The Fall of Toulon

by Bernard Ireland

  Early on 30 August advanced elements of Carteaux’s army were reported at the village of Ollioules, 4 miles north-west of Toulon. This was an advance guard commanded by Colonel Mouret and, to reach Ollioules, also located on the Toulon side of the high ground of the hinterland, it had advanced through a deep gorge that would have been virtually impassable had it already been garrisoned.

  Carteaux’s brutal reputation had preceded him and, with the allied outposts clearly not yet effective the town’s General Committee became understandably agitated that a sudden attack might develop. At its behest, therefore, Captain Elphinstone sent out a patrol in the direction of Ollioules. As back-up, he ordered to arms 300 British troops of the 11th and 25th Regiments, together with a similar number of Spanish. The French were also given a first test of cooperation by being required to contribute 300 National Guardsmen, six pieces of artillery and wagon transport.

  The preliminary patrol returned at mid afternoon with a group of peasants, reportedly wounded by enemy dragoons, and the news that the enemy were, indeed, in Ollioules and nearby Sanary. In and around the former location were an estimated 600 enemy troops, with ten cannon and a cavalry detachment. Captain Elphinstone set off immediately with his infantry, leaving the still unready French contingent to follow. More local inhabitants were encountered, hurrying from their villages and advising that they were held very strongly.

  A half-mile short of Ollioules, a party was detached under Captains Wemyss and Haddon to displace a group of the enemy which was establishing itself on a low eminence to the right. As a further precaution, Elphinstone also sent Lieutenant Knight with a squad to secure an as yet unoccupied rise to the left. Both tasks were reported as ‘admirably executed’.

  Elphinstone and his ADC, Ensign Forster of the 30th Regiment, then reconnoitred the village in person. The position was, as reported, a strong one, the stone houses being located on the side of a hill and fronted by a ravine. This was spanned by a stone bridge that was covered by two cannon. All visible windows were ‘filled with musketry’. Just above the village was a ruined castle in which were located two more cannon. Flanking the village were vineyards, partially concealing the remainder of the enemy infantry.

  The day was well advanced. It was 6.30 p.m. and the light was already diminishing, but the French from Toulon had not yet shown. Elphinstone had either to attack or retire and, in the Royal Navy, retreat was never considered an option.

  He sent messages to the established flanking parties to occupy the enemy covering the bridge with continuous, steady fire while the main force used the shelter of a low stone wall to advance to within 200 yards. On the order, Captain Douglas of the 11th rushed the bridge at the head of his men. A hail of musketry tore up the dusty, summer surface over which they ran, encumbered by kit. Douglas fell, mortally hit. Others beside him were cut down; others injured. The momentum of the charge was maintained, however, and the bridge crossed.

  On reaching the comparative shelter of the houses beyond, the troops fanned out to complete the job with their bayonets. Superior training proved triumphant over raw valour. The republicans broke, retreating up the hill under a sporadic, valedictory fire. In the gathering dusk, they were allowed to retire without pursuit. In fact, new to determined action, they fell back 20 miles, to rejoin their main force at the village of Le Beausset, to the north.

  According to Lieutenant Cooke, who was following, at Elphinstone’s order, with a further force from the garrison of Fort la Malgue to act as a rearguard in case of an allied defeat, the action lasted just fourteen minutes. Allied losses comprised eight British and three Spanish dead, with six and two respectively wounded. Interestingly, no mention was made of republican casualties but French sources speak of only one dead and three injured. Fatefully, one of the latter was Carteaux’s artillery commander, Major Dommartin. His loss and eventual replacement would prove to be critical to the whole campaign.

  Short of ammunition and unsure of enemy strength in the vicinity, Elphinstone was pleased enough to leave the scene and return in some triumph to Toulon with thirty prisoners and horses, two standards (one of which he presented to Admiral Hood) and drums and three cannon. The last were described by Cooke as ‘two sixes and a three pounder, brass, the most beautiful guns ever beheld’.

