The Fall of Toulon

by Bernard Ireland

  Greater threat generated greater response. Encouraged by divisions among the Revolutionaries and thoroughly upset by ever harsher decrees, ordinary people began to rebel en masse, particularly in highly religious or royalist-sympathetic areas such as the Vendée. The assembly required an army to repel Coalitition forces advancing from the east. This was created by a national levy, of which the initial demand for 300,000 proved to be an unpopular measure with the population at large. For a while, the despatch of regular troops contained the problem but it was now a case of Frenchman fighting Frenchman.

  A more conciliatory attitude on the part of the Convention would have helped defuse the situation, but it reacted as it had done to Dumouriez’s earlier proposals in Belgium. Armed ‘rebels’ and returning émigrés would now be summarily executed. Priests, denounced by six or more parishioners, would be deported.

  This new culture of curtain twitching and denunciation gained further impetus through the formation of Surveillance Committees. Originally charged with monitoring the movements of foreign nationals, their activities were quickly extended to their fellow citizens, whose very hope of employment soon depended upon a committee’s approval.

  This culture, nurtured by the Enragés, quickly developed to the point where it caused embarrassment to the Convention. Apparently at last aware of the bad name that was being acquired by France through the arbitrary punishments being meted out by almost any group or organization with an axe to grind, as long as it was in the name of the Revolution, Danton at last sought to concentrate such power back where it belonged: with the state. He proposed the formation of a Revolutionary Tribunal, in the hands of which would reside the power of life or death. To exercise such authority in a manner acceptable to the mob, much of which now had a taste for violence, the tribunal would need to be severe. ‘Let us be terrible,’ said Danton, ‘so that the people need not be.’

  This recentralization of authority took a major step forward when, on 6 April 1793, the Convention appointed a nine-man Committee of Public Safety to supervise executive decisions. This cabal rapidly assumed the status of a government cabinet and was to gain for itself an unholy reputation.

  Within the Convention, the truce between the Montagnards and the Girondins collapsed, mainly through the latter’s close association with the disgraced Dumouriez. Matters degenerated to the extent that a concerned Danton attempted to mediate, only to be rebuffed by the Girondins, who retaliated by demanding the arraignment of the influential Marat before the tribunal. This over-confidence was their undoing, for their case was totally inadequate to substantiate a major charge and, in overriding the immunity of a deputy, they laid themselves open to similar treatment. True to form, the Enragés and Sans-culottes demanded and received Jacobin support in a putsch aimed at demolishing the whole Girondin group. The Insurrection Committee demanded nothing less than the arrest of all leaders of the faction but the Convention, fearing its own disintegration, referred it to the Committee of Public Safety for a decision.

  On 2 June the Left organized a large-scale march on the Convention to reinforce its demands. Rowdy behaviour within the chamber resulted in a mass exodus of deputies who, once outside, found themselves beset by an excited crowd, estimated at 8,000 and barely controlled by an angry National Guard. To an accompaniment of jeering, members had to return to the chamber and their deliberations. Twenty-two prominent Girondins were duly expelled and placed under house arrest.

  The proscription of their leaders triggered a resolute Girondin response. Having signed a mass protest against the Jacobin coup, they returned to their constituencies where, for the most part, they organized opposition to the extremists running the capital. Many in the provinces were fearful and sickened by the course of events so far, detesting the militants who were increasingly gaining power in local politics. Power in the large provincial cities traditionally rested with the large employers. Their concern was for the effects of the Revolution on their markets; their employees feared in turn for their jobs. In the great commercial cities, such as Marseille, Lyon and Bordeaux, the powerful merchant class rebelled against dictatorial rule from Paris, carrying with them the professional class – lawyers, academics and clergy – who were already suffering from central diktats. They also carried along many of the skilled working class, artisans who felt less liberated by events than threatened by them.

