The Fall of Toulon

by Bernard Ireland

  At about 8 p.m. the Vulcan fireship was brought in and secured athwart a tier of French vessels. This, for a while, also allowed her guns to command the galleys. Smith recorded that this silenced the ‘tumultuous debates’ of their, by now, thoroughly panicked crews, the only sounds now emanating from their craft being that of purloined tools being used to smash their fetters. This he allowed to continue in order that they could better save themselves when the arsenal was fired.

  The appointed hour for firing the trains had been fixed for 9 p.m. but, according to some accounts, it had to be advanced due to a fire started prematurely by a French boulet rouge aimed at a nearby Sardinian frigate, the San Vittore, which was taking no part in the operation.

  Once fired, the great storehouses were quickly ablaze. Lieutenant Tupper’s men had been charged with the priority destruction of those containing pitch, tar, tallow, oil and hemp. To move things along they had also piled there a large quantity of soft timber (‘deals’). The critically important mast house was well fired by Lieutenant Middleton’s crew while Lieutenant Pater’s worked in squads, moving around to reignite or accelerate those fires that were reluctant to spread.

  The conflagration stimulated the republicans to direct a heavy but scattered fire on the arsenal, but the increasing fierceness of the heat, the noise and their concentration on the task in hand, rendered the men well-nigh oblivious to the balls whining around them. It was a calm night, with no wind to encourage a rapid spread of fire, yet Pater’s men were successful to the point that Smith had to call them off for fear that they would be isolated.

  In firing the Vulcan, the priming went off prematurely, blasting Captain Hare and Lieutenant Gore into the harbour, badly burning both. While they were being rescued, Midshipman Eales took charge to ensure that the fireship would do her work effectively, action for which he was warmly praised in Smith’s report.

  It was the usual practice with fireships to load the guns before firing the ship. These, as they heated, would discharge at irregular intervals. Those of the Vulcan must have been more of a hazard to Smith’s crews than to the enemy, but were left loaded none the less.

  The enemy were now all about, ‘their shouts and republican songs’ being clearly audible above the general racket. Covering the crews as they went about their work was a force of the Royals under army Lieutenant Iremonger. Their task was to protect the gates and walls from direct attack and, being the rearguard, they would have the dubious distinction of being the last to leave. (As it happened, they were ‘saved to a man’, being brought off safely by Captain Edge of the Alert.)

  While the bulk of the Toulon squadron was berthed within the two enclosed dockyard basins, five vessels were anchored along the half-mile or so of coast between the arsenal and the Grosse Tour. Farthest removed were a pair of 32-gun frigates, Iris and Montréal, which were acting as auxiliary magazines. In them was stored the powder that had been removed from the remainder of the squadron, amounting to ‘deux mille quintaux’ or, at that time, roughly 100 tons.

  The two ships lay off a shore that was still in allied hands, backed by Fort la Malgue, but were the closest targets to the now republican forts on the western promontory. Fire from L’Aiguillette, only some 1,500 yards distant, persuaded the Spanish team responsible that the task of scuttling wooden ships was too time consuming, so they were fired.

  As Hood later reported:

  Don Langara undertook to destroy the ships in the Basin, but I am informed found it not practicable; and as the Spanish troops had the guarding [of] the powder vessels … I requested the Spanish Admiral would be pleased to give orders for their being scuttled and sunk; but, instead of doing that, the officer to whom the duty was entrusted blew them up…

  The Iris detonated in a cataclysmic explosion (‘un fracas épouvantable’) that momentarily concussed both sides equally, causing a distinct lull in the otherwise continuous crackle of musketry. British craft were in the vicinity, dealing with other ships that were lying off, and suffered the blast and the initial swathe of fragments followed, for what seemed an age, by a deadly deluge of flaming, falling timber which had been shattered and projected hundreds of feet into the air. As Smith recorded ‘[it] nearly destroyed the whole of us’. The gunboat Union was ‘shaken to pieces’, with four men killed. Lieutenant Pater with a boat’s crew narrowly escaped.

