The Fall of Toulon
Page 28
ETAT DES FORCES DES ALLIÉS EN ARTILLERIE ET EN HOMMES
A la rédoute anglaise appellée le Petit-Gibraltar, vingt-six pièces de canon et trois mortiers
1,000
Aux deux camps attendant
600
Bivouacs aux deux postes
200
Autres rédoutes visant le Petit Gibraltar, six pièces de canon
250
A la gorge des Sablettes, six pièces de canon
500
Au Lazaret
100
Au Fort Saint-Louis
200
A la Grosse-Tour
200
Au Cap Brun, quatre canons et deux mortiers
600
Entre la redoute du Cap Brun et le Fort Lamalgue, un camp de
1,500
A reporter ci-contre
5,150
Report
5,150
hommes
Au Fort Lamalgue
2,000
A la hauteur de l’Eigoutier, un camp de
500
A la rédoute de Sainte-Catherine
500
Au Fort d’Artigues
200
Au Fort Faron
300
A la rédoute de Faron
200
A Malbousquet, seize canons, deux mortiers, deux obusiers, etc
800
Au Petit Saint-Antoine, six canons
200
Au Grand Saint-Antoine, un mortier, sept canons
300
Au Petit Saint-André, deux canons
100
Au Fort des Pomets
200
Total de la force en hommes
10,450
Dans la ville
5,000
Outre les forces ci-dessus énoncées les alliés faisoient débarquer journellement de leurs vaisseaux environ
4,000
Total hommes
19,450
References to ‘Petit-Gibraltar’ were to Fort Mulgrave; ‘Gorges des Sablettes’ to the isthmus of the Saint-Mandrier peninsula. The western end of the inner roads remained occupied by the republicans, whose increasing number of batteries and attached camps isolated allied strongpoints, which were still accessible only by water.
Interestingly, the above listing credits Fort Malbousquet with two obusiers, or shell guns. Although the techniques of firing explosive-filled balls near-horizontally (as opposed to the high-trajectory ‘bombs’ lobbed by mortars) had been a matter of experiment with both the British and the French for a decade or more, such weapons were still very much experimental.
The French estimate of allied strength is very close to the true figure of 16,900 troops on the muster rolls at the end of October, bearing in mind that the final figure in the above table represents the number of seamen estimated to be put ashore on a daily basis. While this boosted available field strength, it very much depleted the complements of the ships. Hood lamented that third rates (i.e. 74s) were proceeding to sea up to 200 men below establishment. What with the adverse autumn weather and the generally poor standards of hygiene and medical care the allies, at this stage, could muster no more than 12,000 fit men at any one time.
Admiral Hood greatly missed the positive attitude of Lord Mulgrave, as General O’Hara made no secret of what he thought of this new posting. He did, however, firmly admonish Governor Boyd at Gibraltar by letter on 1 November: ‘Tried Veteran Troops we wanted, one Regiment of such would have been infinitely more Valuable than six times the number of what we have got …’ Although the overall total defending Toulon he described as ‘respectable’, he added, pithily, that they were ‘unreliable’.
Hood was able to report at the same time to Henry Dundas that, despite the difficulties due to Spanish amour propre, General O’Hara had established a rapport with the ever-reliable Admiral Gravina, who was recovering well. Hood’s resolute confidence contrasted with O’Hara’s gloom.
In a comprehensive assessment of the situation, the new governor highlighted the major weaknesses of the allied defence. Firstly, he was concerned at the length of the perimeter required to defend both the town and the anchorages, a perimeter which, even then, did not prevent the enemy siege batteries from being a real and persistent nuisance. Secondly, for want of qualified engineers, allied outposts were often poorly located, designed and constructed. Up to 7,000 men were continuously engaged in manning them, and the bleakness of their situation contributed much to fatigue and sickness. Thirdly, the vital Allied positions at ‘Cepet’ (i.e. the Saint-Mandrier peninsula) could be supported only by water which, O’Hara considered, might be impossible ‘through a rigorous winter’.