  Regionally, there occurred ‘peasant revolts’, usually isolated and which quickly ran their course. That in the Vendée was something different. Deeply religious, its inhabitants were largely impoverished and uneducated, employed at mere subsistence levels. Towns were viewed sceptically by the peasantry as centres for control and taxation. For leadership, a Vendéen turned naturally to his priest who, as well as giving spiritual guidance, was the usual source of education, nursing and help for the destitute. Not surprisingly, therefore, the new constitutional clergy imposed by Paris caused immense dissatisfaction. This was made the worse by disillusionment for, just three years earlier, the king had invited all to submit their grievances in the national collection of the cahiers de doléances. These, it was understood, would be the basis of a fairer society, one which addressed their legitimate complaints. Instead, the government had murdered their king, imposed endless decrees, demanded a contingent for a conscripted army and had persecuted their priests. The Vendée peasantry detested the new order as much as the new order loathed the ‘enemies of the nation’. Their eventual response was equally savage.

  The trigger for a general uprising in the region was the decree of 6 March 1793, ordering the closure of all churches served by a refractory priest who had refused to take the new oath. Within days, crowds began to attack the homes and business premises of officials administering the new order. There were clashes with detachments of the National Guard, following which matters erupted in the small town of Machecoul, scene of a prolonged and pitiless massacre in which 500 are held to have died.

  Within a fortnight, Paris had moved in 50,000 troops. Although this number sounds formidable, over 90 per cent were newly mobilized raw recruits. Spread over a large area, they were nowhere in strength sufficient either to awe or to subjugate the furious peasanty. Control exerted even by regular army units ran no further than the towns that they garrisoned. The countryside, a wilderness of marais drained by a complex web of ditches, belonged to the people. One by one, they reclaimed their towns and, by May 1793, the Vendée had become what has been termed ‘a state within a state’. At its head stood a Grand Council whose religious head, the Abbé Bernier, addressed republicans at large to explain their aims and in justification of their action: ‘To recover and preserve for ever our … Roman Catholic religion’, continuing:

  you … subverting all the principles of religious and political order, were the first to proclaim that insurrection is the most sacred of duties. You have introduced atheism in place of religion, anarchy in place of law, men who are tyrants in place of the king who was our father … you, whose pretensions to liberty have led to the most extreme penalties …

  As an indictment of the new regime, the statement could hardly have been bettered and it caused fury in the Convention, at which it had been aimed. For the while, circumstances dictated that the Vendée situation be accepted, but its time would come. Meanwhile, mindful of the fact that the French themselves had on more than one occasion sought to cause mischief by exploiting Irish dissatisfaction, the Committee of Public Safety was concerned that the British would take advantage and land a force to aid the Vendéens. For this reason Vice Admiral Morard de Galles was obliged to keep his mutinous fleet anchored uncomfortably under the lee of the Quiberon peninsula.

  Pitt’s priority, however, did not lay in the re-establishment of the French monarchy. Neither did he, with his slender military resources, wish to become embroiled in further Continental adventures. A landing was still well in the future and, when it eventually came, it was of French royalist sympathisers.

  DELAYED BY MANPOWER shortages and other prio
rities, the Admiralty could only slowly build up the strength of Lord Howe’s Channel fleet. As spring passed into summer, however, the French fleet remained largely inactive. It slowly grew to three three-deckers, three 80s and no less than fifteen 74s, accompanied by a frigate squadron.

  The latter force was occasionally detached on independent missions, which enabled the watching British to get a rare chance of action. On 27 May the Sémillante 32 was intercepted by the British frigate Venus of approximately equal weight. Following two hours of close-quarter gunfire the Frenchman’s defence faltered but, even as the British closed to board her, reinforcement appeared in the shape of the French Cléopatre 36. Damage to the combatants reflected the different modes of engagement. The British always aimed to hull their opponents and the Sémillante was visibly settling from damage received. The Venus was much cut about aloft as the French aimed to reduce their opponent’s ability to sail and manoeuvre. Chivalrously, the Cléopatre was more concerned for the survival of her colleague than carrying the fight to the Venus, which was fortunate to escape.

