The Fall of Toulon

by Bernard Ireland

  On 9 October: ‘[A] Court Martial was assembled on board and tried Richard Batty, Surgeon’s Mate of the Illustrious for Cruelty, of which charge he was fully acquitted. Also, John Williams belonging to the said ship for Mutiny and Desertion, of which Charge he was fully Convicted and Condemned to Suffer Death.’

  BEYOND THE REACH of the Toulon garrison, General Carteaux had not been entirely idle. Probing eastward, beyond the Mont Faron Ridge, he contacted forward elements of General Lapoype’s army, thus closing the landward ring around the city. In the process, he occupied the château at Dardennes, through whose estate flowed the small river Las. By diverting its waters (today it is dammed at Le Revest-les-Eaux, just to the north) he succeeded in halting most of the mills upon which Toulon depended for its flour. Despite this success, however, the general opinion (including, rather precociously, that of Buonaparte) was that Carteaux was moving too slowly and cautiously. Known for his pretentious uniforms rather than for his military expertise, he attracted a measure of ridicule, but was senior to Lapoype.

  The latter, with 6,000 men under orders, had already relieved la Barre and entertained ambitions of taking over Carteaux’s command in addition. For the moment, he was ordered by Carteaux to make every effort to take the allied strongpoint at Cap Brun. Situated a mile or more to the east of La Malgue, this battery looked directly across to the Saint-Mandrier peninsula. This lay well beyond effective cannon shot, and it is unlikely that Cap Brun could have seriously hindered allied ships passing close to the peninsula where, indeed, lies the deepest water. On the other hand, possession would have denied the allied fleets a considerable proportion of their accustomed anchorage in the Grande Rade. To the allies, Cap Brun was the anchor of the eastern defence line, strongly positioned with its back to the sea and a useful outlying support for La Malgue.

  Lapoype’s interest for the minute was, however, elsewhere. It was known that the allies intended to use 1 October as the date for the proclamation of Louis XVII as King of France. With every intention of spoiling the party, the general had assembled strong groups at points along the foot of the length of the northern face of Mont Faron, from La Vallette in the east, via the Château de Touris and Revest, to the neighbourhood of Fort Pomets at the western end. His plan was in direct contravention of Carteaux’s instructions, but there is every indication that the représentants Barras and Fréron encouraged him in this, possibly hinting at his taking Carteaux’s command should he decide the course of the campaign.

  On 1 October the Britannia’s log noted the morning’s events: ‘At daylight, saw the enemy in possession of the Heights over Toulon … at ½ past 10 the White [i.e. Bourbon] Flag was displayed by the French Fleet and Forts with a general discharge of artillery … at 11 saw Allied Troops march up the Mountains to attack the Enemy.’ Lapoype had succeeded only too well.

  The allied garrisons atop the Faron Ridge had probably felt secure for, even today, no real track exists up the northern face of the massif which, near its summit, becomes precipitous. Key positions were manned at its east and west extremities and in its centre.

  In the west, the Tour de l’Ubac looked across the valley of the Las towards Fort Pomets, some 900 feet lower. The ridge here is approachable via valleys rising steeply from the south. Although these are covered by Fort Saint-Antoine, this is the more accessible end. In the centre is a small spur known as Pas de la Masque. An established military post, it also precariously supports a small barracks, the Caserne du Centre. The approach from the north is up a 45-degree slope which steepens further toward the summit. The going is treacherous, over loose, friable rock. At the allies’ right the Fort de la Croix Faron was located at the eastern extremity of the ridge, dominating the larger Fort Faron, situated 600 yards to the south-west but over 500 feet lower.

  Starting at about 2 a.m., Lapoype himself led a silent column up difficult tracks to bypass Saint-Antoine and surprise the Tour de l’Ubac position. As an achievement, however, this paled beside that of the centre column. While the allies were distracted by an armed demonstration on the French left, guides led an advance guard of the centre force up a vertiginous goat track. It completely surprised the sixty-man Spanish garrison which, according to Mulgrave, retired ‘without a shot being fired’ along the ridge, eastward toward La Croix Faron. This capitulation was later to reinforce suspicions of collusion between the French and their late allies.

