The Campaigns of Napoleon

by David G Chandler

  He returned to the French capital at a critical time. In Paris he remet his school friend Bourienne, and together they followed the activities of the Paris mob. The Revolution was fast getting out of hand as trust in Louis XVI’s good intentions evaporated. Buonaparte was a witness of the march on the Tuileries Palace of June 20, occasioned by the King’s dismissal of the Brissotin government. According to Bourienne, Buonaparte was both furious and indignant at the poor showing of resistance by the Royal Guards. “What madness!” he exclaimed loudly. “How could they allow that rabble to enter? Why do they not sweep away four or five hundred of them with the cannon? Then the rest would take themselves off very quickly.”10 Shades of Vendémiaire and “the whiff of grapeshot”!

  A little under two months later he also witnessed the full-scale storming of the Tuileries and ensuing massacre of the Swiss Guard by the mob, and this tragedy increased his contempt for popular violence and weakly led regular troops. In the following weeks he was a disgusted witness of the September massacres as the mob and the Assembly panicked at the steady approach of the Austrian and Prussian forces. Despite all the chaos he eventually left Paris with the confirmed ranks of regular captain of artillery and lieutenant colonel of volunteers (September 17). It clearly paid to be active in one’s own interests during unsettled times.

  Traveling by way of Toulon, he reached Corsica once more on October 15. He found an even more ominous situation than when he had left. Paoli was fast tiring of every aspect of the French connection, and a state of cold war with the French Assembly was already in existence. It is revealing that this development did not find approval with Napoleon, once the most ardent exponent of exclusive Corsican nationalism; the processes of French acclimatization were now clearly almost complete. Not surprisingly perhaps, Paoli received the returned colonel of volunteers coldly, and set out to sabotage his attempts to serve as an effective second in command to Colonel Quenza of the Ajaccio Volunteers. This was frustrating enough, but the months that followed were to prove even more irksome.

  See Part Three for an analysis of these concepts.

  About this time he dropped the aristocratic prefix “di” from his name, no doubt in deference to the equalitarian preoccupations of the government.

  2

  TOULON

  At this stage in Napoleon’s early career we pass from the period of theoretical preparation (consisting as we have seen of study, a little regimental duty, rather more revolutionary activity, and ceaseless intrigue for leave or further promotion) to the period of real military experience.

  Buonaparte’s first experience of active service took place in the early months of 1793—and proved a complete fiasco though through no fault of his own. Sardinia was now the declared enemy of France, and the French Government ordered Paoli to mount a sea-borne attack from Corsica against the town of Cagliari at the southern extremity of the island. This instruction did not please Paoli, and he set himself the task of obstructing the projected operation by every means in his power. However, the arrival of a mob of indisciplined troops from Marseilles destined to share in the expedition soon changed his mind. These soldiers caused so much havoc locally that it seemed to everybody that the sooner they were on their way to Sardinia the better for Corsica. And so, early in 1793, the expedition set sail for Cagliari, where, needless to relate, it met with a bloody and thoroughly deserved repulse.

  Meanwhile, to cover this main attack, a secondary expedition—consisting of 150 regular soldiers, 450 volunteers of Quenza’s battalion and four guns, conveyed in sixteen small vessels escorted by a single corvette—was sent on a diversionary raid against La Maddalena at the opposite end of Sardinia. This force was under the overall command of Colonel Colonna-Cesari (Paoli’s nephew), and Buonaparte served as a member of the expedition. It got off to a bad start by running straight into a heavy gale which forced the shipping to return to harbor, but at last on February 22 the expedition sighted its objective and anchored off the western end of the channel between La Maddalena and the neighboring island of Santo Stefano. After immense confusion, the troops swarmed ashore onto the latter on February 23, and by nightfall they had succeeded in capturing a small fort, while Lieutenant Colonel Buonaparte, reverting to his true role as a gunner, set to work to establish a small battery of two cannon and a single mortar within range of La Maddalena.