  Dazed and battered, Smith and his surviving craft made back for the arsenal where, although the conflagration was extensive, much remained to be done. Nine ships of the line and three frigates were firmly ablaze, most of them in a group at the outer corner of the ‘new’ basin where the Vulcan had effectively done her work.

  ‘I had given it in charge to the Spanish officers to fire the ships in the basin before the town [i.e. the ‘old’ basin where lay most of those ships ‘in ordinary’ or under large repair]; but they returned and reported that various obstacles had prevented their entering it’, wrote Smith later. As soon as they had ‘completed the business in the arsenal’, therefore, Smith’s weary group tried to rectify the omissions of the Spanish, but were unable to get their craft through the narrow gut that linked the two basins, owing to its being inexplicably barred by a floating boom. Working desperately but unsuccessfully to move this obstacle they came under sustained and direct fire from what Smith described as the ‘flagship’ and from the Batterie Royale, whose cannon had already been spiked by order of the governor. Implicit in this action is treachery from assumed loyal French personnel.

  Having done all it could, the party had now to withdraw, for death stalked the arsenal in many forms and to delay further would have been folly. From beyond the walls, Buonaparte noted the scene almost with appreciation, later writing: ‘The whirlpool [tourbillon] of flame and smoke that issued from the arsenal resembled the eruption of a volcano, while the thirteen ships that blazed in the roads were thirteen magnificent firework displays. The fire defined their masts and detail; it lasted several hours and presented a unique spectacle.’ Thus were destroyed what Nelson had described as ‘some of the finest ships he had ever seen’.

  Through the eyes of an artist, François-Marius Granet also left his impressions. Viewing from an eminence, he noted that, beyond the sea of flame and smoke (‘as red as blood’), he could see on the horizon, clearly illuminated against the black sky, ‘the British and Spanish squadron sailing away in good, extended order, their lanterns lit; they had the appearance of a long procession’.

  Smith’s business was not yet done. As the defending rearguard slipped through the town wall via a postern near the Porte d’Italie, to make its way successfully through the chaos to the Alert’s waiting boats, the British demolition flotilla made for three more French ships moored offshore. One, the Thémistocle 74, was being used as a prison ship, having aboard a reported 260 detainees. An earlier approach had been met with hostility and Smith had moved on to more urgent business. By now, however, the prisoners had been rendered more amenable by events to which they were all too close.

  Having already noted the presence of three local craft manned by republicans, Smith delivered an ultimatum – be ferried ashore or burn with the ship. Assisted by a Spanish gunboat, he was thus able to land the majority, but some preferred to swim, presumably in the direction of known friends. As it was, Lieutenant Miller stayed aboard too long in ensuring the ship’s destruction and, at some risk to the others, he had to be rescued ‘much scorched’.

  With the Thémistocle was burned a further 74, Héros, and the frigate Courageux. As was too common on this frantic night, the fire on the last-named failed to take hold, leaving the ship ultimately repairable.

  His work done, Smith drew off under fire in the Swallow Tender and three other craft. As they shaped up to rejoin the fleet, the second powder ship, Montréal, blew up, ‘with a shock even greater than the first’. His exhausted crews again had to find what shelter they could from the awful rain of flaming debris, yet still found sufficient reserves to return (‘running the gauntlet under a few il
l-directed shot from the forts of Balaguier and Aiguillette’) via the evacuation beach, where they embarked as many as they could carry.

  Eventually arriving back aboard the Victory, Smith presented a startling figure, his rating’s uniform badly damaged, hair bristled by heat and ‘with the general appearance of an operatic devil’. He was subsequently sent to London with Hood’s despatches, being ‘enthusiastically received’ and being ‘caressed at the Admiralty and distinguished at the court of his sovereign’. Following his report and once the initial euphoria had passed, however, Smith found himself widely and unfairly blamed for his having failed to destroy more. In truth, this was much his own fault as he was victim of his own self-publicity.