  Spanish naval signallers were based at both Fort Faron and on the naval hospital within the arsenal. At daybreak, urgent signals from the fort caused Elphinstone to react immediately, despatching ninety men of the 30th Regiment from La Malgue. At the same time, a council of war was quickly convened. It was attended by Rear Admiral Gravina, Brigadiers Mulgrave and the Spanish Izquierdo, Prince Pignatelli and Captain Elphinstone. Mulgrave’s proposals were adopted, despite some objections from the Spanish.

  With a small additional force of fifty men, Elphinstone was to reinforce rapidly those at the vital Fort Faron. They would then create a diversion while the main allied thrust was directed from the western end. This would comprise just over 1,200 troops, advancing in two columns. Climbing from Fort Saint-Antoine was an Anglo-Piedmontese force, some 550 strong, commanded by Mulgrave personally, with Piedmontese as his lieutenants. To their right, labouring up the steep Val Bourdin, were the remainder under Gravina. This column included 180 Spanish, 400 Neapolitan grenadiers and a few Sardinians and French royalists. Gravina’s lieutenants were Pignatelli and Izquierdo. Down in Toulon, where the white Bourbon banner was everywhere to be seen in recognition of the day, an anxious Hood awaited the outcome. He had replaced the absent troops with seamen drawn from the fleets.

  Having demonstrated considerable elan in the seizure of the Faron Ridge, the republicans were now lacklustre in its defence. Some 200 selfstyled conventionnels were located on the flattish ground of the western summit, where the memorial now stands. They were of indifferent quality and, having sprayed a brief and long-range fusillade at Mulgrave’s column as it breasted the ridge to their west, they retired in the opposite direction along the undulating track that linked the various summits of the main ridge. Captain Moncrieff’s advance guard harried their retreat and, without trouble, reoccupied the Pas de la Masque position.

  Having yielded so much ground, the enemy was now in something of a predicament. The length of the ridge being precipitous in the direction of friendly territory, the French troops were denied an easy line of retreat. Slowly increasing in numbers as it collected outposts, the citizen army had to keep falling back, its exposed tail under constant harassing fire. About 1,800 strong, it finally arrived at the locality of La Croix Faron, where there was sufficient flattish ground to make a stand. Without artillery, it formed up to meet Mulgrave’s advance.

  As the conventionnels peered into the gloom to the west they were apprehensive regarding activity to their left, where Elphinstone was launching a feint from Fort Faron with about 500 men.

  Gravina’s column, meanwhile, had advanced below the ridge line, on Mulgrave’s right. Out of sight of the republicans to this point, it now appeared before them ‘à portée de pistolet’ (at pistol range), their volleys raking the French ranks. Assailed seemingly from front and flank, the republicans broke in panic. Their only direction for retreat was to the north-east, down the steep, rocky slope. Only the lack of light prevented a massacre, for as Hood later remarked in his report to the Secretary of the Admiralty: ‘What did not fall by the bullet or the bayonet broke their necks in tumbling headlong over the precipices in their flight.’ Although enemy losses were exaggerated in British reports, the French admitted variously to suffering between 500 and 700 dead. Only seventy-five bodies were recovered from the summit. About sixty were made prisoner.

  Allied casualties amounted to only eleven dead and about seventy wounded, the majority of whom were from the grenadiers, who had performed admirably. One injury, however, was to Gravina, shot in the leg as he led his men. He was wounded badly enough to remove him f
rom active participation in the defence, where his energies, wise advice and ready cooperation were greatly missed. Day-to-day liaison with Mulgrave now devolved on Brigadier Izquierdo, whose very different nature immediately brought about a rift with the British commander, who retreated into aristocratic hauteur.

  AS WITH MANY CAMPAIGNS, before or since, the siege of Toulon brought into near contact young officers still making their mark yet later to become famous. We have already encountered Captain Horatio Nelson of HMS Agamemnon who, because his admiral kept him occupied on detached duties, spent little time at Toulon and who, therefore, probably did not become a direct target for Captain Napoleone Buonaparte, the republicans’ artillery specialist.