The general’s conclusion, fully supported by Major General Dundas, was that only through dislodging the republicans from the surrounding territory could Toulon’s security be preserved. He pointed out, however, that the nature of the terrain (‘mountainous, laid out into terraces, covered with timber, intersected by deep, rocky ravines and offering no roads for artillery’), afforded the enemy the greater advantage. What, simply, was required by the allies was ‘an army in the field, amply prepared for that service and necessarily covering a very considerable district of country’.
He also commented on the reality of the situation where ‘the quality and discipline of the greatest part of our present numbers give no very encouraging prospects in any attempts we may make’. With the ever-continuing expectation of the arrival of 5,000 Austrians and further Sardinians to a total of over 10,000, O’Hara recommended delaying any assumption of the offensive, particularly as, with the exception of the Neapolitans and ‘a few of the British’, none of the various units was equipped for field operations in deep winter.
Hood’s latest despatches (28–31 October) were brought to London by the returning Mulgrave. The admiral reported that ‘Gen. O’Hara has just been with me and alarmed me much … and what is very unpleasant is the conduct of the Spaniards, who are striving for power here’. Then later: ‘Our situation here … from what Gen. O’Hara has reported to me is not a very pleasant one; but yet I do not despair of overcoming every difficulty.’
In the face of such pessimism from a competent military commander, one can only wonder at the continuing resilience of Admiral Hood who, not a young man, was also faced with dealing diplomatically with a number of senior officers of allied contingents who could prove every bit as sensitive as the Spanish.
Causing current problems was Marshal Forteguerri, who commanded the second tranche of Neapolitans. Described as ‘proud and susceptible’, yet never having seen action, the marshal appeared to have received instructions at variance with those agreed between the two sovereigns, i.e. that he and his force were fully at British disposal.
Obviously near the end of his patience, Hood railed about Forteguerri in a letter to Sir William Hamilton, the British ambassador at Naples.
He is undoubtedly the proudest, most empty and self-sufficient man I ever had anything to do with, and totally ignorant of the rudiments of Service … If the King of Naples intended, … by sending his Fleet … to the good of the common Cause [it is] entrusted to me and not to gratify the pride and vanity of Commodore Fortiguerri [sic] (who is fond of having as many Neapolitan Flags daily to look at as he can).
By the end of October, Toulon had been in allied hands for two months. In Paris, the Committee of Public Safety was growing impatient that, like Avignon, Marseille and Lyon, the town should be recovered and suitably punished. If Carteaux’s slow progress was irritating, adverse reports regarding his military skills were disturbing. Buonaparte, whose plans he only grudgingly supported, was most vocal in his criticism, openly informing Gasparin, one of the army’s représentants en mission, that he would no longer serve under an officer to whom he referred as ‘the old painter’, a man who did not possess ‘the least notions of the military art’.
The brash young parvenu was speaking from a favoured situation, for his obvious expertise and pow
ers of personal leadership had already been rewarded by promotion to chef de bataillon, or major. His clear view as to the way ahead would also soon result in his being given the staff rank of adjudant-général, the equivalent of lieutenant colonel and divisional chief-of-staff.
The committee continued by ordering Carteaux to move to the command of the Army of Italy. This order he ignored, keeping his replacement waiting until 21 October, when a formal directive arrived in language that brooked no further intransigence. Despite this, he still contrived to delay his departure until 7 November, a level of defiance which, in a location less remote from the capital, might well have proved fatal.
In Carteaux’s place was the elderly General Doppet who, with the Army of the Alps, had recently assisted in taking Lyon but, it was said, ‘without really knowing how’. Until comparatively recently he had been a physician, enjoying rapid elevation mainly because of his extreme Jacobin beliefs.
