The Fall of Toulon

by Bernard Ireland

  Early in 1792 a new commandant, the marquis de Flotte, had taken over at Toulon. He had tried to steer a middle course, avoiding outright condemnation of events in the port to date. If he thus anticipated a smooth relationship with the municipality he was disappointed, for he placed himself between two extremes. The establishment navy suspected that he harboured sympathy with the concept of authority by the people; the revolutionaries in the Hôtel de Ville objected to his continuing insistence that, as commandant, he exercised absolute authority for the maintenance of naval discipline. As with others in his situation, he found himself continually undermined by the local Jacobin-dominated administration while remaining unsupported by the increasingly ineffectual Ministry of Marine.

  Worn down by the futility of his situation, Flotte requested in June to be replaced, only to be rewarded with promotion. This, and his allegation that the officials in the intendant’s department in the arsenal were working to frustrate his efforts, sealed his fate. In September an unidentified group of men hauled both Flotte and his chief aide from their residences, brutally hacked them to death and hung their remains in true revolutionary fashion à la lanterne. The ordonnateur himself was saved only through hasty declaration of his popular patriotic sympathies. Murdered elsewhere was the founder member of the town’s moderate anti-Jacobin Club, doubly detested because he was also a post captain and, as such, seen as a representative of the deposed central authority.

  Within the space of three months three ordannateurs had tried and failed to restore the situation at Toulon. One of them, Thiveno, wrote to the minister of marine, stating bluntly that the naval administration in the port of Toulon was in a state of paralysis and that the arsenal was now little more than a general resource for the navy, the army and neighbouring départements. The army, for instance, had requisitioned over 200 cannon, far more than had been the case at Brest or Rochefort.

  Yet another new appointee, the minister was the celebrated mathematician Gaspard Monge. Something of a moderate, Monge knew little of the navy and its ways but is credited with being the first to fully recognize the gravity of the situation and to initiate action which, ultimately, would create the navy of the republic.

  An interesting feature of Toulon’s internal struggle is that, once firmly in power, the Revolutionary element dedicated itself to the task in hand. It took positive steps to assist the ordonnateur in maintaining calm and order in the workplace and thus to facilitate the major task of mobilizing the Toulon squadron to meet the threat of a wider external conflict.

  The local army commander, Anselme, was particularly demanding, creating a major shortage in ships’ supplies by requisitioning almost the entire stock of hard biscuit. He needed it to feed his army which, from September, was advancing along the coast to take Nice and beyond. He also required specialist warships for inshore support and to act as protection against privateers disrupting his supplies. For fire support, the Toulon yard readied four old frigates and, for escort duties, twenty-six chaloupes (fast craft with peculiarly French rigs and not equivalent to a British sloop). Their commanding officers were nominated by the local civic authorities.

  By the end of 1792 the control of activities at Toulon was almost totally exercised by the ‘trois Corps’: the administrators of the town, the district and the département. An active war was now being conducted along the coast in Piedmont, and warships were deployed by the corps – rather than the navy – on numerous ‘special missions’. Commanding officers of regular warships, although appointed through the Ministry of Marine, were all placed under surveillance to establish their degree of adherence to ‘patriotic’ principles. Having ‘Revolutionized’ the dockyard workforce, the administration now virtually sidelined the commandant’s organization in its identical desire to mobilize the yard’s full potential in supporting the war.

  The dearth of experienced officers acceptable to the Revolutionary councils was already causing difficulties in senior appointments. In August 1792, the command of the Mediterranean fleet was given to one Laurent Truguet, a local man whose lack of aristocratic background saw him promoted to post captain in January that year, and to rear admiral just seven months later. After one month’s experience in this rank, he found himself commander-in-chief.

  Following the debacle of the expedition to Sardinia, Truguet was replaced by the comte de Trogoff de Kerlessy. An officer of the ‘old’ navy, he had been purged by Jeanbon Saint-André, the influential naval representative on the all-powerful Committee of Public Safety, now effectively a ruling Cabinet. It was Jeanbon Saint-André who succeeded in re-establishing some measure of order in Brest but only at the cost of wholesale dismissal of experienced officers and their replacement by over-promoted personnel from the merchant marine and nominees (‘pistols’) from the local ‘patriotic clubs’. Such men may have been more acceptable to rebellious lower decks but they did not make for an efficient fighting fleet at a time when it was about to be pitted against the Royal Navy, a force with a few of its own scores to settle.

  Trogoff’s saving grace in the eyes of Jeanbon was that he came from the ranks of what might be termed ‘impoverished aristocracy’. His seniority as post captain dated from 1784 and he had seen considerable service in the ‘American War’. He was probably well worth his promotion to flag rank in January 1793 but he, too, had seen only months of experience at this level when called to replace Truguet as commander-in-chief.

  His situation was not enviable. Rightly concerned that his accident of birth might yet be used against him, he was still a professional officer who sought to maintain the independence of the service from the all-pervasive influence of the local Jacobin authorities. This, despite the passivity of the enfeebled Ministry of Marine in Paris and widespread disaffection from ‘patriotic’ i.e. highly politicized, crews on many of the ships in his command, the Toulon arsenal, upon which he depended, was all but bankrupt. It employed more people than it could possibly pay yet could not lay them off for fear of local insurrection.

