The Fall of Toulon Read online

  Author Biography

  Unusually for one who has spent a lifetime in naval scientific research, Bernard Ireland has maintained a parallel enthusiasm for naval history. Over some thirty years, he has written more than two dozen books on various aspects of naval history and technology, including Warships of the Age of Sail. Now retired, he can devote more time to writing and to (too many) other interests. He lives with his wife on the Hampshire coast, pleasurably near to his adult son and daughter.

  THE FALL OF

  TOULON

  The last opportunity

  to defeat the

  French Revolution

  BERNARD IRELAND

  CASSELL

  Contents

  Cover

  Author Biography

  Title Page

  List of Illustrations

  THE MAPS

  Europe at the end of the eighteenth century

  The western basin of the Mediterranean

  Toulon

  Foreword

  Acknowledgements

  PART ONE · THE BACKGROUND

  1. Revolution 1789–93

  2. War, Revolution and the French Navy

  3. The Naval Situation in Great Britain

  PART TWO · HOSTILITIES

  4. The Process of War, January–August 1793

  PART THREE · TOULON

  5. Occupation and Expectation, to September 1793

  6. Siege and Reality, September–November 1793

  7. Confrontation and Evacuation, November–December 1793

  8. Retribution and Recrimination

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Select Bibliography

  Index

  Plate Section

  Copyright

  List of Illustrations

  1

  General The Earl of Mulgrave GCB, 1755–1831 (© Queens Royal Surrey Regiment Association)

  2

  Lord Samuel Hood 1724–1816 (© National Maritime Museum)

  3

  Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville 1742–1811 (© Mary Evans Picture Library)

  4

  George Elphinstone 1746–1823 (© Mary Evans Picture Library)

  5

  Chart of the Port of Toulon (© National Maritime Museum)

  6

  Toulon and its environs from the west (© Photo RMN/© Gérard Blot)

  7

  The Old Port of Toulon (© National Maritime Museum)

  8

  View of the South Side of the Inner Road of Toulon with the Forts Balaguier and l’Aiguillette, Hauteur de Grasse, etc. (© National Maritime Museum)

  9

  The New Port of Toulon (© National Maritime Museum)

  10

  Cape Brun to the Gorge of St Andre, Toulon (© National Maritime Museum)

  11

  Nelson’s Flagships at Anchor 1807 (© National Maritime Museum)

  12

  Le Commerce de Marseille 1788 (© Musée National de la Marine)

  13

  Napoleon at Toulon, December 1793 (© Mary Evans Picture Library)

  14

  Napoleon at Toulon, September 1793 (© Mary Evans Picture Library)

  15

  Burning of Toulon Harbour (© National Maritime Museum)

  16

  Rough sketch of Evacuation of Toulon (© National Maritime Museum)

  MAPS

  Foreword

  EARLY IN 1793, Revolutionary France declared war on Great Britain and, by so doing, added her to a coalition of enemies. In classic response, the Royal Navy was charged with blockading the French fleet in its various bases. Then, after only six months of hostilities, Vice Admiral Lord Hood, lying off Toulon in the Mediterranean, received a French deputation. It came with the extraordinary offer of delivering up to the British the town, its arsenal and the French Mediterranean fleet that lay within.

  The background to this incredible act of treason is complex, the events that followed it heroic and ultimately tragic. Its primary cause was rooted, inevitably, in the tumultuous events of the French Revolution, its extremism and its excesses. To comprehend what happened in Toulon, it is thus necessary to have an insight into an upheaval which, far from unifying the French nation, plunged it into civil war.

  A naval squadron and its dockyard are pillars of state authority and hardly likely to be surrendered meekly, without any pretence of opposition. None the less, this happened. To understand why, one needs to look carefully at the French navy of the time. Following a very respectable showing during the American War of Independence, it then withered under the destructive blast of France’s own revolution, which reached down into every stratum and facet of society and armed service.

  For the complete picture, a brief portrait of the Royal Navy of the period provides not only an interesting counterpoint to that of the French navy, but goes far to explain its general attitudes. The handing over of a considerable portion of France’s battle fleet gave the British, gratis, the equivalent of a major naval victory. That they took little advantage of it is one of the most intriguing, and perhaps even now not fully explained, puzzles of naval history.

  Like all good stories, therefore, the strange episode of the Royal Navy and the four-month occupation of Toulon has several threads, at first apparently only tenuously connected. Each of these has been pursued in turn in this book, tracing their individual strands until their coming together in the climactic events on the French Mediterranean coast at the end of 1793. In following these separate paths, it is inevitable that there is overlap. Some events may thus be viewed from ‘either side of the hill’, leading to apparent contradictions in national interpretation. Such is the stuff of history.

  If Admiral Hood discovered (to misquote Nelson) that there were no laurels to be garnered at Toulon, the opposite was true for the young Napoleon Buonaparte, for whom the campaign was heaven-sent. Seizing the day, he was able to demonstrate for the first time those qualities that would, so shortly, catapult him to greatness.

