TOULON

Delay leads impotent and snail-paced beggary:
Then fiery expedition be my wing,
Jove's Mercury, and herald for a King.
—Shakespeare, King RichardIII, act iv, sc. 3.

The enterprise destined to develop into the occupation of Toulon arose out of the negotiations for alliance with Austria, Sardinia, and Naples. By the first of these England pledged herself to send a considerable fleet into the Mediterranean, as an effective help to the military operations then going on in the Maritime Alps and the Genoese Riviera. Indeed, the Court of Vienna made this almost a sine qu non of its alliance. On its side the British Government gained assurances of military aid from Sardinia and Naples, the former of those States agreeing to furnish 20,000 troops in return for the annual subsidy of £200,000.

Here, then, were the foundations of a Mediterranean policy on which Pitt and his colleagues began to build in the years 1793–4, with the singular and unforeseen results at Toulon and in Corsica. Everything favoured some such design. The French marine was enfeebled by mutiny, and, as the spring of 1793 merged into summer, there came ominous signs of revolt in the South against the Jacobin faction supreme at Paris. Accordingly Grenville urged the Hapsburg Court, in return for British help in Flanders, to assist an expedition of the Allies to the coast of Provence. The conduct of the Austrian Chancellor, Thugut, was characteristic. Far from strengthening the Imperial forces in Italy, he prepared to withdraw some of them for the Rhenish campaign, now that a British fleet spread its covering wings over the Kingdom of Sardinia.[238]

Nevertheless the British Ministers persevered with their scheme; but whether they at first aimed at Corsica or Toulon is uncertain.[239] Certain it is that Pitt on 19th July proposed to detach three line regiments from the Duke of York's force in Flanders and send them to the Mediterranean along with one brigade of the Hessian corps and a body of WÜrtembergers. He pointed out that the naval superiority of Hood and the Spanish fleet in that sea would enable us to strike a telling blow at Provence if we were helped by Sardinians, Neapolitans, and Austrians from the Milanese. He admitted the strength of the arguments in favour of our land forces acting together on one point; but he added: "What I now mention seems to offer a fair chance of doing something material in the South [of France], and, if we distress the enemy on more sides than one, while their internal distraction continues, it seems hardly possible that they can long oppose any effectual resistance."[240]

Pitt wrote thus at the time when Mainz and Valenciennes were on the point of surrender, and the Bretons, together with nearly the whole of the South of France, were in open revolt against the regicide Republic. Equally characteristic of his sanguine temperament is his Memorandum of 23rd August 1793 as to the allied forces which ought to be available for service against France in June 1794, namely, 30,000 in Flanders, while 50,000 marched thence on Paris; 50,000 to attack Brest, and as many more to attack Toulon.[241]

It so chanced that on that very day the ardour of the ProvenÇaux brought about a very different situation. The arrival of Hood's fleet encouraged the moderates to send two Commissioners, representing the two coast Departments, to seek help from the British fleet. Thereupon on his flagship, the "Victory," Hood drew up a public Declaration that, if the ships-of-war in Toulon and Marseilles were unrigged and the French Royal standard hoisted, he would take those cities under his protection, respect private property and, on the conclusion of peace, restore the warships to the French monarchy. He then sent to a Spanish squadron, under Langara, cruising off the coast of Roussillon, with a request for help. That officer soon had the promise of 2,000 Spanish troops, to be detached from the army invading that province. The Jacobin forces under Carteaux having crushed the moderates in Marseilles, Hood made for Toulon, though as yet the Spanish ships were not in sight. He cast anchor in the outer roadstead on 27th August, and landed 1,500 men near Fort Lamalgue, east of the town. In the afternoon fifteen Spanish ships arrived, and on the next day landed 1,000 men. On the 28th Hood also issued a proclamation to the effect that he would hold Toulon in trust only for LouisXVII until peace should be restored to France.[242] To this the Toulonese assented; the opposition of some of their sailors and troops soon collapsed; and a detachment of Carteaux' force was easily dislodged from a strong position near Ollioules, north-west of the town (31st August). Toulon therefore seemed a sure gain for the royalist cause.