  Throughout the 24th a steady, if not very heavy, bombardment was maintained against the town, and Colonna-Cesari decreed there should be a full-scale assault on the morrow. In the event, however, this never materialized. In the musical-comedy atmosphere which permeated the entire undertaking against Sardinia, the French crew of the naval corvette mutinied overnight—or so Colonna-Cesari later asserted—and insisted on sailing off with the protesting expedition commander and his headquarters staff for Ajaccio. Before weighing anchor, however, the sailors thoughtfully permitted the Colonel to send a message ashore to Colonel Quenza ordering the abandonment of all operations and the re-embarkation of the troops.

  Quenza spent the whole day of the 25 th busily re-embarking the men, but nobody thought to inform Lieutenant Colonel Buonaparte and his isolated battery of three guns of what was afoot. Accordingly it was only late in the evening that he learned of the proceeding evacuation, by which time most of the expedition was snugly on board ship and on its way back to Corsica. This left Buonaparte in a considerable quandary and no little danger, but with typical grit and determination he compelled his sweating and swearing gunners to manhandle their pieces across the island to the embarkation place. This gallant attempt to save his guns was all to no avail, however; for by the time they reached the beach there were insufficient ships to take the cannon, while the emboldened Sardinian garrison of La Maddalena was showing distinct signs of life. And so Buonaparte was forced to spike and abandon the guns he had done so much to preserve.

  Not surprisingly, when Buonaparte again set foot on Corsican soil late on February 26, he was in a towering rage. He made no secret of his belief that Colonna-Cesari’s explanation of events was a fabrication and that the commander of the expedition had been acting on Paoli’s secret instructions with a view to deliberately wrecking the attack. He lost no time in communicating these forthright views to the Convention in Paris—an act that hardly endeared him to the Paolist party. Clearly Buonaparte’s ties with his former hero were becoming more and more fragile, but at least he learned from the abortive operation the practical difficulties of disembarking troops on a hostile shore and the problems of a shared interservice command. These lessons were to remain engraved on his memory for life, and it is quite possible that his unfortunate memories of La Maddalena reinforced his decision to call off the invasion of England in July 1805.

  Very soon relations between Paoli and the French government reached the breaking point. On February 5 the Convention dispatched three special Commissioners to investigate the situation in Corsica. Pleading old age and infirmity, Paoli craftily evaded meeting these representatives of a government he now regarded as wholly alien and withdrew instead to a mountain fastness accompanied by his henchmen. After two months of fruitless attempts to get in direct touch with Paoli, the Commissioners, including the Corsican Saliceti, reached the town of San Fiorenzo where new attempts to open negotiation were made. Throughout this period Buonaparte was wholly identified with the Convention’s Commission, and in due course he was entrusted with the task of making a military survey of the ports of Corsica. So things stood until another member of the Buonaparte family took a hand in affairs. Lucien, from the comparative safety of Toulon, saw fit to make a public denunciation of Paoli as a counterrevolutionary in a forthright speech at the Republican Club. This rash statement had two immediate effects. In the first place it forced Paoli to clarify his position vis-à-vis the French connection once and for all, and not surprisingly he came down on the side of Corsican independence. Secondly, it made it impossible for the Buonaparte family to remain living on the island. A serious revolt sprang up in a very few days
: French officials were attacked in the open, and Captain Buonaparte had several close shaves in brushes with patriots during the month of May. It was made abundantly clear that he and his family were personae non gratae to the Paolist party, and after a dangerous journey from Ajaccio to Calvi, whence he embarked with his mother and younger brothers and sisters on June 10, 1793, Napoleon at length landed with his family and their personal effects at Toulon. Shortly afterward they were all settled at the village of Levalette near Marseilles.