Arriving soon afterward, and giving a great boost to Buonaparte, was baron du Teil, a career artilleryman, who had instructed the former at the military academy at Auxonne. His health now having greatly deteriorated, du Teil gave his protégé a very free hand and, by his very acquiescence to each proposal, added greatly to Buonaparte’s stature.
THE TAIL-END of Carteaux’s stewardship was marked by little more activity than offensive patrolling. Indeed, by the time Doppet formally took over, there had passed nearly a month with no more than the ceaseless annoyance of allied ships and strongpoints by Buonaparte’s batteries.
Obviously given a firm brief for decisive action, Doppet moved quickly. At 6 a.m. on 15 November, Fort Malbousquet found itself under attack. It proved to be a feint. An offensive reconnaissance was then mounted against Fort Mulgrave, withdrawing after an exchange of fire. During the afternoon the allies were further lightly tested by minor probes against the widely spaced objectives of Fort Pomets, Fort Saint-Antoine and the battery at Cap Brun. Only when the winter afternoon was well advanced did the true objective emerge.
A second sharp thrust against the Fort Mulgrave outposts was sufficient to make their Spanish defenders fall back, reportedly firing their weapons into the air. A follow-up wave, more powerful, then passed through the gap, closely followed by a third. The whole defence was mobilized, for this was a serious attempt to seize the western promontory.
General O’Hara happened to be aboard the Victory, conferring with Hood and awaiting the arrival of Sir Gilbert Elliot. Hearing the commotion, he had himself hastily transferred ashore. His eventual arrival at the fort rallied a dour defence and, supported by flanking fire from a frigate and chaloupes canonnières (as the French termed the gunboats), the garrison went onto the offensive. This was something of a bluff for, according to French accounts, between 3,000 and 4,000 republicans were involved and, in three columns, had advanced almost to the allied ramparts.
Supported by a heavy barrage from the fort’s artillery, the Royals charged and broke the enemy centre, though losing their senior officer, Captain Duncan Campbell. Doppet’s nerve failed him, reportedly when a trusted aide at his side was decapitated by a ball. The retreat was sounded.
Though brief, the confrontation had been bloody. Differing estimates put the allied casualties at between sixty and ninety, including Lieutenant Lemoine of the Royal Artillery, one of the few invaluable specialists. The French speak of 500 to 600 republican casualties, although most are listed as ‘lost in action’ which in most cases meant that they had simply deserted to return to their farms.
The capture of Fort Mulgrave was central to Buonaparte’s overall plan and, disappointed at Doppet’s failure, he complained loudly. Over the head of his superior, du Teil, he wrote directly to the Committee of Public Safety, alleging that Doppet’s staff were not facilitating his urgent demands for artillery, of which he knew there to be an abundance at Marseille. Separately, he contacted the Convention’s war minister to present an exact list of what he required if, as he intended, the artillery was to perform the lion’s share of defeating the allies. Infantry, he expected, would be required only to complete the task.
Scarcely, then, had General Doppet assumed command than a single failure saw his removal, at last in favour of a career soldier. General Jacques Coquille, known as Dugommier, had seen over forty years of campaigning, although he had now been moved from his appointment as the Windward Islands representative of the Legislative Assembly. Of proven ability, he was personally courageous and well respected by his troops. Appreciating that, in Buonaparte, he had an unusually competent, if forthright, artillery specialist, Dugommier allowed him complete freedom in his area.
Republican reinforcements continued to flood in, to an eventual total of about 35,000 effectives. As the ‘big push’ could only be a matter of time, the prospects for the defenders of Toulon looked bleak.
WITH SO MANY of their crews ashore, Hood’s ships remained dangerously undermanned. The admiral therefore took the unusual course of approaching the Grand Master of the Knights of St John in a nominally still independent Malta for the hire of a thousand or so trained seamen. Their purpose was to assist in sailing his ships, not fighting them. Having agreed to pay the Maltese the same rates as British sailors, a much-relieved Hood could report that ‘His Eminence immediately and in the handsomest manner [consented]’.