Yet Pitt and his colleagues were careful not to identify themselves with that cause. Hood, having implied in his Toulon proclamation that one of the objects of Great Britain was the restoration of the French monarchy, Ministers warned him that "the true ground of the war was to repel an unjust and unprovoked aggression against His Majesty, and his Allies, and the rest of Europe, which had been evidently threatened and endangered by the conduct of France." True, in the course of the struggle England had supported the French Royalists, and might find it prudent, especially in view of the events at Toulon, to assist in restoring monarchy. "But," adds Lord Chatham, "it is to be considered as arising out of the circumstances and founded on the considerations which I have stated, and not as making part of the object for which His Majesty originally took up arms."[243] This gentle rebuke to Hood (an impetuous and opinionated officer), clearly shows the attitude of the Cabinet towards that problem. For Great Britain the re-establishment of monarchy was not an affair of principle, but solely of expediency. It is also noteworthy that the inhabitants of Toulon retained the tricolour flag, thus signifying their adhesion to constitutional royalism as established in 1791.

The fortunes of the Republic now appeared desperate; and the Allies would certainly have triumphed had they put forth a tithe of the energy developed by the Jacobins at Paris. With ordinarily good management on the part of Austria, Sardinia, and Naples, Toulon might have become the centre of a great royalist movement in the South. That was certainly the expectation of Pitt; and Langara, the Spanish admiral at Toulon, expressed to his Government the hope that the war would soon end with honour.[244]

No one at first realized the difficulties of the enterprise. The ramparts of Toulon were extensive; and the outlying forts, from Lamalgue on the east to Mount Faron on the north, and the works on the west and south-west, spread over a circumference of fully fifteen miles. Then again the French royalist committee in Toulon was somewhat suspicious of the Allies. In truth a blight seemed to settle on the royalist cause when it handed over to foreigners one of the cherished citadels of France. Loyalty to LouisXVII now spelt treason to the nation. The crisis is interesting because it set sharply against one another the principles of monarchy and nationality; and the sequel proved that the national idea, though still far from mature even in France, had more potency than royalism. A keen-sighted observer had very forcibly warned the Marseillais against delivering their city into the hands of the Spaniards, a crime which must ruin their efforts. Such was the judgement of Bonaparte in that curious pamphlet "Le Souper de Beaucaire."

Other invisible agencies, those of time and space, told against the Allies. Despatches sent by Hood were at least eleven days in reaching their destination, and often far longer. Consequently, the plans framed at home were always belated. The first tidings (received on 7th September) found the Cabinet half committed to another enterprise, that in the West Indies, which Pitt very reluctantly postponed owing to the drain of troops to Flanders and Toulon. A further disadvantage was that disputes between the British and Spanish commanders at Toulon were known at Whitehall long after they had come to a head; and the final reports of the sore straits of the garrison led to the despatch to Cork of orders for the sailing of reinforcements five days after the evacuation began at Toulon.

In these brisk and giddy-paced times it is difficult to realize the difficulties which then beset British commanders warring in the Mediterranean against an enemy who could send news to Paris in three days. Now the telegraph has annihilated space; but then, as in the campaigns of FrancisI against CharlesV, the compactness of France and her central position told enormously in her favour. The defence of Toulon was practicable, provided that adequate reinforcements arrived in time. As will soon appear, Pitt urged the despatch of strong reinforcements from Ireland; and, but for delays due to the want of transports, things might have gone very differently at Toulon. He also expected Austria to send succours if only as a means of protecting her Italian possessions. In truth, if the Hapsburgs had discerned the signs of the times, they would have taken steps to defend the Milanese at Toulon. They were destined to rue their folly.

