In case the new commissioners failed to get the point, it was underlined in a letter from Grenville:
The measures which … have been taken for conveying to the Comte de Provence His Majesty’s sentiments in respect to his going to Toulon will, His Majesty trusts, prevent his proceeding thither … The consideration which is due to the rank and situation of the Comte will naturally induce you to communicate this determination in terms of proper civility and respect … [but neither] acknowledge any authority he may attempt to exercise … nor admit him, under the present circumstances, to come within the town or forts of Toulon.
A potentially ticklish situation did, in fact, resolve itself as the comte travelled leisurely from the place of his enforced Westphalian exile to Genoa. So leisurely that events at Toulon overtook him.
A further problem which troubled the British commissioners was the actual extent of collusion that existed between the Spanish defenders and the republican besiegers. At the highest levels, of course, the Spanish were dedicated to supporting a pact between members of the royal Bourbon families. On the basis that ‘their enemies are our friends’, the Spanish had thus become reluctant allies of the British. With almost the singular exception of Admiral Gravina, however, the alliance was here observed with bad grace. The British, being very much in the minority at Toulon, were obliged to woo Spanish cooperation. For their part, the Spanish were in a position to parade attitudes conditioned by centuries of intermittent hostilities. Officers would do their duty, but invariably in a manner that illustrated the maximum contempt for those who, although outnumbered by more than three to one by the Spanish alone, still contrived to exercise overall command. At the level of the average foot soldier it was a case of cultural similarity. The Spaniard had much in common with his French Revolutionary counterpart but very little with the British ‘squaddie’ fighting at his shoulder.
The représentants en mission with the French armies had little difficulty in passing their agents in and out of the allied perimeter for, in appearance and language, a Toulonnais Revolutionary was interchangeable with a Toulonnais royalist. Not only did agents make known every allied move to Fréron and his colleagues but they were active also in subversion. Spanish troops themselves were not far removed from the soil and their people suffered much the same inequalities as did the French. Revolutionary ideals were in the air all over Europe and were highly contagious, ordinary working folk being the most susceptible to their blandishments.
Years of battle against them had taught the British that the Spanish were, militarily, as able as any. Yet here, on the Toulon perimeter, were occurring too many instances of Spanish units pulling out of a confrontation following a token resistance. At the outset it was of little consequence for, as Sir Gilbert Elliot observed on his arrival, there were ‘little battles and the music of cannonades and musketry all round … as these Battles are pretty bloodless, one may look at them as fire-works’. As republican strength and resolve grew, however, this assessment changed, the popular opinion growing that smaller British units would, in real adversity, be abandoned to their fate by the Spanish. The actual incidence of such behaviour cannot be quantified: it might have been very low, but it engendered a deep feeling of distrust.
The rapid build up in the strength of the besiegers following the fall of Lyon brought its own problems. Over 30,000 (and still increasing) troops were billeted in the same miserable conditions as those within the perimeter. Even under normal circumstances the region’s poor communications would have been strained to provide for such a number but, now that allied ships were blockading the coast, shipments of grain were sparse and even more was demanded of the inadequate road and transport system. Discontent was rife.
Republican reinforcements, none the less, continued to pour in from all points. Seven battalions from Lyon were followed by no less than seventeen from the Army of the Alps, its operations being scaled down with the approach of winter. Two thousand men arrived from the Lozère, 4,000 more from Toulouse. From that same region in the south-west there then came a further 6,000. General Lapoype’s Army of Italy reported a very precise 12,347 along the eastern and northern sides of the perimeter.
In some desperation, the représentants appealed to the Committee of Public Safety for the means to support this multitude. The committee, in turn, invited the Army of the Pyrenees to share its provisions. Its commissars responded that, far from being able to assist, they would be faced with revolt should their rations be further reduced. This refusal reached the committee at the same time as a letter, reputedly from Barras and Fréron at Toulon. It contained the surprising proposal that current operations against the town be suspended and that the besieging forces be allowed to fall back beyond the line of the Durance, wintering in the Vaucluse, a more fertile area where it would be the easier to quarter and supply them. This implied a retreat of over 40 miles and no further direct action until the spring.