  It was a major turning-point in Napoleon’s life; he was finally severing all ties with the land of his birth (soon to be delivered into British hands by Paoli), which had taken so prominent a place in his thoughts from earliest youth and so large a share of his energies as a young man. Henceforward, all his ambitions and dreams were to be centered on France and her armies. To date Corsica had been something of a distraction for his talents, but now there was no further question of his energies being dissipated in an unfruitful direction. He was to return only once more to the land of his birth, and then not by choice: returning from Egypt in October 1799, he was stormbound for a week in Corsica.

  Once he had seen his family settled into their new home, Buonaparte returned to his unit (now renamed the 4th Artillery Regiment in compliance with the dictates of the Convention which disliked the old ci-devant titles). At the same time he sent off his report on the ports of Corsica to the Convention. This document is of importance for two reasons. Firstly, it stressed the advantage that the French Government could derive from the establishment of a large naval base on the island to command the western Mediterranean. San Fiorenzo, being the nearest port geographically to Toulon, was the suggested site. Although this proposal was never taken up, it demonstrates Buonaparte’s grasp of at least some of the principles of maritime strategy, for Nelson came to exactly the same conclusions a year or two later. Secondly, in a separate paper adjoined to the report, he suggested a scheme for the defense of Ajaccio against enemy attack from the sea. The harbor of Ajaccio comprises two anchorages (see inset on Map 1); the outer of these consists of a deep-water bay some 2,200 yards across at its mouth, with a pronounced promontory on each side, the western being dominated by the town and citadel of Ajaccio, the eastern by Monte Aspreto; further in was the smaller and shallower Port del Campo dell’Oro. To defend the harbor from any hostile naval penetration, Buonaparte recommended the construction of two batteries below Aspreto Hill, one to command each anchorage, with a large earthwork crowning the hill behind them for protection from landward attack; the cannon thus sited would be able to sweep the entrance—together with the guns of Ajaccio citadel on the other side—with a heavy crossfire. Any comparison of the maps of Ajaccio and Toulon will reveal a marked topographical resemblance between the two ports and their harbor arrangements. This fact was to be a feature of no little importance in the unfolding drama before Toulon five months later. From a close study of the defensive requirements of his hometown, Napoleon unconsciously discovered the key to the defenses of Toulon. The Hill of Aspreto and Point l’Eguilette carry out precisely the same dominating function for their respective anchorages: whether in the hands of the defenders or the attackers, they controlled the waters of the bays.

  The siege of Toulon, 1793

  A little later in the year Captain Buonaparte was sent off to Avignon to collect a powder convoy destined for the Army of Italy. His journey coincided with the Revolt of the Midi, the most serious challenge yet encountered by the French Republic, and as things turned out the Army of Italy had to wait for this particular consignment of gunpowder for some little time.

  The causes of the revolt went back to the early days of the Revolution; the loyally Catholic local population of the south did not approve of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, nor of the abrupt levy of 300,000 troops by conscription for the defense of la Patrie from invasion on the whim of a distant but interfering Parisian government. But the final straw was the repressive legislation of May 31 and June 2, 1793. These ruthless acts of the new dictatorial Jacobin government, so evidently a breach of the principles of Liberté and Egalité, caused Marseilles to flame into immediate rebellion. Avignon followed suit, and it was common knowledge that the citizens of Toulon were contemplating similar action. In some alarm, the Député-en-Mission at Lyons, Dubois-Crancé, ordered the immediate concentration of some 3,000 troops at Valence, and gave the command to one Colonel Carteaux, an erstwhile painter and policeman. By July 6 the Marseillais had occupied Avignon, and Captain Buonaparte lost no time in hurrying to offer his services to Carteaux. His offer was accepted, and Buonaparte accordingly took part in the chaotic action at Avignon which by default ended in a nominal success for the forces of the Republic (although in Le Souper de Beaucaire the author is at some pains to represent this near-fiasco as a considerable martial achievement).