Further, on 14th September, despite bad news from Dunkirk, Dundas issued orders that 4,000 Hessians, serving under the Duke of York, must be withdrawn in order to strengthen the garrison at Toulon, their place being taken by others hired at Cassel. On 28th September Dundas added that the artillery sent for Dunkirk would be withdrawn from Flanders as it was urgently needed at Toulon. Thus these two expeditions competed together, and produced a dislocation of plans and ordering of troops to and fro, which told against success in either quarter. By 27th October Ministers definitely decided that Toulon, or la VendÉe, was a better fulcrum for their scanty forces than Flanders.[245] Even so, with all these dislocations of the Flemish plans, Pitt and Dundas relied too much upon Austria; and all too late found out that she was a broken reed. The Sardinians, also, lacking due support from the Court of Vienna, were afraid to denude their borders and therefore sent an inadequate contingent, despite the fact that they had promised to place 20,000 troops at the disposal of England free from all expense.

Far different was the procedure of the French. Carnot determined to retake Lyons and Toulon, even if the efforts against Spain and Sardinia had to be relaxed. Further, on the 16th of September there arrived at the Republican army west of Toulon the incarnation of warlike energy and skill. At the bidding of the Commissioners of the Convention, Napoleon Bonaparte had come from the arsenal at Marseilles to assist the few artillerymen then before Toulon. On the 17th he was placed in command of their insignificant siege artillery, and forthwith from the slopes two miles west of the town he opened fire on the nearest ships. It is incorrect to claim for him the origination of the plan of sinking the fleet by a fire from the height behind l'Eguilette; for three days earlier the Commissioners of the Convention had written that they would secure a position whence the allied fleet could be sunk by red-hot cannon-balls; and there was no point but the high ground behind Fort l'Eguilette which dominated both the inner and the outer harbours.[246] But it may freely be granted that Bonaparte clinched the arguments in favour of this course and brought to bear on it that masterful energy which assures triumph. It was the first occasion on which he crossed the path of Pitt; and here, as always, he had the advantage of a central position, and of wielding a compact and homogeneous force against discordant Allies.

The worst difficulty confronting the defenders of Toulon remains to be noted. There the Sea Power is at the mercy of the Land Power. To attempt to defend that city at the head of its land-locked harbour, dominated by promontories, was to court disaster unless the fleet had an army to protect it. In such a case a fleet is a source of danger rather than of safety. Its true function is to act where it can, either directly or indirectly, command the land. It operates with most effect against low and exposed coasts. St. Jean d'Acre affords, perhaps, the best example of a town at the mercy of a fleet. Portsmouth, Sydney, Brest, and Toulon cannot be held by an enemy unless he brings forces sufficient to hold the neighbouring heights. In occupying Toulon, the Sea Power was virtually putting its head into the lion's jaw. Only by degrees did the authorities at home understand this all-important fact. For some time it was veiled from Pitt; and, as we shall see, the Austrian Chancellor, Thugut, never did understand it. To those who were on the spot, the need of occupying the promontory behind l'Eguilette was apparent; and on 21st September Lord Mulgrave and Rear-Admiral Gravina led a force to seize the very height on which Bonaparte's will had already fastened. The Allies crowned it with a temporary work dignified by the name of Fort Mulgrave. The fortunes of Toulon turned on the possession of all the heights commanding the harbour, but especially of this one.

Even before the arrival of Bonaparte the difficulties of defence were very great. A British naval officer wrote on the 14th to Lord St. Helens, British ambassador at Madrid, that the situation of the little garrison was very critical owing to daily attacks from the 5,000 French at Ollioules and the same number on the eastern side. The Allies, he added, could not wholly trust the French royalists serving with them, and they were glad to send away on four French sail-of-the-line some 6,000 French sailors who had bargained to be landed on the Biscay coast. Having only 1,570 British and 3,460 Spaniards, they could scarcely man the ramparts and forts, several of which, especially those on Mount Faron, were not nearly ready. The houses of the town were far too near to the ramparts; but the Allies dared not demolish them until reinforcements arrived. Fortunately the Spanish Admiral, Gravina, was alert, intelligent, and trustworthy; and Piedmontese were known to be advancing over the Maritime Alps into the county of Nice. Part of Hood's fleet was engaged in intercepting the supplies and stores destined for the Republicans.[247]