What happened next is not too certain but, although the letter was later verified by Buonaparte himself, the two représentants apparently disassociated themselves from it, attributing it to counter-revolutionaries or, naturally, to the British. The provenance was, none the less, vigorously debated by the Convention, which concluded that the phraseology had an English ‘feel’ to it and that the document was, indeed, a forgery. Operations continued.
On 17 November the Committee of Public Safety issued the interesting order that boulets incendaires of a large calibre should be prepared for use aboard a considerable number of tartanes. These were single-masted lateen-rigged Mediterranean traders of no great size which could, at most, be armed with one or two cannon. As it would appear impracticable to heat solid balls to red heat aboard such small craft, it is probable that the boulets incendaires were explosive-filled, hollow shot (known as ‘bombs’ to the British) and that their associated cannon would actually be mortars.
The project was to prove surprisingly effective for, although the resulting flotilla failed in its objective ‘pour bloquer Toulon et brûler la flotte ennemie’ (‘besiege Toulon and burn the enemy fleet’), it certainly proved a nuisance in its ability to employ innocent-looking craft to appear intermittently to lob missiles into the sprawling works of Fort Mulgrave.
With communications by land being so uncertain, most of the powder and ammunition for Buonaparte’s endlessly energetic batteries came by sea. It may be assumed that the offshore waters in these times were alive with fishermen and small traders, for the Royal Navy’s patrols admitted to being unable to intercept all of what were described as the enemy’s ‘polaccas and luggers’. Small craft such as these were also of considerable service to the allies, near a dozen being converted in the Toulon arsenal and, described variously as armed zebeque (xebec), schooner, tartan or galley, used for patrols or ‘special duties’.
One larger ship, the 32-gun frigate Lutine (eventually wrecked in the North Sea and whose bell hangs to this day in Lloyds of London), was converted to a bomb vessel whose high-trajectory missiles could be used for indirect fire against Buonaparte’s masked batteries. Such acquired vessels, sailing under their original names, made excellent first commands for enterprising lieutenants, of which the fleet was not short.
The duelling between allied warships and enemy batteries continued every day, the rumble of their gunnery being the distant background to events elsewhere. Unable to put parties ashore on this heavily protected coastline, the ships could only hope to keep the batteries suppressed. Even if one were silenced, it was only temporarily, for a gun could be destroyed only by a direct hit, broken carriages could be repaired or improvised and smashed earthworks rebuilt.
As the necklace of batteries closed ever more tightly around Fort Mulgrave, the need for counter-battery fire became more urgent. The Princess Royal’s log shows her to have been allocated to this duty more often than most, it becoming almost a daily routine. From entries taken at random:
October 13th … At 8.30am began our fire on the enemy as before and continu
ed at intervals all day … [The French fired] both shot and shell … One of the shells struck the ship just below the water line, but did no mischief. Many others fell near us all round. Some of the running rigging was cut by shot.’
[The bombardment continued for nine hours on this date.]
October 15th … Received a large shot just abaft the larboard cathead.
October 19th … 5.30pm. Enemy began their fire at us with shot and shell [it] being a very fine moonlight evening. Immediately returned their fire from our lower deck guns till 7 when we ceased firing; the enemy continued throwing shells … one broke nearly over our heads but did no mischief. The Spanish bomb vessel throwing shells at the Battery till nearly 11 o’clock.
October 23rd … [One] of the lower deck guns burst, four men killed, two lieutenants and 29 men wounded, many of them very badly.
October 26th … Received several of the enemy’s shot, some of which weighed 44 pounds.