  The Sémillante survived this drubbing, which occurred north-west of Cape Finisterre, but her saviour was not so fortunate. Just three weeks later, in the western English Channel, the Cléopatre fell in with the British 36-gun frigate Nymphe. Action was sought by both commanding officers, but fifty-five bloody minutes later the Frenchman, having had her mizen mast and wheel shot away, lost manoeuvrability and was unable to prevent the British taking her by boarding.

  Frigate commands were a fine training ground for the navy’s rising stars. Their operations permitted periods of independence and they saw more action than ships of the line. In this case, the Cléopatre became the first such prize of the war and, being a fine vessel, was purchased by the Admiralty for further service. The Nymphe’s commanding officer, Edward Pellew, thus made his name and the fortune of his family, not least because he secured with the prize the French signal codes, for which the Admiralty Board expressed its pleasure.

  Pellew went on to become famous in the later hounding to destruction of the French 74 Droits de l’Homme. Rising rapidly in the service he finished the Napoleonic Wars as Admiral Sir Edward Pellew, Lord Exmouth. In this era of apparently unremitting savagery, it is pleasant to record that Pellew was so impressed by the fighting qualities of the Cléopatre’s dead captain that he sent his widow financial assistance. The gallant captain, identified simply as ‘Citoyen Mullon’, was interred at Portsmouth.

  It was already apparent that while ship-for-ship the British were getting the better of these minor encounters, their opponents in no way shirked action and fought hard. Removed from the Revolutionary hothouse of the main body of the fleet, crews of smaller vessels appeared to observe correct standards of discipline.

  Lord Howe finally sailed with the Channel fleet, then fifteen ships of the line, on 14 July 1793, over five months after the commencement of hostilities. Standards of ship handling appeared deficient and, following a damaging collision, the fleet returned, anchoring in Torbay. On the 25th Howe learned that an American master had reported seventeen French ships of the line 30 miles west of Belle Ile. It was now known that Sercey’s squadron was expected back, escorting a convoy from the West Indies, so Howe sailed again. Baulked by a persistent westerly, he remained in the area, gaining two more ships of the line as he waited. Finally getting away as the wind veered to the north, Howe’s fleet comprised four three-deckers, nine 74s and four 64s, supported by nine frigates and five smaller craft. The force arrived off Belle Ile on the 31st, almost immediately sighting Morard de Galles who, cruising off and on, was indeed awaiting Sercey’s arrival.

  For about thirty-six hours Howe tried to bring the enemy to action but the latter, holding the weather gage in fickle winds, was able to decline. Battle would probably have been beneficial to the French, who now returned to their usual anchorage and state of rebellious and corrosive inactivity.

  Not the least problem faced by the French fighting services was the imposition by the Committee of Public Safety of the so-called Députés en mission. These appointees accompanied, and often overrode the decisions of, commanders in the field. Their virtually unlimited powers were often matched by a general lack of knowledge of military matters. They could invoke the threat of any punishment in order to drive men to greater effort. If things went badly, senior officers could face demotion or death. Conversely, almost by whim, quite junior officers could find themselves elevated to high rank, as in the case of Villaret-Joyeuse.

  The député responsible for the navy was Jeanbon Saint-André, prominent Montagnard and president of the Convention. With limited background in naval affairs, he ascribed the run-down state of the fleet to the deliberate policy of the king. This was a total misrepresentation against one who had always taken great interest in the service. Jeanbon Saint-André eschewed manoeuvre and evolutions, instead exhorting commanding officers in Nelsonian phraseology to lay their ships alongside those of the enemy. Larger crews, imbued with Revolutionary spirit, would then carry the day by boarding. Unfortunately the French seamen, although unquestionably brave, generally had not sufficient sea time to hone the necessary skills, so that boarding was usually on British terms.

  The commissioner’s greatest folly was to disband the corps of gunners on the grounds that it comprised army personnel trained exclusively to fight at sea. This made them ‘elitist’, as the new creed of total equality meant that any soldier could demand equal and similar duty. The fact that serving and aiming great guns on the heaving deck of a warship bore no resemblance to fighting on land was a fact so obvious that it could have been hostage only to pure dogma.

