Siege of Toulon

Siege of Toulon, (August 28–December 19, 1793), military engagement of the French Revolutionary Wars, in which the young artillery officer Napoleon Bonaparte won his first military reputation by forcing the withdrawal of the Anglo-Spanish fleet that was occupying the city of Toulon and its forts.

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In the spring of 1793, a string of French military defeats strengthened the extremists within the Revolutionary government. Girondin leaders were driven from the National Convention, and the Montagnards, who had the support of the Paris sansculottes (workers, craftspeople, and shopkeepers), seized power. The Montagnards were bourgeois liberals like the Girondins, but, under pressure from the sansculottes, and, in order to meet the requirements of defense, they adopted a radical economic and social policy. These exceptional measures provoked violent reactions: the Wars of the Vendée, the “federalist” risings in Normandy and in Provence, the revolts of Lyon and Bordeaux, and the insurrection of the Chouans in Brittany.

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French Revolutionary wars Events

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Battle of Valmy

September 20, 1792

Siege of Toulon

August 28, 1793 - December 13, 1793

Battle of the First of June

June 1, 1794

Battle of Fleurus

June 26, 1794

Battle of Marengo

June 14, 1800

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In Toulon, the site of a major French naval base and arsenal, royalist counterrevolutionaries responded by entering into a negotiation with British Vice Adm. Lord Hood. They agreed to surrender the city to Hood on the condition that Hood would preserve the town and its ships for the imprisoned child king Louis XVII and assist them in restoring the constitution of 1791. On August 27–28, 1793, Toulon was handed over to an Anglo-Spanish fleet under the command of Hood and Adm. Juan de Lángara; they took possession of the city and its fortifications in the name of Louis XVII. The British fleet also seized more than 70 French ships, an armada that comprised almost half of the French navy and the bulk of its Mediterranean fleet. Both the strategic importance of the naval base and the prestige of the Revolution demanded that the French recapture Toulon.

The siege of Toulon was commenced by Gen. Jean François Carteaux in early September, and it continued without much vigor during that and the succeeding month. When the commander of the French artillery at Toulon was wounded, Napoleon received the post through the commissioner to the army, Antoine Saliceti, who was a Corsican Montagnard deputy to the National Convention and a friend of Napoleon’s family. Napoleon was promoted to major in September and adjutant general in October. Neapolitan, Spanish, and English troops were brought by sea to assist in the city’s defense. In the beginning of November, Carteaux was removed and given command of the French army in Italy, and Gen. Jacques Dugommier succeeded him in the direction of the siege. Dugommier was quick to recognize Napoleon’s qualities, and the pair began developing a strategy to dislodge the British and their allies from Toulon.

British Gen. Charles O’Hara arrived with reinforcements from Gibraltar and assumed the command of allied forces in the town. On November 30 elements of the garrison sallied out of Toulon in order to destroy some French batteries that were being erected upon heights that commanded the city. The French were surprised, and the attacking force routed the artillery units. Elated with this success, the allied troops rushed onward in pursuit of the enemy and were unexpectedly met by a strong French force that had been brought up by Napoleon. O’Hara now arrived from Toulon in an effort to extract his troops, but he received a wound in the arm and was taken prisoner. (In a quirk of history, O’Hara—who had been delegated by Gen. Charles Cornwallis to oversee the British capitulation at Yorktown in 1781—would have the unfortunate distinction of personally surrendering to both Napoleon and George Washington.) The total loss of the attackers in this engagement was estimated at 1,000 men. Dugommier now mustered a great force around Toulon and prepared to prosecute the attack.

Executing a plan conceived by Napoleon, Revolutionary troops, under cover of an intense bombardment, successfully assaulted the allied-held forts commanding the anchorage on the night of December 16–17. Napoleon himself was bayoneted in the thigh by a British soldier during an attack on the British strongpoint at Fort Mulgrave, but he remained on the field to carry the assault home. By the late afternoon of December 18, a battery of French guns, commanded by Napoleon, was able to open fire on the British fleet. The British and their allies now found it impossible to defend the city and in the course of the day embarked their troops. A scene of confusion ensued, as Toulon’s citizens fought to board any available ships, so as to escape the vengeance of their enraged compatriots. British Capt. Sidney Smith, who had been tasked with destroying the arsenal and scuttling the French ships on the western side of the harbour, suspended his withdrawal until he had extracted as many Toulonnais as could be carried on his ships. The total number of French refugees thus borne away amounted to nearly 15,000. The allies burned 42 French ships, including 8 ships of the line, but a sizable portion of the French Mediterranean fleet was reclaimed and repaired by Revolutionary forces.

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When the Revolutionary troops took possession of the city on December 19, the reprisals carried out against the population were severe. A crowd of Jacobins who had rushed out to welcome the advancing troops were cut down, and a day passed before Dugommier was able to reassert control over his forces. Napoleon was recovering from his wound, which was so severe that it was believed that amputation might be necessary, and was not present for the worst excesses perpetrated by the Revolutionary troops. Within days, several hundred royalists were rounded up and shot or bayoneted.

A cessation of the immediate violence did not spell an end to the retribution against Toulon by the Revolutionary government, however. Bertrand Barère, one of the Revolution’s most feared anti-royalists, proposed that the city be renamed Port-de-la-Montagne and that all of its civilian buildings be razed to their foundations. Some 12,000 labourers were pressed into service from the surrounding countryside to demolish the city. Representatives of the National Convention—led by Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de Barras, Louis Fréron, and Augustin de Robespierre (the younger brother of Maximilien)—convened special tribunals in the weeks following the reconquest of Toulon, and thousands were put to the sword or guillotined. On December 22 Napoleon, aged 24, was promoted to brigadier general in recognition of his decisive part in the capture of Toulon. Augustin de Robespierre, in a dispatch to his brother, praised the “transcendent merit” of the young officer.