  Much within the arsenal was indeed saved for, once the threat of Smith’s gun crews had been removed, the galley crews opened the main gates to a throng of volunteers – ouvriers, republican troops and men of the Marine Artillery. Then commenced a long battle with the raging fires, a battle eventually successful in saving several ships that were well ablaze. Others, threatened, were warped to safer berths. The rope-house, hemp and grain stores were rescued, as were a large tar warehouse and a gun store, the latter reputedly saved by a convict who extinguished a lighted fuse with his bare hands and who was awarded a pardon by the Convention and voted the sum of 600 livres. All the other convicts/galley crewmen who assisted in fighting the fires were also granted their freedom.

  THE KEY TO THE ALLIED withdrawal was Fort la Malgue, the location of which made the eastern promontory a safe zone. Granet may have witnessed many allied ships offshore, but they were certainly not all in the process of departing. There remained about 9,000 troops to be embarked and, on Hood’s orders, as many loyal citizens ‘as manifested inclination to come’.

  Although some disorder had been threatened by the precipitate withdrawal of the Neapolitans, their panic was not communicated to the remainder of the coalition troops who, from dusk on 18 December, began to concentrate on the beach between La Malgue and Fort Saint-Louis, a little to the west. They were not too troubled by Lapoype’s republicans who kept a respectful distance from such a force, contenting themselves with conducting a ragged bombardment from such guns as remained serviceable in forts Sainte-Catherine and Sainte-Marguerite.

  Admiral Hood had taken a considerable gamble with the weather, for the stretch of coast selected was open to easterlies. Fortunately, it remained calm. From the very opening of the campaign, nearly four months earlier, Captain Elphinstone of the Robust had played a prominent role and now, on this final night, he acted the vital part of senior beachmaster, assisted by Lieutenants Hallowell and Matthews of the Leviathan and the (British) Courageux respectively.

  Ships’ boats worked methodically in continuous relay to embark the seemingly endless files of troops who waded out into the dark waters, transferring them to the waiting ships, where they jostled, cheek by jowl, with such of Toulon’s populace fortunate enough to have secured a place in local small craft. The Courageux would normally have been classed unserviceable at this time for, having touched bottom some time earlier, she had damaged her rudder. Normal procedure would have been to stem the ship in dry dock, both to repair the rudder and to examine the stern post and hanging arrangements. Now, assisted by the quiet weather conditions, the ship was anchored off and, trimmed by the bow, was the scene also of frantic effort to rehang this monster of several tons.

  The files of troops gradually thinned, being finally joined by the rearguards. Great credit was attached to the very last party to embark, Sardinians under Major Koehler, who had calmly spiked the remaining guns of La Malgue before leaving. Their boats were covered by the guns of the Romulus frigate which, having the privilege of being the last allied ship to weigh, did so under small arms fire from republicans, many of whom had already slipped into La Malgue.

  Hood was able to report that, by dawn on 19 December, all troops had been lifted ‘without the loss of a man’. On this date, the Britannia’s log noted:

  The Boats of the Fleet embarking the Army from la Malgue, at ½ past 9 saw the Arsenal and Men of War on Fire, the Army having evacuated Toulon and retiring to the Fleet. AM at 5 Weighed and made sail, at daylight the fleet working out to sea and taking up the Boats loaded with Troops …

  If the various army contingents had been evacuated in safety and with discipline the same, regrettably, had not been the case with the citizens of Toulon.

  As autumn turned to winter in 1793, few Toulonnais could still really have believed the first confident predictions of the British, that their town was the stem from which a whole new, royalist France would bloom. The greater and ever growing military presence was that of the republican armies that invested them. Then, as the slender coalition forces were obviously going nowhere beyond the defensive perimeter, apprehension had taken root, the more strongly as the fate of Avignon, Lyon and Marseille became general knowledge, stories growing with each telling. Around them, however, was every evidence of the allied fleets, which enjoyed undisputed sea control. At least, if the unthinkable occurred, there was this lifeline, a reliable means of escape.

  On 18 December, however, the unthinkable had occurred. Across the town as the forts were abandoned, republican shot and shell crashed, exploded and burned indiscriminately. Fragments of roofing tiles scythed the streets, themselves increasingly strewn with the rubble and assorted debris of ruined homes. Fires began to spread unattended as people gathered together their essentials and, instinctively, gravitated toward the quays. Proclamations were being posted, and military patrols were occasionally met with, but official control had effectively collapsed in the face of mass fear that increasingly was turning to panic.