  To hearten the populace, the trophies were put in display in the open space of the town’s Champ de Bataille. Also, ‘for the amusement and information of the public’, a captured letter was reproduced and distributed. Addressed to Mouret, this expressed Carteaux’s view that he would have ‘le plaisir sous deux ou trois jours au plus tard, de corriger la ville de Toulon comme celle de Lyon, et de battre à plate couture les coquins d’Anglais et d’Espagnols’ (‘the pleasure in no more than two or three days of correcting [i.e. punishing] the town of Toulon like that of Lyon and of thrashing the English and Spanish devils’). Rhetoric maybe, but many who read it, with the examples of other towns before them, must have experienced a whiff of apprehension.

  Although the republicans had numbered nowhere near the 700 to 800 in strength claimed by the British reports, the skirmish at Ollioules put heart into the defenders. That the allied infantry met up with the National Guard during their return march to Toulon was played down in the general jubilation. Elphinstone praised Moncrieff as heading the column ‘with a degree of intrepidity worthy of imitation’, while the senior Spanish officer, Don Montero, was credited ‘with equal valour’.

  Captain Elphinstone’s presentation of an enemy standard to his admiral was acknowledged by Hood as ‘a flattering testimony of your attention to me’. His letter, dated 4 September, was addressed to ‘His Excellency Governor Elphinstone’. There exists, however, some confusion at this time with regard to dates and individual status. Elphinstone quickly found the dual role of governor and military leader to be over-demanding, writing ‘On the 30th [August], after great fatigue of business until 3 o’clock in the afternoon, I found myself obliged to go out with the troops to Ollioules’, which implied some reluctance. He went on:

  Next morning, the 31st [I] represented to your Lordship by Sir Hyde Parker [i.e. Rear Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, serving as Hood’s First Captain aboard the Victory and who, eight years later, would be Nelson’s senior officer at the battle of Copenhagen] that I found myself inadequate to deal with the complicated Government of Toulon and to manage the very important Military Government of la Malgue and its dependencies at the same time I was to lead the troops in the field and to request more assistance or some other arrangement. On the afternoon of this day I was informed on board the Victory of the intention to send Admiral Goodall [i.e. Rear Admiral Goodall of the Princess Royal] to be Governor of Toulon and Don Frederick de Gravina to command the Spanish troops.

  On the 1st September I had the honour to attend your Lordship to the Government House at Toulon and by your order addressed the [General] Committee, assuring them of your intention to fulfil the agreement made and protect them, but the mode of governing must remain with your Lordship. I then presented Admiral Goodall, their new Governor …

  On 29 August, however, i.e. before the Ollioules affair, Hood had already redefined Elphinstone’s status in a letter of authority dictated aboard the Victory. This stated unequivocally:

  Whereas I have taken possession of the great Fort of Malgue [sic], and all others dependent upon it, and it being absolutely necessary they should be in the Charge of an Officer of proved zeal and ability … I do hereby constitute and appoint you Governor of them, strictly charging and commanding all Officers Civil and Military and others to obey you as Governor.

  Following their reverse at Ollioules on 30 August, Carteaux’s forces were quiet for a week. With their colleagues in the east not yet evident in force, Elphinstone was able to investigate the fortifications which formed a protective line on that side of the city. These comprised La Malgue and the nearby positions of Saint-Louis and the Grosse Tour (sited on the eastern promontory enclosing the Petite Rade); Sainte-Catherine (immediatel
y to the east of the city walls, set in a hollow and covering the road to Italy); L’Artigues (on the first high ground to the north-east of the city, now termed the Corniche du Faron); and Fort Faron itself (in a dominating position on the first spot height but, itself, commanded from the higher main ridge beyond). On 3 September he was able to report that he was ‘under no apprehension for their [the forts] safety at present, nor do I think that the enemy have either sufficient force or enterprise to attempt of them without a much greater accumulation of strength’.

  Although for the moment this was a reasonable assessment, it carried a hint of contempt. This was not prudent for, whatever its disciplinary failings, a French Revolutionary army was highly motivated and, fired-up for battle, capable of desperate courage. Nor did it want for strength, for a considerable proportion of the Army of Italy was now withdrawing westward in the direction of Toulon. It had suffered a reverse in Nice, but the main impetus was the National Convention’s realization that the Midi insurrection was the greater danger, being a direct challenge to its authority.

