The siege of Toulon (29 August – 19 December 1793) was fought at the French Mediterranean naval base of Toulon during the War of the First Coalition. It began after opponents of the radical Montagnard government, initially associated with the Federalist revolts, surrendered the port, its arsenal and much of the French Mediterranean Fleet to an Anglo-Spanish force. French Royalists soon became dominant within the revolt and proclaimed the imprisoned child Louis XVII king. Britain, Spain, Naples and Sardinia supplied ships and troops to defend the city against the French First Republic. Republican forces under a succession of commanders encircled Toulon. Their decisive operational aim was to seize the heights commanding the inner and outer roadsteads, which would expose the Allied fleet to artillery fire. The young artillery officer Napoleon Bonaparte advocated this approach, assembled guns and crews, and helped direct the batteries. After General Jacques François Dugommier took command, Republican troops captured Fort Mulgrave—the Allied position known to the French as "Little Gibraltar"—during the night of 17–18 December. The loss made the harbour untenable, and the Allies evacuated by sea. British and Spanish parties attempted to destroy the arsenal and the French ships before withdrawing. Eight ships of the line and several smaller vessels were burned, while the Allies removed three ships of the line and several frigates; much of the fleet nevertheless survived and was later repaired. Allied ships also evacuated thousands of French civilians. Republican troops entered Toulon on 19 December. In the repression that followed, representatives on mission Paul Barras and Louis-Marie Stanislas Fréron ordered mass executions of suspected rebels. The victory restored the Republic's principal Mediterranean base and launched Bonaparte's rise: he was promoted to brigadier general on 22 December.
Background
After the arrest of the Girondist deputies on 2 June 1793, there followed a series of insurrections within the French cities of Lyon, Avignon, Nîmes, and Marseille known as Federalist revolts. In Toulon, the Federalists evicted the local chapter of the Jacobins, but were soon supplanted by more numerous French Royalists. Upon the announcement of the French Republic's recapture of Marseille and the Republican reprisals committed there, the commander of the Royalist forces in Toulon, Xavier Lebret d'Imbert, requested support from the First Coalition. On 28 August, a combined Anglo-Spanish fleet under British Admiral Sir Samuel Hood and Spanish Admiral Juan de Lángara arrived at Toulon transporting 13,000 British, Spanish, Neapolitan and Sardinian troops. D'Imbert delivered the port of Toulon to the Allies. Reinforcement ships arrived gradually: the allied forces participating in repelling the French siege included an army, marines, and local French oppositionists. Toulon hoisted the royal flag, the fleur de lys, and d'Imbert declared the eight-year-old Louis XVII the king of France on 1 October. This result produced a potentially mortal situation for the French Republic, as the city had a key naval arsenal and was the base for 26 ships of the line (about one-third of the French Navy's total). Without this port, the French could not hope to challenge the Allies, and specifically the British, for command of the sea. In addition, Toulon's loss would send a dangerous signal to others preparing to revolt against the Republic. Although France had a large army due to its levée en masse, the Republic could not easily rebuild its navy, which had been the third largest in Europe, if the Allies, Royalists and Federalists destroyed or captured much of it. Both the strategic importance of the naval base and the prestige of the Revolution demanded that the French recapture Toulon.
=== From Federalist revolt to Allied occupation === The revolt at Toulon was not initially a unified Royalist conspiracy. Merchants, municipal officials, naval officers and sections of the National Guard opposed the political dominance of Paris and feared both economic collapse and repression by the Montagnards. Their coalition included constitutional monarchists, moderate republicans and committed Royalists. The approach of Carteaux's Republican army and news of reprisals at Marseille radicalized the movement. By accepting Hood's protection and recognizing Louis XVII, the Toulonnais crossed from resistance to the Convention into open alliance with a foreign enemy. Hood issued a proclamation promising to hold Toulon in trust for a future constitutional French monarchy. In practice, authority was divided among local committees, French Royalist officers and the commanders of the British, Spanish, Neapolitan and Sardinian contingents. Britain and Spain shared an interest in defeating the Republic but distrusted one another's intentions toward the French fleet and the Mediterranean balance of power. The troops spoke different languages, used different supply systems and answered to separate governments. This lack of unified command became one of the defence's central weaknesses. The Allies nevertheless inherited a formidable position. Toulon's inner and outer roadsteads were protected by permanent coastal forts, the heights of Mont Faron dominated the city from the north, and the Allied fleet ensured communication by sea. Engineers strengthened existing works and constructed new field fortifications. Yet the perimeter was extensive, and the available Allied troops were insufficient to hold every approach strongly while also maintaining order inside the city.