  A closer encounter, however, occurred during the battle atop the Faron Ridge. The French republican centre column, which had initially surprised and seized the Pas de la Masque, had been led by Claude-Victor Perrin who, as the Duke of Belluno, would eventually be created one of Napoleon’s trusted Marshals of the Empire. Among those leading the allied charge along the ridge on the later date was the Scot, Thomas Graham of Balgowan, who became colonel of his regiment, the 90th Foot and, eventually, General Graham, Baron Lynedoch, a greatly valued subordinate of Napoleon’s nemesis, the Duke of Wellington.

  BOTH HOOD AND MULGRAVE, in their reports of the action, praised the fighting qualities of the Neapolitans above those of the Sardinians and Piedmontese. The two leaders were also in unison with their adverse opinion of the Spanish, whose troops in general responded poorly to good leadership by their NCOs and some, at least, of their more senior ranks. Neither were the French proving as cooperative as had been hoped, many having unadvertized sympathies other than simply pro-royalist. Overall, weakness in the command structure of the allies and the varying reliability of their troops were making themselves felt.

  During September, when Elphinstone was still consolidating the key position of La Malgue he found, as he complained to Hood, ‘a Committee of Safety in it who meddled in all things, and was so oddly composed that I sent them all out’. He appealed to the admiral to send ‘one or two respectable men who know the character of the national troops, they would be of use to furnish me with the necessary information respecting the description of soldiers I ought to admit into the garrison’.

  Even once appointed as governor, Elphinstone’s authority was on occasion ignored by the French. Two deserters from the Army of Italy had, for instance, arrived with their horses and had promptly been imprisoned by them. Elphinstone was furious, feeling that it would discourage further desertions. He protested that ‘it is customary on such occasions to pay the deserter the value of his horse and accoutrements and to give him all the indulgence consistent with the general idea of prudence and safety’. An interesting sideline on the past customs of war.

  On 30 September, the day before Victor’s republicans had put to flight the Spanish garrison at the centre of the Faron Ridge, Elphinstone had written to Governor Goodall that undisciplined Spanish ‘bandits’ were causing trouble on ‘Pharon’ [sic] and had actually fired cannon at La Malgue. He went on that ‘a Captain Dexter states that the men who work at the Pas de la Masque are spies’. Dexter wanted them changed, a view ‘of which I approve much’. On this same date, Elphinstone also made a first and specific complaint against the sending of orders to forts ‘under my government’, a practice which they had to discontinue ‘for it is impossible for the Commandant to obey them’.

  A fortnight later, an obviously enraged Elphinstone was moved to complain directly to Rear Admiral Gravina, who was still hospitalized with his wound: he began,

  I am much surprised to hear from the Fort Major that Brigadier General Izquierdo came into the garrison where I was and, without taking any notice of me, ordered the troops of His Most Catholic Majesty under arms – he further addressed himself to the Fort Major saying that he was Commander-in-Chief of all the troops and that he had cause to complain of me for having given orders derogatory to the troops of Spain. In the first place, I am Governor of this place and the dependent Forts and am alone answerable for the orders given therein.

  It seems that either Gravina had not made clear to what extent Izquierdo could act in his name or that Elphinstone refused to accept his authority (or, indeed, recognize his seniority), for he went on:

  [I]n the second place I am happy to inform your Excellency that I have never given any order but in common to the troops of all nations in the garrisons, and of which I am sure you will fully approve. I have been led to look up to your Excellency as Commander-in-Chief of the troops and I shall be very sorry to discover that I am wrong …

  Humility spent, Elphinstone’s anger reasserted itself: ‘If in future any officer in this garrison shall presume to complain – excepting in the regular manner – I shall be obliged to put them under arrest and request a Council of War on their conduct…’

  French intelligence reports noted well the undercurrent of antipathy that existed between the British and the Spanish, at best reluctant allies. The Spanish complained, with some reason, at what the French described as ‘la morgue britannique’, i.e. haughtiness, while between the two forces there persisted ‘a continual mistrust’.