The letter brings out vividly the perils of the garrison, which must have evacuated Toulon had not reinforcements speedily arrived. On 26th September Hood wrote that the Allies were kept in perpetual alarm by the French batteries, which must be kept under at all risks, until more troops arrived.[248] Fortunately the foresight of Pitt and Grenville had provided the means of backing up operations in the Mediterranean. Apart from the treaty with Sardinia, there was a compact with Naples, whereby that Court promised a force of 6,000 men and 12 warships, the naval expenses being borne by England.[249] By 5th October 1,350 Sardinian and 4,000 Neapolitan troops arrived, thus enabling the garrison to hold up against the ever increasing forces of the Republicans. On the other hand, the fall of Lyons on 9th October set free large numbers who were available for service at Toulon. Consequently the troops and seamen of the Allies were persistently overworked, so that Hood was constrained to hire 1,500 Maltese seamen, to take the place of those serving the batteries. At first only 750 British troops could be spared from Gibraltar; but by the end of October, when further help was at hand, the allied forces (rank and file) stood as follows:

British	2,114
French Royalists	1,542
Spaniards	6,840
Neapolitans	4,832
Sardinians	1,584
	———
	16,912

So exacting was the service, and so unhealthy the season (it cost Bonaparte a sharp attack of malarial fever), that the number fit for duty did not exceed 12,000.

It is interesting to compare these figures with the estimate of Pitt which is in the Pitt MSS. (No. 196).

Pitt, then, regarded Toulon as the base of operations in the South of France so extensive as to deal a decisive blow at the Republic. The scheme was surely due to the influence of Bacchus rather than of Mars. For how was it possible to spare 6,200 men from the Duke of York's force, then hard pressed after its retreat from Dunkirk? The estimate of the Sardinian contingent was based on the treaty obligations of that Power rather than on probable performance; while that for the Spaniards is strangely beneath the mark. How boyishly hopeful also to suppose that the British forces destined for the future conquest of Corsica could spare a contingent for service in Provence in the spring of 1794, and that the nervous little Court of Turin would send an additional body of 11,000 men far into France. Thus early in Pitt's strategic combinations we can detect the vitiating flaw. He did not know men, and therefore he did not know Cabinets. He believed them to be acting according to his own high standard of public duty and magnanimous endeavour. Consequently he never allowed for the calculating meanness which shifted the burdens on to other shoulders.

The one factor on which he had a right to count was the despatch of a respectable force of Austrians from the Milanese by way of Genoa. The Austrian Governor of Milan promised to send 5,000 men; but not a man ever stirred.[251] Hood did not hear this disappointing news till 24th November.[252] He at once sent off to London an urgent request for succour; and orders were given on 23rd December (the day after the arrival of the news) for three regiments to sail from Cork for his relief. Thus it came about that 12,000 Allies were left unsupported at Toulon to bear the brunt of attacks of some 40,000 Frenchmen now directed by a genius. O'Hara, who took over the command on his arrival on 27th October, at once gave a verdict consonant with his pessimistic character. Hood wrote on the morrow to Dundas: "General O'Hara has just been with me and alarmed me much. He says our posts are not tenable and that we are in a dangerous situation for lack of troops that can be relied upon. And, what is very unpleasant, is the conduct of the Spaniards, who are striving for power here." On 11th November O'Hara reported that, in the absence of engineer officers, the forts had been injudiciously constructed; that their garrisons began to suffer from exposure to the bleak weather; that the broken and wooded country greatly favoured the advance of the enemy, and hampered all efforts to dislodge him; that the Spaniards and Sardinians had no artillery, tools, or camp equipments; and that the only means of securing Toulon was to have an army capable of taking the field.[253] Hood and he therefore counted the hours for the arrival of 5,000 Austrians from Genoa, and of troops from England.