  The material state of the fleet had also suffered considerably. As a rule of thumb, a French ship of the line was considered to have a useful life of only ten years, a frigate fifteen. To maintain the size of the fleet as defined by Castries, it was necessary to build at least six ships of the line and four frigates per year. The term ‘build’ could mean either entirely new ships or the reconstruction of those veteran ships still worthy of the expense. Until 1788 this rate of build was maintained but as early as 1787 Toulon had advised the ministry of a growing backlog of ships awaiting repair due to an increasing shortage of local timber.

  The Revolution also had an early effect on funding. Although the budget levels during 1789–91 appeared superficially to have increased, they had to cover the extraordinary expense of partial mobilization, primarily with the intention of assisting Spain over the 1790 Nootka Sound crisis. Only about half of the ministry’s needs could be met from what was left and from the middle of 1790 Brest and Rochefort were also reporting a marked reduction in operational tempo.

  Between 1789 and 1792, therefore, only eighteen rather than twenty-five rebuilt or new ships of the line entered service, although frigate numbers were on target. Not counting over-age ships, the French fleet had decreased in size and it was necessary to boost its strength by the recommissioning of old vessels that had been slated for disposal or dismantling.

  Modern research, using French records, suggests that the useful strength of the French navy at this time was sixty-five ships of the line rather than the seventy-six quoted by classic analysts such as James. Although their smallest was of 74 guns, thus out-classing the numerous 64-gun British ships of the line, about 30 per cent of all French ships of the line were older than the recommended ten years of age.

  From 1786, only three types of ships of the line (of 118, 80 and 74 guns) were planned to be built, all to standard design with the dimensions of the two smallest types identical. Following a competition between six of the most eminent French designers, prop
osals by the Brest constructor Jacques-Noël Sané were selected. The resulting ships proved to perform excellently, their size and performance greatly impressing the British.

  The 118-gunners were large enough to dominate most British first rates. They were able to fight their heaviest guns in the poorest of weather and were able to throw a broadside of 619kg (1,362lb) against the 566kg (1,254lb) of their opponents.

  It was Sané’s 80-gun two-deckers, however, which proved his best. The British acknowledged that ‘their qualities … have rarely, if ever, been surpassed’. Not only were their sailing qualities much admired, they also carried 24-pounders on their upper deck where a British 74, which was usually pitted against them, mounted only 18-pounders.

  Sané possessed a natural skill which enabled him to combine two characteristics in his ships: the ability to maintain a press of sail while giving the lower gun-deck sills sufficient freeboard simultaneously to fight the heaviest weapons. Records quote a Sané-designed 74 as having 1.68 to 1.83m (5ft 6in to 6ft) command against a British first rate’s 1.37m (4ft 6in). Despite the depth of hull necessary to support such dimensions, Sané was able to incorporate more than adequate stability. In some cases, in fact, his ships were over-stiff, resulting in excessive rolling on some points of sailing, sufficient to hazard the masts. This was countered by shifting weight upwards, thus increasing roll period.

  Up to 1791, when this programme began to go awry, French yards had put afloat three 118s, three 80s and thirty-seven 74s to Sané’s designs. Recognizing the superiority of the 80 over the 74, Jeanbon Saint-André infuriated his fellow représentant en mission at Toulon, Niou, by substituting them in the arsenal’s building programme.

  Sané responded to lack of numbers by adopting the common British practice of cutting-down (‘razing’ or ‘razee-ing’) larger ships of obsolete design. He thus created a number of single-deckers, technically classed as frigates but carrying a previously unheard-of armament of twenty-eight 36-pounders. Even such drastic remodelling did not appear to unduly affect the sailing qualities of these old 74s: one, the Flibustier, was credited with once achieving a speed of 15 knots.

  French frigates taken by the British were highly valued. The Pomone, captured in 1794 by Borlase Warren’s squadron, would prove to be highly influential to British design yet, at home, she had been castigated by Jeanbon Saint-André as being a dull sailer. As with their larger colleagues, French frigates carried their batteries high, with the gunport sills up to 1.83m (6ft) above the normal waterline.

  In July 1792, with war against Britain seven months distant, the commandant at Brest wrote ‘with true pain’ to the then minister of marine, Jean de Lacoste. Complaining, as usual, at the continuing shortage of central funding, he pointed out that dispositions were already suffering due to the increasingly inevitable neglect of the fleet. ‘It is frightening’, he went on, ‘that the port of Brest [holds] fourteen ships of the line and nine frigates that demand either major work or scrapping.’

  Mention of the Flibustier (above) is a reminder that, even as the fleet itself was being allowed to deteriorate at a disturbing rate, revolutionary fervour remained undiminished. Further manifestation of this lay in the wholesale renaming of warships with the intention of wiping out names connected with the old regime whilst glorifying the Revolution itself. As the policy was somewhat haphazard, doubt exists as to whether some of the allocated new names were actually used, and the following list is probably not complete. The definitive articles, always included by the French before ships’ names, have been excluded.