  THE FRENCH MEDITERRANEAN squadron, although junior to that based on Brest, was an important instrument of national policy. Deployed from Toulon, it operated in the western basin of the Mediterranean as counterbalance to the fleets of Spain and the Italian states. War with Britain, however, usually demanded a reinforcement of the Brest squadron in order to be able to create local and temporary naval superiority for any major operation in the Western Approaches. It thus became standard British policy to prevent any such reinforcement. It will be apparent that this was best exercised through containing the Toulon squadron in the Mediterranean rather than by hunting it down in the Atlantic. Gibraltar, and the advanced base at Minorca, thus became of critical importance for the maintenance of a large British presence.

  British diplomatic relations with coalition partners, with the possible exception of some Italian states, were not particularly cordial. As Minorca could be used only at the behest of the Spanish, a reliable base in northern Italy was an attractive proposition. Those at Spezia, Leghorn (Livorno) and Genoa were, however, in the states of Tuscany and Genoa, those most immediately threatened by the French, who had already seized Savoy and Nice from the neighbouring state of Piedmont. An important factor at this time was that the merchants of Leghorn and Genoa were making huge profits by exporting grain in coastal convoys to the French, who were suffering repeated poor harvests.

  Interest for the British thus centred on the more distant Naples and Sardinia, both of which sought naval protection. To these states Britain guaranteed to establish and maintain naval supremacy as required, to safeguard commerce and to provide transport by sea. In return, Naples pledged 6,000 troops (to whose maintenance Britain would contribute), four ships of the line and four smaller vessels. The smaller kingdom of Sardinia promised a very respectable army of 50,000, again subject to British subsidy.

  Anticipating imminent British naval activity in the south, the French Convention reversed usual procedure. With the vigour so typical of its activities, it reinforced the Toulon squadron by five ships of the line transferred from Brest, and three more from Rochefort. Commercial traffic on the south coast suffered as its seamen were impressed by the state to bring the warship crews to full strength.

  Until Britain clearly formulated her policies for war in the Mediterranean her would-be allies did not commit themselves too completel
y. A second tranche of 20,000 men and marines had been approved by the British Parliament in February 1793, but time was required to recruit and to train them, at the same time as dockyards laboured to bring ships forward from reserve.

  Like the French fleet, that of the Spanish was divided: on the one hand there was the disease-stricken Mediterranean contingent at Cartagena; on the other, the Atlantic squadrons based on Vigo and Ferrol, where nineteen ships were being readied.

  A degree of diplomatic wrangling preceded the despatch of the British fleet, as the Admiralty had requested of the Spanish that their ships should be placed under the command of the British C-in-C. The request was refused.

  WITH THE OUTBREAK of hostilities, the Admiralty entrusted the Mediterranean command to Vice Admiral Samuel, Lord Hood. Like Nelson, he was son of a country parson but had a brother, Alexander, two years his junior, who had made a similarly successful career in the Royal Navy. In 1793 both were rated Vice Admirals of the Red, Alexander becoming Lord Bridport in the following year, having served with distinction under Howe at the action known as the ‘Glorious First of June’. (Confusingly, two other brothers Hood, also Samuel and Alexander, were serving at this time as post captains. Although first cousins of the above, they were over thirty years younger.)

  Lacking family connections, the elder brothers did not immediately enjoy the patronage that, at that time, was so important a part of the successful officer’s career start. Samuel, like Alexander, began as a captain’s servant, a somewhat hand-to-mouth existence. Only through the captain that had ‘taken them on’ did they become acquainted with influential people, who included Pitt and Grenville, the foreign secretary.

  Samuel Hood was posted at the unremarkable age of 32 but, given command of the Vestal 32, proved his personal qualities by taking the similarly sized French Bellone, having fought her to a standstill. He was also fortunate in the Admiralty’s deciding to purchase his prize, a fine frigate which, taken into the navy, gave sixteen further years of service as the Repulse.