  As ever, this was the time for opportunists, closet republicans and plain criminals. Except as deliberate shows of defiance, the optimistic white flags had disappeared; the white cockades were increasingly and openly replaced by the tricolor of the enemy as the waverers and the true revolutionary supporters revealed their hands. Old scores and the deep divisions of the past few months could now be resolved with little risk as order broke down. For those who would take advantage of even the most desperate situation, abandoned homes promised easy pickings.

  Throughout the night of 18/19 December there was good money to be made by the owners of the large number of chaloupes, fishing craft and Leghorn traders that jostled for berthing space. As fear mounted and boatloads departed, terrified heads of families offered ever more exorbitant sums to be taken to safety – to Piedmont, Genoa or even Catalonia. Some skippers may have worked from altruism but, for the most part, the opportunities offered were too attractive to be ignored. Fortunes were both made and lost on that terrible night.

  Accounts speak of a mêlée of 200 to 300 craft competing for quay space, the scene lit by the lurid orange glow reflected from the underside of low rain clouds. Mortar bombs and cannon shot added their own horrors, aimed deliberately at what the représentants had damned as traitors and enemies of the Revolution.

  Small boats, overloaded and fighting to reach craft moored further offshore, capsized, their occupants joining the many struggling and dying in the cold, debris-strewn waters. Several vessels had been hit, themselves becoming microcosms of the general panic as crews fought to keep them afloat until they could be beached. Not all were successful. Scores, maybe hundreds, of dead were now strewn on the quays or were floating silently in the dark waters below.

  Among the accusations against the evacuating powers that inevitably followed, those against the British were the most bitter. Little attempt, it was said, was made by their ships to save loyal Toulonnais, only Spanish and Neapolitan vessels being prominent. As noted already, however, only very few of Hood’s squadron were actually left at Toulon, and all left well loaded. Doubtless, this was an opportunity to vilify the old enemy further.

  The fact that no boats from the fleets reached the quays before 2 a.m. on the 19th was due to their first having to evacuate between 4,000 to 6,000 wounded in addition to t
he troops, who were the first priority. Such was the urgency that the baggage of both officers and men of several regular units had to be left behind.

  At the same time, Hood’s claims of up to 15,000 civilian refugees being taken off cannot be substantiated. There was later a hint of remorse as he wrote: ‘I most earnestly wish more had done so [i.e. found their way aboard his ships] from the insatiable revenge that has been taken.’ None the less, the logs of all his ships speak of taking aboard Toulonnais without any qualification as to number or status.

  The log of the Windsor Castle may be taken as representative:

  [T]he cutter employed in bringing off wounded men from Toulon, all other boats employed towing the Pinto fireship into the Arsenal [an indication that Sir Sidney Smith’s men were not the only ones engaged in the hazardous task of demolition] and bringing off troops from Fort la Malgue, at 10 [i.e. 10 p.m. on the 18th] all our Troops evacuated the Town of Toulon … received a great number of Sardinian and British troops [and] French emigrants, at 4 [i.e. 4 a.m. on the 19th] weighed and came to sail in company with Lord Hood and the Fleet, also Admiral Turgoff [sic] in the Commerce de Marseille of 120 guns with the Pompey [sic] of 74 guns and the Puissant of 74 with several French frigates all the Spanish and Neapolitans fleets and a great number of small craft.

  It is likely that the British evacuated about 2,000, a number endorsed by Sir Gilbert Elliot. The Spanish lifted a probable 3,000, the Neapolitans rather less. Royalist French warships and merchantmen claimed a further 2,000. Of an estimated population, therefore, perhaps two-thirds remained. Many of these, however, were sailors and arsenal workers whose support for extreme causes of any sort had always been lukewarm. They had given full-blooded support to neither the Revolution nor any restoration of the monarchy; they knew their value to the national effort and were confident of being found blameless by the avengers yet to come.