Siege
I have no words to describe Buonaparte's merit: much technical skill, an equal degree of intelligence, and too much gallantry ... The troops of the army said to be of the "Carmagnoles", under the command of General Jean François Carteaux, arrived at Toulon on 8 September, after those troops had recovered Avignon and Marseille, and then Ollioules. They joined up with the 6,000 men of the Alpine Maritime Army, commanded by General Jean François Cornu de La Poype, who had just taken La Valette-du-Var, and sought to take the forts of Mont Faron, which dominated the city to the East. They were reinforced by 3,000 sailors under the orders of Admiral Jean René César de Saint-Julien de Chabon, who refused to join his defecting superior, Jean-Honoré de Trogoff de Kerlessy. A further 5,000 soldiers under General La Poype were attached to the army to retake Toulon from the Army of Italy.
=== Investment and the artillery plan === Carteaux's western force established itself around Ollioules and La Seyne, while La Poype operated east and north of the city. This arrangement divided the Republican army into widely separated commands. Early attacks were poorly coordinated, and the inexperienced revolutionary battalions lacked siege equipment, trained gunners and an adequate logistical system. The Allies used the respite to enlarge their defensive perimeter. The Chief of Artillery, Elzéar Auguste Cousin de Dommartin, having been wounded at Ollioules, had the young captain Napoleon Bonaparte imposed upon him by the special representatives of the National Convention and Bonaparte's friends—Augustin Robespierre and Antoine Christophe Saliceti. Bonaparte had been in the area escorting a convoy of powder wagons en route to Nice and had stopped in to pay his respects to his fellow Corsican, Saliceti. Bonaparte had been present in the army since the Avignon insurrection (July 1793), and was imposed on Dommartin in this way despite the antipathy between the two men. Bonaparte concentrated artillery from Marseille, Avignon and the Army of Italy, requisitioned draught animals and supplies, recalled experienced gunners and trained infantrymen to serve the expanding siege train. By December the Republicans had assembled more than 100 guns and roughly 1,600 artillery personnel. His correspondence shows persistent frustration with the divided command and the slow adoption of his plan. He asked the Committee of Public Safety to appoint an artillery general with enough authority to coordinate the operation. After some reconnaissance, Bonaparte conceived a plan which envisaged the capture of the forts of l'Éguillette and Balaguier on the hill of Cairo (French: colline du Caire), which would then prevent passage between the small and large harbours of the port, so cutting maritime resupply, necessary for those under siege. Carteaux, reluctant, sent only a weak detachment under Major General Henri François Delaborde, which failed in its attempted conquest on 22 September. The allies, now alerted, built Fort Mulgrave, named in honour of the British commander, Henry Phipps, 1st Earl of Mulgrave, on the summit of the hill. It was supported by three smaller ones, called Saint-Phillipe, Saint-Côme, and Saint-Charles. The apparently impregnable assemblage was nicknamed by the French "Little Gibraltar". Bonaparte was dissatisfied with the first Republican gun positions. He established additional batteries along the western approaches and pressed for an attack on the l'Éguillette–Balaguier promontory. On 1 October, after La Poype failed against the eastern defences of Mont Faron, Bonaparte was also ordered to bombard Fort Malbousquet. Promoted to chef de bataillon on 19 October, he organized the Convention battery on the Arènes heights opposite the fort, supported by batteries at Dumonceau, Gaux and Lagoubran. Bonaparte's plan did not require the immediate storming of Toulon itself. Guns placed on the Cairo heights could command the narrow passage between the inner and outer harbours. Once Republican artillery could reach the anchorage, Hood would have to withdraw the fleet; without naval protection and resupply, the multinational garrison could not remain. This relationship between terrain, artillery range and sea power made Fort Mulgrave the operational centre of the siege.