The difficulties of the Allies were enhanced by the disputes which soon arose between the British and Spaniards as to the command of the garrison. The tactful Gravina having been badly wounded in driving the French from Mount Faron, Langara put in a claim that his successor should be commander-in-chief of the allied forces (23rd October). To this Hood stoutly demurred, on the ground that he received Toulon in trust before the Spaniards appeared; and, though it was true that the Spanish troops outnumbered the British, yet the command of the Neapolitan and Sardinian contingents belonged of right to the subsidizing Power. He therefore claimed the supreme command for General O'Hara. This matter caused much annoyance at Madrid, where that rankling sore, Nootka Sound, was still kept open by the all-powerful Minister, Alcudia. Hood's testiness increased the friction at Toulon. The Spaniards were justified in claiming equality at that fortress; for only by their arrival did the position become tenable; and the joint proclamations of Hood and Langara formed a tacit admission of that equality. But Pitt early resolved to take a firm stand on this subject. On 17th October, in discussing the instructions for Sir Gilbert Elliot, the British Commissioner designated for Toulon, he declared that we must appoint him governor of that town in consequence of its surrender to us.[254]

Pitt kept up this stiff attitude, and on 30th November stated to St. Helens that, as Toulon surrendered to Hood alone (Langara having declined to share in the original enterprise) England must appoint the commander-in-chief, especially as she could not transfer to a Spaniard the command of her subsidized Allies. The despatch concluded thus: "His Majesty has in no case any view upon that place different from that which has been avowed in his name—that at the conclusion of peace that port should be restored to the crown of France and that in the interval it should serve in His Majesty's hands as a means of carrying on the war and as a pledge of indemnity to him and his Allies, including the Crown of Spain, whose claim to indemnity His Majesty has so distinctly avowed."[255]

These words were added because the French Royalists and the Spaniards asserted that England's high-handed conduct at Toulon arose from her resolve to make of it a second Gibraltar. The insinuation struck home then, and has been widely repeated.[256] But, on the first receipt of the news of the gain of Toulon, Grenville declared explicitly to the Austrian Court "that whatever indemnification is to be acquired by this country must be looked for in the foreign settlements and colonies of France."[257] As we shall see in later chapters, Corsica and the French West Indies were the acquisitions aimed at by the Pitt Ministry.

Some colour was given to this charge by the refusal of the British Government to allow the Comte de Provence, the soi-disant Regent of France, to proceed to Toulon. Grenville even instructed Francis Drake, our envoy at Genoa, to prevent him embarking at that port. At first sight this conduct seems indefensible, especially as the Court of Madrid favoured the Prince's scheme. It must be remembered, however, that the British Government had consistently refused to acknowledge the Prince as Regent, and was now exceedingly annoyed with him for announcing his resolve to go to Toulon, without first applying for permission to GeorgeIII.[258] This violation of etiquette prejudiced his case from the outset. Further, the Royalists of Toulon had declared for LouisXVII, and a majority of them throughout France opposed the claim of "Monsieur" to the Regency. The constitution of 1791 gave him no such right on his own initiative; and, as Toulon stood for that constitution, not for the "pure" royalism which he now championed, his arrival would place the garrison "at the discretion of wild and hot-headed emigrants and expose them to the reproaches and discontents of the Regent's Court."[259] Besides, what could the Regent of France do in Toulon, a town closely besieged and in danger of being taken? His dignity and influence would be far better maintained by remaining at large than by proceeding thither.[260]

Finally, the two princes had given no assurance or promise that they would recognize the claims of the Allies to indemnities from France for the expenses of the war.[261] On this last matter the ÉmigrÉs were beginning to raise shrill protests at London; and it was certainly wise to come to some understanding with the princes on this point before they were put in possession of Provence. Pitt and Grenville were not made of the same stuff as the Ministers in power in 1815, who demanded no return for the sacrifices of blood and treasure in the Waterloo campaign. None the less, it is certain that Pitt and his cousin had no thought of keeping either Dunkirk or Toulon, save as a pledge for the acquisition of some of the French West Indies and Corsica.[262] This was hinted at plainly in the British Declaration issued at Toulon on 20th November:

