secured the Town Gates and with the chief of each department concerted proper measures for the general defence of the place, and fixed on the requisite number of troops for all the out-garrisons. In the evening … Spanish Marine troops landed at Fort la Malgue and were ordered into town.

  The mood in the town was sullen, with little evidence of rejoicing. Those opposed to the occupation kept their counsel and their voices low in the presence of military patrols that were themselves nervous and well prepared to employ force to maintain order. For the ordinary citizen, the immediate and predominant concerns of insufficient food and general lawlessness had been allayed, revealing the deeper worry regarding the consequences of the grand treason of which unavoidably he was now a part.

  For the moment, Toulon was not directly threatened and, as his patrols slowly and deliberately extended themselves beyond the outskirts and into the hamlets dominated by the brooding heights beyond, Hood’s natural optimism asserted itself. In writing to Sir Philip Stephens, Secretary to the Admiralty, he expressed it as his opinion that the largely irregular revolutionary armies, then advancing on Toulon, would make little impression on the place.

  In truth, the allied landing had not been a moment too soon for, even on the day of the landing, Elphinstone had reported that ‘the army of la Barre from Nice arrived at le [sic] Vallette only two miles hence. On hearing that I was in la Malgue he retreated to Brignole without halting’. That the enemy had penetrated as far as la Vallette should have been a matter of some concern, for the village was situated at the southern end of the deep valley separating the dominating high ground of the Mont Faron Ridge from the height of Le Coudon to the east. With the allies yet to occupy positions commanding these approaches, la Barre had missed an opportunity.