  About 1,600 trained Frenchmen were formed into the battalions of the Royal Louis and Royal Provence regiments. The force included, and was complemented by, varying numbers of National Guard but, owing to deep and justified suspicions over the loyalties of many of them, these formations were, where possible, not employed in front-line duties.

  On 5 October a further Neapolitan 74 arrived at Toulon, escorting transports with 2,000 more of their troops. Again, there was a cause for celebration although at lower levels of command confusion was evident. A major with the Spanish army wrote: ‘One does not know who commands, for each pulls in his own direction.’ More descriptively, a Neapolitan stated that ‘between the English, Spanish, Swiss, Piedmontese, Neapolitans and French Royalists, all is in disorder, nothing concerted. If they don’t soon send a military general to this place it will be impossible to recognize in all this [chaos] the hand of God.’

  Municipally speaking, the celebrations attending the proclamation of the king, and the general readoption of the Bourbon flag, had greatly assisted the return to something like normality. The once all-powerful civic officers again went about their proper business, being restyled commissaires municipaux and wearing a white distinguishing sash.

  ‘Thinking it better that they should be sunk or beat to pieces than my own’, Hood had activated several frigates from the French squadron for use against Buonaparte’s proliferating batteries. The French ships of the line remained generally inactive but a further contribution to normality occurred on 8 October when Rear Admiral Trogoff transferred his flag from the frigate that had worn it since the handover to the more appropriate 110-gun Commerce de Marseille.

  IN THE REPUBLICAN CAMP all was not well. General Carteaux was furious at Lapoype’s independent operations and even more so at their subsequent failure. He gave Lapoype’s command to la Barre and denounced the former to the Committee of Public Safety. Matters deteriorated further, however, for Lapoype had retained the confidence of the three représentants attached to his army: these were able to defend him successfully through his previous record and, eventually, to have him reinstated.

  Carteaux’s anger stemmed mainly from the fact that, at the point of his initial success on Mont Faron, Lapoype had scribbled a hasty despatch (reputedly in pencil on the back of an assignat for ten livres), stating without qualification: ‘Les troupes de la république viennent d’enlever la montagne de Faron, les retranchements et les rédoutes.’ (‘The republican troops have just captured the Faron Ridge, its defences and its redoubts.’) Carteaux delightedly informed his représentants, Saliceti and Gasparin who in turn rushed the good news directly to the Convention. It was immediately put into circulation in the official organ, the Moniteur Universel, with the added certainty that the success would lead to the subsequent reduction of the s
trategically important forts of Pomets and Faron. The communique (dated quirkily ‘le 20me jour du 1er mois de l’an 2 de la république’) was signed by both représentants. By the time of its appearance, the success had already been bloodily reversed, and great was the collective embarrassment.

  ENCOURAGED BY EVENTS, Mulgrave determined to take direct military action against the gun batteries that now continuously worried the fortifications that bore his name. To the south of La Seyne village, one was located at Quatre Moulins and two on elevated ground at Reynier.

  On the night of 8/9 October, therefore, a powerful little force sortied from the fort. Commanded overall by the Irish Lieutenant Colonel Edward Nugent, it comprised 300 British troops, led by Captain Brereton, and about fifty each of Spanish, Neapolitans and Piedmontese. En route the column was joined by fifty British marines and a further fifty Piedmontese, all under Lieutenant Walter Serecold, Royal Navy.

  The advance party was accompanied by royalist French, who hailed the battery sentinels. These, apparently easily deceived, were silently killed and the first battery taken at bayonet point. Hotly pursued, the survivors tried to go to ground in the neighbouring works but were flushed out and similarly dealt with.

  Considerable numbers of Carteaux’s troops were in the neighbourhood and these, helped by the difficult terrain, militated against the recovery of the enemy guns. All were therefore spiked, to a reported total of one 4-, one 6-, two 16- and three 24-pounders, together with several 13-inch mortars.

  The raiders then deployed to resist any counter-attack as specialists used the batteries’ own powder to destroy their emplacements and stores. Still unmolested, the column retired to Fort Mulgrave with about two dozen prisoners. A very successful night’s work cost the allies four dead and seven wounded. French accounts again do not agree except to state that between twenty-five and sixty personnel were lost from a total garrison of about 300.