  Estimates varied that there were between 5,000 and 12,000 French troops arriving from this quarter alone, led, as Cooke commented disparagingly, by one who was ‘a dancing master at Toulon, since converted into a General’. Pickets posted on the main ridge of Mont Faron watched the activities of large bodies of men in the extensive woodland of the deep east–west valley that separate Faron from the wild high ground farther to the north. Cooke’s optimistic assessment continued, being that Carteaux, with an estimated 7,000 men, lay to the west, awaiting the arrival of the full strength of la Barre and Lapoype in the east. Time, he considered, was on the side of the allies as ‘the rains are coming on fast, which will distress the enemy very much, as they laid their account to wintering in Toulon’.

  The proximity of the enemy is evident in that Elphinstone recruited agents, principally poachers, to enter the enemy’s camps and there barter their wares while garnering useful information. ‘If these men bring good and real intelligence I shall reward them well but’, he cannily added in his report to Hood, ‘not so as to lavish public money.’ A certain naivety is evident here for, as nobody could be certain where individual French sympathies lay, there had to be doubt regarding who was spying on whom.

  Amid a welter of other concerns, Admiral Hood had still not quite been able to define the limits of the boundaries of responsibility between Goodall and Elphinstone. One senses the exasperation of the latter in a submission to Hood:

  I beg leave to observe to your Lordship that the only authority under which I now act is your Lordship’s original appointment as Governor of the Forts of la Malgue, etc., and the town of Toulon, which latter is superseded by the appointment of Rear Admiral Goodall. It therefore becomes necessary to make a distinction and complete separation of that that is to fall under his charge and that which is to remain with me …

  While Elphinstone pronounced himself satisfied with the ability of the eastern chain of fortifications to resist la Barre and Lapoype, he could entertain no such confidence regarding the approaches from the west. General Carteaux had quickly identified Toulon’s major weaknesses. The first was that a major fleet required both the Grande and Petite Rades to be secure anchorages. This meant that the perimeter to be defended was very much longer than that required for protecting the city alone. Allied military resources would, therefore, be spread that much more thinly, exposing weaknesses. His second observation was that the anchorages would be untenable if his forces could occupy the western of the two promontories that embraced much of the Petite Rade, upon which Toulon and its arsenal fronted and in which the Anglo-Spanish fleet would need shelter from the sometimes powerful easterly levanter, which could be expected until the end of October. If he could also take the Saint-Mandrier peninsula, then communication by sea, upon which allied strategy depended, would be all but impossible.

  Carteaux’s thrust through Ollioules, deflected by Elphinstone’s force on 30 August, had been in response to reports (probably from Saint-Julien’s seamen) that the allies yet held the western approaches to the city in no great strength. Unopposed, Colonel Mouret’s force would have progressed to secure the village of La Seyne, on the western shore of the Petite Rade, as well as the powder magazine at Millau, also situated near the coast but about 1½ miles west of the Toulon limits.

  On 7 September, General Carteaux tried again, advancing in considerable strength down the difficult Gorges d’Ollioules. These were still not defended in depth but were held at the constricted southern end where the defile is flanked by the mass of Sainte-Barbe. Here, some 400 National Guardsmen from the Marseille area, led by a retired captain from the Touraine, held the Revolutionaries for five hours, suffering in the process over seventy casualties, two-thirds of them dead or missing.

  Admiral Gravina reacted quickly, despatching to the scene a mobile reserve under Brigadier Izquierdo. Their approach attracted heavy artillery fire from the republicans. This killed the horses drawing the Spanish guns, which were unable to get into action. Unsupported, the Spanish infantry, too, had to fight hard, also taking about seventy casualties. Once again, Carteaux’s probing was checked but, in leaving Ollioules for the moment more strongly garrisoned, the allies significantly diminished their strength elsewhere.