On 10 November Hood despatched the Captain 74 but, although she returned with 400, no further volunteers were forthcoming, despite Hood’s sending down three further ships that he could ill spare. This was just the latest in the series of disappointments that marked the progress of this ill-starred affair.
AS A SHARP REMINDER of the nature of those with whom they were dealing, the allies belatedly learned of the execution of the late king’s consort, Marie Antoinette, an event which had occurred on 16 October. Sir William Hamilton wrote to Hood on 8 November, describing how the court at Naples had declared four months of official mourning and expressing anxiety for the continuing survival of the young Louis XVII. Genuinely shocked, Hood expressed his ‘real and unfeigned Grief’. Declaring his contempt for the ‘truly Diabolical Wretches [that] these Conventional Jacobins are’, he ordered his own officers into three weeks of mourning.
* General David Dundas should not be confused with the minister, Henry Dundas, to whom he was distantly related.
chapter seven
Confrontation and Evacuation, November–December 1793
IN ADDITION TO HIS responsibilities as commander-in-chief, Mediterranean, Admiral Hood shouldered those involved with the overall administrative and military aspects of running and safeguarding Toulon. Each day he was faced with complexities and complaints from the courts or senior military personnel of the allied states. Everything, none the less, was handled with promptitude and rare good humour, but it was plainly overwhelming him.
London, therefore, decided to spread the burden by the appointment of a senior administrator to oversee municipal affairs. The choice fell upon Sir Gilbert Elliot, who duly arrived on 19 November, via Genoa, bearing instructions that he, Hood and O’Hara had been designated royal commissioners for ‘Toulon and its dependencies’. Elliot’s assumption of duty also released Rear Admiral Goodall for more appropriate employment.
Elliot was not pleased at what he encountered. Having come from a Whitehall resonant with optimism at the possibilities of so great an opportunity, he found that the general tenor of despatches sent by Hood and Mulgrave had greatly understated the problems. He now discovered a Hood depressed by the flow of adverse reports from O’Hara, whose nature was the very antithesis of Mulgrave’s. Elliot noted that, even allowing for considerable causes for despondency, he had never met a man ‘half so nervous or half so blind to every side but the black one [while] Lord Hood … is perhaps over-confident, and will never admit the slightest doubt of keeping the place’.
The British government’s policy was now to formalize the situation, both with respect to the governance of the Toulonnais and to relationships with the allies. A firm grip o
n the town was seen to be the best way of maximizing its possible value as a bargaining chip at the eventual peace table, a means of obliging a future French administration to indemnify the British both for declaring war on them and for causing the considerable expense of resulting hostilities.
A further and substantial complication had arisen in the person of Lewis Stanislaus Xavier, comte de Provence who, in the previous January and on the execution of the king, had made a proclamation that the dauphin, Louis-Charles, was now, as Louis XVII, the rightful king of France and Navarre. By French law he, as uncle of the new king, then but 7 years of age, would ‘in consequence of our obligations and duties so to do, take upon ourselves the said charge of regent’ during the minority of the king.
As an apparently secure enclave within strife-ridden France, Toulon was considered by the regent a suitable launch pad for a revived monarchy. The proposal aroused great enthusiasm among the Toulon sections, but the British were suspicious that much of their optimism was based on behind-the-scenes Spanish support.
London was resolutely opposed to the comte’s coming to Toulon, anticipating complications in administration and in the conduct of the defence. Worse, he would almost certainly attract a hard core of senior French émigrés, whose presence was plainly undesirable. The new constitution of 1791 was thus conveniently invoked to claim that the comte’s right to declare himself regent was invalid and, therefore, not recognized. A second, and suddenly useful, point was in the wording of Hood’s original declaration, which had included the unequivocal statement that he was holding Toulon ‘in trust only for Louis XVII’.