  Acknowledgements

  INDISPENSABLE HELP was given by the staffs at the naval collections and archives in Gosport, Portsmouth (both at the Central Library and in the Dockyard Museum Library), in the British Library at Boston Spa and the London Library in St James’s, the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, the Army Collection and Museum in Aldershot and the Musée de la Marine in both Paris and Toulon.

  In particular, however, the author is grateful to the staff at Fareham Public Library, who never failed to track down even the most obscure text or publication. It is reassuring to discover that, despite every government initiative, the national library system remains alive and well.

  There is, of course, a huge and varying range of literature dealing with the events of those unstable times. Of all the titles consulted, those that are of most immediate value are listed in the bibliography. To all their various authors, alive or dead, named or anonymous, this author remains indebted.

  Finally, as ever, he would like to recognize the support, patience and sheer hard work of his wife, for whom long-established keyboard skills had now to be allied with the mysteries of MS Word 2002.

  Bernard Ireland

  FAREHAM, MARCH 2005

  PART ONE The Background

  chapter one

  Revolution 1789–93

  INSURRECTION AND REVOLUTION are conceived on a bed of discontent, for although a people may long endure injustices with little more than complaint, the effect is cumulative. As with steam leaking into a closed vessel, relief is ultimately essential if catastrophe is to be averted.

  For ordinary French people in 1789 there were abundant reasons for resentment. And before them, as a perfect model of what could be done about it, stood the recent exa
mple of the United States of America. As with the French monarchy and nobility in France itself, the British rulers of colonial America had been extraordinarily unperceptive to legitimate grievances. Many of the colonists were third generation, and a completely new society had developed on the American east coast, a society which considered itself ‘American’ rather than expatriate British. Government from London was regarded increasingly as out of touch and an interference in local affairs.

  Having lost much of their overseas empire to the British in the Seven Years’ War (1756–63), the French saw in the American revolt a chance to embarrass their traditional enemy and, possibly, to regain territory. Beginning with shipments of weapons, French intervention extended to a significant naval presence and, ultimately, to a division of troops. For the young marquis de Lafayette, ‘to harm England is to serve, dare I say revenge, my country’.

  Less defeated than wearily accepting that a continuance of the struggle was simply not worth the candle, Britain agreed to liberal terms at the Peace of Versailles, signed in 1783. Superior regular forces, directed without commitment, had proved impotent in the face of revolutionary fervour.

  The American peace commissioners, while acknowledging their fledgling nation’s debt to France, were justly wary of the latter’s experienced foreign minister, who sought to make French support indispensable to the future of the United States. In reality, the British and the new Americans, despite their differences, were closely bound by family ties, and the commissioners shrewdly laid the foundations of a solid and continuing relationship.

  To Great Britain, the political loss of the colonies had been a major blow but, to the poorly informed population at large, it was generally a matter of indifference. To many of those involved at an intermediate level, there was positive relief as the peace resolved a lengthy period of contention.

  Driven by the genius of the younger Pitt, Britain sought to repair the financial ravages of the wider conflict, of which the struggle of the American colonies had been but one aspect. Within a decade, the flow of British commerce, including that with the United States, had increased by over 50 per cent. By virtue of a ground-breaking treaty, signed in 1786, this even included trade with the French.

  For France, the outcome of the American question was less than fully satisfactory. Not only had poor territorial concessions been written into the peace terms but also, for those with vision, something more dangerous was apparent. France had assisted at the birth of an egalitarian society. In the new United States, where hereditary right to office had been abolished, all that mattered was the ability of the individual. With the abandonment of titles, rich and poor, academic and artisan, co-existed in easy relationship. Comparing this with his own stifled society, the average Frenchman might take pleasure at its harmony, but thinking men were troubled at the effect that such ideas might have should they take root at home. This was, after all, still the Age of Enlightenment. Invention and industry promised a bright future, free from the agrarian grind that was the lot of so many. And above all, it was the age of ideas.

  From an absolute monarchy at the top, the French people supported layers of old and new aristocracy, national, regional and local officialdom, trade guilds, restrictive practices and profiteering middlemen. Bribes and preferments were the accepted path to a tolerable life but, for the bulk of ordinary folk, living a hand-to-mouth existence, there could be no stake in this society; they could only endure its iniquities. The Court presided over an effectively bankrupt exchequer yet its excesses, affairs and intrigues provided a major source of popular interest. Of respect and authority, it enjoyed none.

  Already straitened by war, French finances were strained further by the need to maintain both the army and navy at a high standard in order to capitalize on possibilities stemming from the recent peace treaty. Too much was wasted, however, through profligacy, graft and incompetence. In addition, a succession of poor harvests had seen the price of grain rocket, arousing a hostile response from the populace at what it perceived as resulting profiteering by the merchants. It was no time for the king, Louis XVI, to be imposing extra taxes.