=== Changes of command and Allied sortie === On 11 November, Carteaux was dismissed and replaced by François Amédée Doppet, formerly a doctor. An attempted attack against Fort Mulgrave on 15 November was abandoned after Doppet's aide-de-camp was killed beside him. Two days later Doppet was replaced by the experienced General Jacques François Dugommier. Dugommier imposed greater discipline, accepted the strategic logic of attacking the harbour heights and coordinated Bonaparte's artillery preparations with the infantry assault plan. New batteries tightened the siege. The Jacobin battery was established on the ridge of l'Evescat on 20 November; the Men Without Fear battery followed on 28 November and the Chasse Coquins battery on 14 December. The Great Harbour and Four Windmills batteries were intended to deter Allied ships from intervening against the attack. Battery names drawn from revolutionary politics advertised the army's republican zeal as well as distinguishing the positions. On 30 November an Allied sortie under Lieutenant-General Charles O'Hara overran the Convention battery. The attackers pursued too far and were driven back by a Republican counterattack led by Dugommier and Bonaparte. O'Hara was wounded and captured. His attempt to negotiate a prisoner exchange came to nothing, but his loss further weakened an already fragmented Allied command.
Final assault
During the night of 17–18 December, in heavy rain, Dugommier launched the general assault. The principal column attacked Fort Mulgrave while La Poype struck the eastern defences. The weather reduced the effectiveness of muskets, and much of the struggle was fought with bayonets and hand weapons. The first Republican troops to enter the works were briefly thrown back before reinforcements overwhelmed the garrison. Bonaparte suffered a bayonet wound in the thigh during the confused close combat. The French then occupied l'Éguillette and Balaguier and brought guns into positions from which they could fire into both roadsteads. La Poype's troops also secured key positions on Mont Faron, preventing the Allies from concentrating for a counterattack. Republican losses were heavy, but possession of the height decided the operation. At a council aboard Victory on 18 December, Hood and the senior Allied officers concluded that the fleet and garrison had to evacuate. The decision was strategic rather than the result of Toulon's walls being breached: the Allied army could still fight, but the fleet could no longer remain safely in the harbour, and the garrison could not survive without naval protection and resupply. Captain Sidney Smith and Spanish naval parties were ordered to destroy the arsenal and as much of the French fleet as possible.
Destruction of the French fleet
Lángara ordered Don Pedro Cotiella to take three ships into the arsenal to destroy the French fleet. Sir Sidney Smith, who had recently arrived, volunteered to accompany him with his ship Swallow and three British ships. Cotiella was tasked with sinking Toulon's hulks; one was a disarmed former British frigate captured during the American Revolutionary War, Montréal, and the other was the French frigate Iris. These ships contained the gunpowder stores for the entire fleet and due to the danger of explosion were anchored in the outer roads, some distance from the city. He was then instructed to enter the Old Arsenal and destroy the ships there. The dock gates had been barred against attack and manned by 800 former galley slaves freed during the retreat. Their sympathies were with the advancing Republicans so to ensure that they did not interfere, Smith kept his guns trained on them throughout the operation. His boats were spotted by the Republican batteries on the heights and cannonballs and shells landed in the arsenal, although none struck Smith's men. As darkness fell Republican troops reached the shoreline and contributed musketry to the fusillade; Smith replied with grapeshot from his boats' guns. At 20:00 Captain Charles Hare brought the fire ship HMS Vulcan into the New Arsenal. Smith halted the ship across the row of anchored French ships of the line, and lit the fuses at 22:00. Hare was badly wounded by an early detonation as he attempted to leave his ship. Simultaneously, fire parties set alight the warehouses and stores ashore, including the mast house and the hemp and timber stores, creating an inferno across the harbour as Vulcan's cannons fired a last salvo at the French positions on the shore. With the fires spreading through the dockyards and New Arsenal, Smith began to withdraw. His force was illuminated by the flames, making an inviting target for the Republican batteries. As his boats passed the Iris, however, the powder ship suddenly and unexpectedly exploded, blasting debris in a wide circle and sinking two of the British boats. On Britannia all of the crew survived, but the blast killed the master and three men on Union. With the New Arsenal in flames, Smith realised that the Old Arsenal appeared intact; only a few small fires marked the Spanish effort to destroy the French ships anchored within. He immediately led Swallow back towards the arsenal but found that Republican soldiers had captured it intact, their heavy musketry driving him back. Instead he turned to two disarmed ships of the line, Héros and Thémistocle, which lay in the inner roads as prison hulks. The French Republican prisoners on board had initially resisted British efforts to burn the ships, but with the evidence of the destruction in the arsenal before them they consented to be safely conveyed to shore as Smith's men set the empty hulls on fire.