  PREVIOUS NAME

  GUNS

  NEW NAME

  Dauphin Royale

  118

  Sans-Culottes

  États de Bourgogne

  118

  Montagne

  Bretagne

  110

  Révolutionnaire

  Royal Louis

  110

  Républicain

  Auguste

  80

  Jacobin

  Couronne

  80

  Ça Ira

  Duc de Bourgogne

  80

  Caton

  Deux Frères

  80

  Juste

  Languedoc

  80

  Anti-Fédéraliste

  Saint-Esprit

  80

  Scipion

  Alexandre

  74

  Jemmapes

  Apollon

  74

  Gasparin

  Argonaute

  74

  Flibustier

  Borée

  74

  Agricola

  Commerce de Bordeaux

  74

  Bonnet Rouge

  Diadème

  74

  Brutus

  Dictateur

  74

  Liberté

  Ferme

  74

  Phocion

  Jupiter

  74

  Montagnard

  Lion

  74

  Marat

  Lys

  74

  Tricolore

  Marseillais

  74

  Vengeur du Peuple

  Orion

  74

  Mucius Scaevola

  Pyrrhus

  74

  Mont Blanc

  Sceptre

  74

  Convention

  Séduisant

  74

  Pelletier

  Souverain

  74

  Peuple Souverain

  Suffren

  74

  Rédoubtable

  Thésée

  74

  Révolution

  Réfléchi

  64

  Turot

  Aglai

  frigate

  Fraternité

  Capricieuse

  frigate

  Charente

  Gracieuse

  frigate

  Unité

  Uranie

  frigate

  Tartu

  Charente-Inferieure

  frigate

  Tribune

  The renamings speak volumes of the mood of the times. That the policy stems from the extreme Left is apparent, with Sans-culottes, Jacobin and Montagnard being represented but not, say, Plaine or Girondin. Names with obviously royal connections were changed to those strongly symbolic of the Revolution. Names connected with those regions of France that were counter-revolutionary were likewise erased. Some are particularly grim in their context, e.g. the change from Couronne (‘crown’) to Ça Ira, roughly translated as ‘Thus will it be’. In light of what was to befall the city of Marseille, the rebaptism of the Marseillais as the Vengeur du Peuple was horribly appropriate. The Lys, named for the area from which stemmed the flower symbolic of royal France, became the Tricolore, after the nation’s new symbol.

  The leading Revolutionaries, many with classical education, had something of an obsession with the noble ideals of the ancient Roman republic, seeing parallels with their achievement. They did not lend their names for self-aggrandisement but saw themselves in the role of the prominent figures of that time, hence Caton (‘Cato’), Brutus, Scipion (‘Scipio’) etc. Only the assassinated Marat had a ship renamed directly in his honour.

  Tartu, indirectly, might also fall into this latter category. Tartu had been the commanding officer of the Uranie 36, losing his life in the course of the brisk duel with the British Thames 32 in the Bay of Biscay during October 1793. The British ship was so cut about by her heavier adversary (18-pounders versus 12s) that she was taken by other French ships later in the day. Tartu had the posthumous honour of having his ship renamed after him. As a further twist to the story, the Tartu was herself captured in January 1797 by the British Polyphemus, entering Royal Navy service as the Urania. The unlucky Thames spent three years under French colours with the name Tamise before being retaken by the Santa Margarita which, despit
e her unlikely name, was a British frigate that, as was the custom, had retained her name after being captured from the Spanish back in 1779. She was now captained by Thomas Byam Martin.

  IN SUMMARY, the navy of the new French Republic was in no condition for a major war. Although of superior design, too many of its ships were either over-age or in need of extensive refit. Its Atlantic bases had sufficient materials to maintain their squadrons but insufficient to support full mobilization. Toulon, in contrast, had already seen its stocks badly reduced. All workforces harboured deeply felt grievances, that at Toulon particularly so. The Atlantic bases had benefited from energetic ordonnateurs and commandants, who had reasonably accommodated the opposing demands of civic interference and the separate existence of the navy. In Toulon, the navy was no longer under autonomous control, and could no longer look to the Ministry of Marine to reimpose discipline or direction.

  Freed from the constraints of normal discipline, ships’ crews had become unpredictable, difficult or impossible to control, a situation exacerbated by the necessary but large-scale over-promotion of unsuitable and inexperienced officers to replace the demolished Grand Corps.

  Through the division of authority, the Revolution effectively destroyed the already debilitated fleet of the ancien régime in order to replace it with an alternative, based on acceptable Revolutionary principles. This process of renewal would, however, require time to implement and, through the Convention’s ill-judged declaration of war, time is what the service did not have.

  chapter three

  The Naval Situation in Great Britain

  DIRECTION AND ADMINISTRATION

  As with any major enterprise, the Royal Navy required an agency through which it received its directives, and another that ensured that these could and would be carried out. The one was the Admiralty, the other the Navy Board.