  The western defences of Toulon had been less well developed because any threat against the town, as earlier envisaged, would likely have originated from Italy, about 100 miles to the east. Any foreign amphibious assault from the west would have been unlikely because it would have had Marseille to its rear.

  Well alive to his deficiencies in troop numbers, Hood charged Elphinstone with thoroughly surveying both the western defences and the likely threats to them. Immediately to the north of the town was a valley separating the western end of the Faron Ridge from its neighbouring height, that of Le Croupatier. Although wide, this valley is constricted by a confused series of spurs at its northern end. These spurs command the minor road which follows the course of a small river and which runs through the village of Les Moulins. A mile from the village, Fort Pomets crowned the southernmost spur. Its location was not particularly well suited to command the routes from the north, and the later Redoute Saint-André had been added to cover both Pomets and the nearby road junction. As the route was an obvious weakness in Toulon’s defences, further strongpoints had been added: Saint-Antoine and its satellite, Petit Saint-Antoine; Fort Rouge; and Fort Blanc. While these were, for the most part, no more than earth and rock, they were improved and garrisoned by the allies.

  On the comparatively flat ground to the west of Toulon, and little more than a mile distant, stood Fort Malbousquet. Half a mile to its rear, it was covered by a battery sited on the rise at Missiessy. Although these defences were vital to the prevention of any advance from the direction of Ollioules, they were sufficiently isolated to be vulnerable to an outflanking manoeuvre.

  The western promontory, covering the Petite Rade and facing Toulon directly from about 2 miles, terminates in the twin headlands upon which were located the powerful forts of L’Aiguillette and Balaguier. These strongpoints dominated the navigable channel linking the Petite and Grande Rades, and were within range of both the town and any shipping using its facilities. It was absolutely vital that these did not fall to the enemy so, to protect their rears, work was quickly initiated on a 300-foot eminence known as the Hauteur de la Grasse, or La Caire. This quickly developed into a complex series of positions, known to the British as Fort Mulgrave but to the French as ‘le petit Gibraltar’.

  Work seems to have begun on removing the threat of L’Aiguillette and Balaguier for, as early as 30 August, the log of the Windsor Castle noted: ‘At 9 the Captain with a party of men went on shore to dismount the guns on Fort Ballargue [sic] and the Captain of the Britannia with a party to [deal similarly with those at] Fort Lagallete [sic].’

  Whereas the extremity of the western promontory was thus rendered reasonably secure, its base and the shoreline of the Pe
tite Rade, round to the magazine at Millau, a distance of better than 2 miles, was not protected by any fixed works.

  Projecting from the west into the Grande Rade, the Saint-Mandrier peninsula was a naturally strong position, its high ground dominating the low and narrow isthmus that connected it to the mainland at Les Sablettes. To cover the landward approach, the allies here constructed a battery.

  Where the strategically important Fort Faron was overlooked by the eastern end of the Mont Faron Ridge, some 500 feet higher, a new strong-point was erected, carrying the name Fort de la Croix Faron. This stood 1,850 feet above sea level, a fair average figure for the whole ridge, from which every detail of the town below was exposed.

  In the midst of all this activity, Captain Nelson, whose Agamemnon was, for the most part, engaged in duties other than at Toulon, noted perceptively that, where the French navy could not but be severely damaged by unfolding events, he wondered how this great, combined fleet could see its task through without the assistance of many more troops. All ships’ logs are studded with references to parties being sent ashore, not only for working details but for garrisoning and fighting. It is an ironic twist of history that, a short time in the future, Nelson would see fit to ignore instructions from Elphinstone (now Lord Keith and commander-in-chief in turn) and put seamen ashore to fight, earning a rebuke from Their Lordships who, correctly, pointed out the folly of thus exposing ships’ crews to the risk of capture or death, thereby reducing or preventing the Royal Navy from discharging in designated tasks.

  At Toulon, this rang true particularly in the case of Fort Pomets, which was well inland and poorly located, so that any enemy force moving down the pass would inevitably cut it off. The Windsor Castle appears to have been given the early task of this fort’s garrisoning and, on 25 September, her log would record the mortal wounding there of Lieutenant Newenham.*