Evacuation
With all the available targets on fire or in French hands, Smith withdrew once more, accompanied by dozens of small watercraft packed with Toulonnais refugees and Neapolitan soldiers separated during the retreat. As he passed the second powder hulk, Montréal, she also exploded unexpectedly. Although his force was well within the blast radius, on this occasion none of Smith's men were struck by falling debris and his boats retired to the waiting British fleet without further incident. As Smith's boats had gone about their work Hood had ordered HMS Robust under Captain George Elphinstone and HMS Leviathan under Captain Benjamin Hallowell to evacuate the allied troops from the waterfront. They were joined by HMS Courageux under Captain William Waldegrave, which had been undergoing repairs in the Arsenal to replace a damaged rudder. Despite this handicap, Courageux was able to participate in the evacuation and warp out of the harbour with the replacement rudder following behind, suspended between two ship's boats. The fireship HMS Conflagration, also undergoing repairs, was unable to sail and was destroyed during the evacuation. By the morning of 19 December Elphinstone's squadron had retrieved all of the Allied soldiers from the city without losing a single man. In addition to the soldiery, the British squadron and their boats took on board thousands of French Royalist refugees, who had flocked to the waterfront when it became clear that the city would fall to the Republicans. Robust, the last to leave, carried more than 3,000 civilians from the harbour and another 4,000 were recorded on board Princess Royal out in the roads. In total the British fleet rescued 14,877 Toulonnais from the city; witnesses on board the retreating ships reported scenes of panic on the waterfront as stampeding civilians were crushed or drowned in their haste to escape the advancing Republican soldiers, who fired indiscriminately into the fleeing populace. Contemporary totals for the refugees vary because Allied records counted people at different stages of the evacuation and sometimes combined civilians with soldiers and sailors. At least several thousand civilians escaped, many with little more than they could carry. Families were separated in the darkness, and those unable to obtain places in boats faced Republican reprisals. The refugees were subsequently dispersed among British and Allied ports in the Mediterranean, including Gibraltar, Malta, Naples and areas held by French émigrés.
=== Fate of the fleet and arsenal === The demolition was spectacular but incomplete. Eight French ships of the line and several smaller vessels were destroyed, and three ships of the line—including the large Commerce de Marseille—were taken away by the Allies, along with frigates and smaller craft. Other vessels escaped destruction because the Old Arsenal was not fully burned and Republican troops reached parts of the dockyard before Smith's parties could complete their work. Fifteen surviving ships of the line were damaged to varying degrees but could be repaired. The loss of seasoned officers and seamen was as serious as the material damage. The Revolution had already divided the naval officer corps, and Toulon's defection deepened mutual suspicion between political authorities and naval professionals. Even after repairs, shortages of trained crews and supplies limited the Mediterranean fleet's effectiveness.
Aftermath
=== Suppression === Republican troops entered Toulon on 19 December. Representatives on mission Paul Barras and Stanislas Fréron organized commissions to punish those accused of assisting the revolt. In the first mass executions, several hundred prisoners were shot or killed with bayonets on the Champ de Mars; estimates commonly place the toll of this phase at about 700–800. Later proceedings continued under a revolutionary commission, although the total number killed remains disputed. Bonaparte, who was being treated for his wound by Jean François Hernandez, did not direct the repression. On 24 December the Convention punished Toulon by renaming it Port-la-Montagne, after The Mountain faction, and decreed that its rebellious reputation should be erased. Proposals to demolish much of the city were not fully carried out, and the name Toulon was restored after the Thermidorian Reaction.