November 3rd … [A] red hot shot came in at one of the lower deck ports, disabled the gun by knocking off the trunnion, wounded five men and went through the mid gun deck where it was taken up in a bucket and thrown overboard. It was perfectly red hot and burned the deck as it rolled about.
November 14th … Enemy with a very long gun they have got fired several shot over our masthead and which went so far beyond us that I am certain it throws at least 3 miles.
As the naval gunners sweated and suffered against particular batteries, Buonaparte sought to improve the overall effectiveness of his forces, by better location as much as by establishing new sites. Although his prized objective remained Fort Mulgrave and the two forts at the tip of the promontory, he recognized, too, both the importance and the relative isolation of Fort Malbousquet, the major impediment to an advance on Toulon from the west. None the less, any pressure exerted on Malbousquet was probably calculated by him to be a suitable means of disguising a decisive push further south, where it mattered.
A first move was to improve the situation of the Batterie de la Convention, which was expanded to comprise six guns and resited behind a screen of olives. Buonaparte wished to keep its new identity secret until he was ready to act with full effect, but he was overridden by the représentants, who insisted that it commence firing on the night of 27/28 November, immediately upon completion. On neighbouring heights were the Poudrière and Farinière batteries, with a further fourteen guns. These had also been supplemented, with Dugommier’s full support.
The sudden concentrated bombardment from this quarter caused both the allied command and the populace of Toulon considerable disquiet. Although Malbousquet could withstand a battering of limited duration from this direction, it was now clearly within easy range of concealed batteries, the nearest a bare half-mile distant. A further annoyance was that Poudrière included one of Buonaparte’s prized long cannon, a weapon which could just reach to Toulon’s western ramparts, which he knew would exert considerable moral effect.
Had he intended to provoke an allied response, Buonaparte could have done no better. For the next two days there came a counter-bombardment from warships and from Fort Mulgrave. This was not particularly effective as the shallow water of the north-western corner of the roads prevented the use of the big second rates, while Mulgrave was firing at long range, largely indirect and with no means of correction.
The activity did, however, hold the attention of the conventionnels while Major General Dundas assembled his forces for a land attack, comprehensive by standards to date. With Hood further denuding his warships to take their place, troops were ferried over by night and concealed in the wooded areas around the La Grasse heights upon which Fort Mulgrave was situated. The force was quickly built up to a total strength of about 400 British, 700 Spanish, 700 Neapolitan, 300 Piedmontese and 250 French of the Royal Louis battalion. In addition, there was a reserve of 600 each of Spanish and Neapolitans, under the overall command of Brigadier General Izquierdo.
As commissioner, General O’Hara should really have had no input beyond assisting in the formulation of the plan, but he insisted on being with the artillery that had been placed on the right flank of the projected line of advance. These guns directly faced the troublesome enemy batteries across the low depression in which ran the Neuve River.
At 4 a.m. on 29 November the allied troops advanced in three columns. Barely one-sixth of the total, the British were on the left. Silently and rapidly, the force skirted the village of La Seyne, apparently without alerting any of the several enemy batteries in the area, forded the shallow river and progressed in good order up the steeply rising ground below the Poudrière battery. Totally surprised, its sizeable garrison wilted after a few scattered shots and fled, leaving about sixty prisoners.
Dundas’s orders had been to take this height and, staying in battle order, to await further instructions. Elated by their early success, however, many of the attackers (including the British) swept on in general chase. Now fragmented, other units carried the Farinière battery and, according to some accounts, the Convention battery itself.
Now in smaller and scattered groups, the allied infantry pursued the enemy over rough, broken ground, while others discovered and pillaged a just abandoned encampment. Dundas’s frustration at this breakdown in discipline can well be imagined. As he struggled to get his force back into some semblance of order, he was joined by his superior O’Hara who, on observing the easy dislodgement of the enemy, had ridden over from his vantage point with the artillery.
Once their pursuers had fanned into small groups, the republicans quickly realized that they themselves were in considerably greater strength. In their midst was Dugommier, who was able to rally his men. Now isolated, small bodies of allied troops found themselves suddenly surrounded and cut down. As the French moved back, still in open order, a new rout began.