  After a pause to regroup his forces, Carteaux moved on Marseilles, and the city duly fell to his arms and propaganda on August 25. As operations now seemed virtually complete, Captain Buonaparte requested permission to proceed to Avignon and fulfil his neglected duty as a convoy master, and was forthwith struck off the strength of Carteaux’s army—although it was destined to be but a brief separation.

  Then, on the night of August 27-28, Toulon raised the standard of revolt and admitted an Anglo-Spanish fleet. This was a most serious matter for Republican France; Toulon was not only the most important naval arsenal of the country, it was also the key to French control of the Mediterranean, and its loss through treachery represented a most damaging blow to the Republic’s reputation, both at home and abroad. If Toulon was not regained, there was no knowing where the contagion of revolt—already flaming brightly in La Vendée—might next spread. In other words, Toulon could be regarded as a test case; nothing less than the survival of the Revolution was at stake.

  The French Government lost little time in taking such immediate countermeasures as lay in its power. Carteaux’s strength was brought up to 12,000 men, and a further 5,000 under General Lapoype were detached from the Army of Italy. At the beginning there were hardly 4,000 Allied troops (British and Spaniards mainly) manning the defenses of Toulon, but this figure rapidly rose to 8,000 and eventually to 15,000 as new convoys of shipping brought reinforcements into the port. By the end of the first week in September, Lapoype had reached the eastern landward approaches to Toulon and successfully occupied Hyères and Sollies. Meanwhile Carteaux (accompanied by the Représentants du Peuple Saliceti, Gasparin and Barras) was steadily approaching from the opposite point of the compass, pushing back various outposts of the Toulon garrison as he came. In one such scuffle at the village of Ollioules on the 7th, Captain Dommartin, commander of the artillery attached to Carteaux’s army, received a serious wound.

  Dommartin’s incapacitation meant that Carteaux was faced with the prospect of conducting a vital siege without the services of any experienced regular artillery officer. Although the cannon attached to the army were not impressive in number—consisting of two 24-pounders, two 6-pounders, a couple of mortars and a handful of smaller field guns, scantily provided with ammunition and equipment (five batteries in all)—this was not an encouraging development. Nevertheless, in the days that followed the Revolutionary Army (or perhaps we should say “armies,” for the divisions of Carteaux and Lapoype continued to operate completely independently), perhaps numbering 15,000 men at this juncture, proceeded to isolate the city of Toulon and its string of protective forts.

  A contemporary map of Toulon, showing its defences

  Abruptly, on September 16, fate took a hand. Captain Buonaparte, escorting his slow-moving convoy of powder wagons along the road from Marseilles to Nice, dropped off en route to pay his respects to his Corsican friend Saliceti at Beausset. He had earlier ascertained that Carteaux’s headquarters were situated in the village. A few hours later he found himself appointed to command Carteaux’s artillery. Saliceti, no doubt mindful of his compatriot’s sterling services in Corsica and of the valuable imp
act of Le Souper de Beaucaire, felt certain he had found the right man for the task. And, using the great powers invested in the Députés-en-Mission—which transcended even those of the commander in chief—he nominated Buonaparte to fill Dommartin’s vacancy on the spot.

  The appointment was certainly to our hero’s liking, but he proved no easy subordinate. From the very beginning he appreciated the steps that should be taken. He was probably the first to realize that French possession of the promontory dominated by Mount Caire and ending in Point l’Eguillette would compel the Allied fleet to evacuate the Petite Rade and the quay sides of Toulon; the path to victory lay in isolating Toulon from the seaward as well as the landward sides. Carteaux and Lapoype had other ideas, and no doubt they soon became heartily sick of the young “know-it-all” planted in their midst. However, they could not entirely ignore his advice. For one thing, he obviously knew more about siege warfare than they did (though this realization must have rankled sorely); for another, he enjoyed the almost unlimited support of the all-powerful Députés, and no general could afford to forget that these formidable civilian experts literally held the power of life and death over even the most senior commanders.