  Needing sound advice, Louis agreed to a suggestion to reconvene the ancient Assembly of Notables. Meeting in February 1787, its 144 members were drawn mainly from the senior aristocracy and clergy, as well as politicians and industrialists. Their brief was uncomplicated: to define the problem, then to agree a solution and its manner of execution. The main difficulty would be in selling the strategy to an alienated public whose popular press depicted the assembly as a gathering of poultry meeting to discover how it was to be plucked and cooked.

  The assembly’s deliberations were in no way assisted by current events in the nearby Netherlands. Here, too, the populace was bent on the abolition of inherited rights to office and, in its ordered fashion, was pursuing its objective with a maximum of demonstration and a minimum of violence.

  During the American Revolution, the rulers of the Netherlands, the Stadholders, had, predictably, supported the British position while public opinion generally sided with that of the colonists. Demands for greater representation of the people were couched in terms that echoed strongly those of the American Declaration of Independence – of liberty being an ‘unalienable right’ of all citizens, and of the sovereign being no more than ‘the vote of the People’.

  The Dutch House of Orange had strong marital links with British and Prussian royalty, and there existed a powerful temptation for the French to muddy the waters in order to cause British embarrassment. They held back, however, as their fragile economy was too dependent upon loans raised at favourable rates on the Amsterdam money market.

  In May 1787, however, matters in the Netherlands became more heated, skirmishes following when ‘patriots’ put Princess Wilhelmina under house arrest. As the French postured but took no action due to the potential cost of war, Prussian troops moved in and restored order with little trouble. The patriot leaders were declared ineligible for any public office, although they and their followers had, for the most part, already fled to France where, as refugees, they added to the general air of unrest.

  To the Dutch of the United Provinces the situation had not altered and remained ripe for change. For the French, the affair was embarrassing, not least because the chief minister, in vetoing military action on grounds of expense had in effect subsumed the absolute power of the monarch. Implicit was a growing realization that the monarchy could survive only by accepting some form of constitutional restraint, with power exercised through an assembly of representatives.

  Following intense debate, the Assembly of Notables concluded that, although the current fiscal climate made heavier tax impositions inevitable, this had to be accompanied by a higher degree of representation on the part of those to be taxed. It also proposed that the income level that determined an individual’s right to vote should be reduced to enfranchise a greater number.

  Recognizing its own ephemeral status, the assembly also accepted the need for a permanent, parliamentary-style body. The model for this, the Estates General, had last met in 1614. As envisaged, it was calculated that the new assembly could be functioning by 1792 but, in the current highly charged atmosphere, three years or more was a long time.

  With a mandate to slash costs, the assembly’s representatives closed royal properties and abolished sinecure posts for Court favourites. Hordes of ‘pensioners’ and minor functionaries were removed from swollen payrolls. As though this was insufficient to alienate a sorely tried monarchy, the first steps were also taken to accept Protestantism as a legitimate religion in France.

  The fiasco of French non-involvement in the recent Dutch crisis had brought about the resignation of the army and the navy ministers, both able men. A result was the emergence of the polymath comte de Guibert as de facto deputy minister of war. Guibert’s vision was to remodel the French army in both its philosophy and its organization. He foresaw that military operations would no longer be centred on set piece battles, fough
t by regular armies on a limited field and with choreographed manoeuvres. Land war would be more fluid, a mobile affair that would heed the constraints of geography rather than those of national frontiers. He envisaged that conflict would demand a nation’s total mobilization, its standing army expanded by a mass of conscripted citizenry.

  As the current army list was bloated with time-servers of aristocratic origin, Guibert effected great savings by pensioning them off. He closed the effete central army academy in favour of a number of new schools in the provinces which were intended for candidates from the provincial gentry rather than from the aristocracy. A host of sinecure appointments, created by successive monarchs for favourite courtiers, were declared void on the death of their incumbents. Some of the funds thus saved were devoted to improving the pay and conditions of the ranks. In return, however, they were subjected to a new and more severe code of discipline and punishment.

  In the long term, Guibert’s convictions would be proved correct but an institution of the size of the French army had huge natural inertia. Forcing it on to a massive change of course required considerable counter energy and the acceptance of widespread discontent at all levels while the reforms took root.

  While the Assembly of Notables made some progress in reform, it failed to agree and implement a fair land tax. Its director-general of finance, Charles-Alexandre de Colonne, laid bare the true extent of the national deficit before moving to abolish those abuses ‘of the widest extent, [which] enjoy the greatest protection, have the deepest roots and the most spreading branches’. It was, perhaps, inevitable that his progress would be impeded by some powerful members of the assembly itself, who sought to safeguard personal privilege. These had the ear of the king, who exhibited his usual capacity for vacillation before finally bowing to the inevitable. In April 1787, Colonne was dismissed and replaced by Loménie de Brienne, the Archbishop of Toulouse. Having tried and failed to float a less radical agenda, he dissolved the assembly in May.