From the battery position, O’Hara could see disaster looming and, ever the soldier, rode down at the head of a detachment to salvage the situation. Encountering an enemy force, this group was involved in a brisk exchange of fire in which O’Hara was wounded in the arm. The injury was not serious but resulted in much loss of blood. As a small battle raged around, the general took cover behind a wall to attend to his wound. The action moved on and he was lost to sight. Inevitably, he was captured.
At the batteries, meanwhile, the race was now on to disable the guns before the republicans fully regrouped and came flooding back. Here were Spanish troops under the comte de Puerto, none of whom had brought the studs or tools needed to spike the weapons. Urently, men were sent to Fort Malbousquet to obtain the required items, but it was too late.
Some reports put Dugommier’s available strength at 6,000 but, whatever the true figure, it swept the allies back off the heights. What had been the right-hand column, of Sardinians under Thaon de Revel, remained in good order and now deployed along the course of the Neuve as an improvised line of defence. The initiative was timely and rescued a difficult situation, for the line screened the allied artillery on the far bank and formed a barrier through which their disorganized and beaten colleagues could pass to the rear and the rallying point of Malbousquet.
As the mass of victorious French swooped down from the high ground to complete the rout, it was the turn of the British gunners to draw blood. Three times the republicans tried to carry their momentum on to Malbousquet, on one occasion advancing as far as the chevaux de frise that fronted it. Each time the artillery, the Sardinians and, finally, the fort’s Spanish garrison, threw them back. A republican enveloping movement along the shoreline to the south was broken up by naval gunfire.
The allies were, in turn, now rallying, being joined by a detachment from the Moulins strongpoint, which had advanced under cover of fire from the Petit Saint-Antoine battery. More significant was the arrival of Izquierdo’s reserve force. After seven hours of fierce and sustained combat, both sides fell back to their original positions.
For the coalition forces, the British in particular, the affair had been
disastrous, with General O’Hara among their 148 casualties – dead, wounded or missing. For once the British could not fault the Spanish, who incurred 119 casualties of their own. When, to these totals, are added 65 Neapolitans and the same number of Sardinians, one has a debacle, an ambitious raid which, starting well, failed expensively. Materially and morally it was a victory for Dugommier, whose division had sustained considerably fewer casualties – reportedly 179 dead, 68 wounded and 23 taken prisoner – and remained in control of the heights. This general, too, was well forward, being wounded in the shoulder. His adjutant general, Cervoni, also took a hit.
In his report, Dugommier praised both his adjutants general and also his commandant d’artillerie, ‘Citoyen Bonnaparte [sic]’. The general was justifiably cock-a-hoop for, besides O’Hara, seventeen other allied officers were captured. They included Major Archibald Campbell of the 69th Regiment, Captain Reeves of the 1st Regiment and Lieutenant Colonel Echavuru, aide de camp to Admiral Gravina.
An interesting sidelight on the story of O’Hara’s capture is that his French captors agreed with an earlier opinion of Thaon de Revel that the general was actually seeking to die in combat. Beforehand, he had become increasingly depressed, even demoralized, his dark assessments, as expressed to Hood, becoming even more pessimistic. ‘The governor promised not to go out himself’, complained Hood to Henry Dundas, ‘but unfortunately did not keep his word.’
The French, too, were mystified at their capture: ‘[Un] exemple peut-être unique d’un gouverneur fait prisonnier dans une sortie, exemple d’autant plus extraordinaire que l’objet de la sortie avait été parfaitement rempli. Estce imprudence, ineptie ou quelque chose de pis?’ (‘Perhaps a unique example of a Governor made prisoner during a sortie, an example even more extraordinary in that the object of the sortie had been perfectly achieved. Is it imprudence, ineptitude or something worse?’)
The Fall of Toulon Page 29