=== Strategic consequences === The Republic recovered its principal Mediterranean arsenal, but the evacuation left the dockyard damaged and the fleet temporarily weakened. Allied demolition efforts were incomplete: surviving warships and stores enabled the French to rebuild a Mediterranean squadron during 1794. The thousands of refugees carried away by the Allied fleet formed a Toulonnais émigré community; many faced exile, dispossession or difficult resettlement. The siege also transformed Bonaparte's career. His promotion to brigade general on 22 December 1793 placed him, at the age of 24, among the Republic's senior officers. His success did not result from artillery fire alone: it rested on identifying the harbour approaches as the decisive terrain, assembling a functioning siege train and winning Dugommier's support for a coordinated assault. Toulon therefore became an important part of the later Napoleonic legend, although overall command belonged to Dugommier and the victory depended on infantry, engineers, sailors and artillerymen from several Republican armies. For the First Coalition, Toulon was a missed opportunity rather than a decisive strategic defeat. The occupation temporarily deprived France of its chief Mediterranean base, but the Allies never developed a common political or military policy for using it. Their evacuation preserved most of the multinational garrison and denied some naval resources to France, yet it also demonstrated the limits of coalition warfare when national priorities conflicted.
=== Memory and historiography === Later accounts often describe Toulon as "Napoleon's first victory". The phrase reflects the siege's importance to his career, but can obscure the work of Dugommier, La Poype and thousands of Republican soldiers and sailors. Bonaparte did not command the army; his exceptional contribution was to organize its artillery and consistently identify the Cairo heights as the decisive objective. Dugommier's willingness to unite that plan with a large infantry assault converted the idea into victory. The siege also acquired competing political meanings. Republican prints celebrated the recovery of a city portrayed as treacherous, while British naval art emphasized the burning fleet and successful evacuation. Royalist and émigré memories instead centred on abandonment, exile and the executions that followed. Modern historians consequently treat Toulon as several overlapping events: a Federalist revolt, a Royalist counter-revolution, an Allied amphibious occupation, a major siege and the beginning of Bonaparte's public career.
== Order of battle == Below is the full order of battle of forces involved. Because no centralised command existed for the allies, they are simply designated as the 'Allied Army', however this was neither a field formation, nor a coherent force. The order of battle below is shown for the last part of the siege (from September).
French Republicans
Allied Army
Allied Fleet
== See also == Military career of Napoleon
== Notes and citations == Notes
Citations
== References == Krebs, Chef d'Escadron d'Artillerie, Léonce; Moris, Henri (1891). Compagnes dans Les Alpes pendant La Révolution. Paris.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) Chartrand, René (1999). Men-at-Arms Series: Émigré & Foreign Troops in British Service (Part I, 1793–1802). Botley, Oxfordshire, UK: Osprey Military Publishings. ISBN 978-1472807205. OCLC 1021804719. Forczyk, Robert (2005). Campaign Series: Toulon 1793, Napoleon's first great victory. Botley, Oxfordshire, UK: Osprey Military Publishings. ISBN 978-1846036743. OCLC 646790061. Smith, Digby (1998). The Greenhill Napoleonic wars data book. London; Mechanicsburg, PA: Greenhill Books Stackpole Books. ISBN 978-1-85367-276-7. OCLC 37616149. Smith, Digby (2000). Napoleon's Regiments: Battle Histories of the Regiments of the French Army, 1792–1815. London: Greenhill Books. ISBN 978-1853674136. OCLC 43787649. Duncan, Captain Francis (1873). History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, Volume II. London: John Murray, Albemarle Street. Chandler, David. The Campaigns of Napoleon. Simon & Schuster, 1966. ISBN 0-02-523660-1 Clowes, William Laird (1997) [1899]. The Royal Navy, A History from the Earliest Times to 1900, Volume IV. London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 1-86176-013-2. Ireland, Bernard. The Fall of Toulon: The Last Opportunity to Defeat the French Revolution. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005. ISBN 0-297-84612-4 James, William (2002) [1827]. The Naval History of Great Britain, Volume 1, 1793–1796. London: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-905-0. Rodger, N.A.M. (2004). The Command of the Ocean. Allan Lane. ISBN 0-71399-411-8. Smith, Digby. The Greenhill Napoleonic Wars Data Book. Greenhill Books, 1998. ISBN 1-85367-276-9 Tracy, Nicholas, ed. (1998). The Naval Chronicle, Volume 1, 1793–1798. London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 1-86176-091-4. Usherwood, Stephen. "The Siege of Toulon, 1793." History Today (Jan 1972), Vol. 22 Issue 1, pp 17–24 online.
== External links == Engraved map plate "Siege of Toulon, 19 December 1793" Atlas to Alison's History of Europe, by Alison & Johnston, published by William Blackwood and Sons in 1850. Media related to Siege of Toulon at Wikimedia Commons