After this explicit statement, there ought to have been no bickerings about British aggrandisement at Toulon. Some of the hot-heads in that town (echoed by Fox later on at Westminster) chose to consider the Declaration as an infraction of Hood's promise that he would hold Toulon merely in trust for LouisXVII. The difference, however was not vital. Pitt and Grenville intended to hold Toulon merely as a pledge that the British claims to an indemnity elsewhere would be satisfied. Spain had most cause for annoyance with the Declaration, inasmuch as she, though having a superior number of troops in that town, was neither allowed to consider it as a pledge for her future indemnities, nor to share in its government. It was confided to three Commissioners—Sir Gilbert Elliot, Hood, and O'Hara, Elliot being virtually Governor.

In one other matter the Courts of St. James and of Madrid were at variance. The latter urged the need of speedily removing the French warships from Toulon to a Spanish port, or of making preparations for burning them. Whereas Pitt, who regarded Toulon, not as a windfall, but as a base of operations for a campaign in Provence, maintained that such conduct must blight their prospects. With phenomenal stupidity, Langara allowed his secret instructions on this topic to leak out, thereby rousing the rage of the Toulonese and the contempt of his British colleagues. The Duke of Alcudia (better known as Godoy) expressed sincere regret for this bÊtise. But the mischief was done. The French royalists thenceforth figured as traitors who had let in a band of thieves intent only on the seizure of the French warships.

As if this were not enough, Hood quarrelled with our military officers, with results highly exasperating to our land forces.[263] These last did not shine during the siege. True, in the sortie of 29th November they captured a battery recently erected north of Malbosquet; but, their eagerness exceeding their discipline, they rushed on, despite orders to remain in the battery, like a pack of hounds after a fox (wrote Hood);[264] whereupon the French rushed upon them, driving them back with heavy loss. O'Hara, while striving to retrieve the day, was wounded and captured. His mantle of gloom devolved upon Major-General David Dundas, a desponding officer, who had recently requested leave to return on furlough on the ground of ill health and inability to cope with the work. This general's letters to his ever confident relative, Henry Dundas, at Whitehall, were always in a minor key. In his eyes the Spanish troops were "everything that is bad"; half of the Toulonese were hostile to the Allies; and the latter were heavily handicapped by having to defend their own fleets. There was some truth in this; but the whining tone of the letters, due to ill health, drew from the Minister a stinging retort, to the effect that the occupation of Toulon had taken Ministers wholly by surprise; that they had done their best to comply with the new demands for troops, and expected their general not to look at his own difficulties alone, but to remember those of the enemy and endeavour to beat him.[265]

This was the spirit in which Hood faced the problem. Even at the close of November, when all hope of the arrival of the 5,000 Austrians was past, he refused to listen to David Dundas's advice for the evacuation of Toulon; and surely this pertinacity was consonant with the traditions of the British navy, and of the army in its better days; but out of this question arose a feud between army and navy which developed in Corsica with disastrous results. Ministers strove to send all the succour available. But they did not hear until 22nd December that the 5,000 Austrians were being withheld. Henry Dundas's letter of the 28th also breathes deep concern at the news that Sir R. Boyd had not forwarded from Gibraltar the reinforcements ordered thence. Further, it appears from an official estimate drawn up at Whitehall on 18th December, that the troops already at or ordered to Toulon were believed to be as follows: British, 2,828; Spanish, 4,147; Sardinians, 2,162; Neapolitans, 8,600. Dundas also included the 1,100 British troops ordered from Gibraltar (where at that time there was no chance of an attack), and 2,361 men under directions to sail from Cork, but which could not stir owing to the non-arrival of the transports.[266] The resulting total of 21,198 is, of course, merely a sign of Henry Dundas's optimism. But obviously Ministers were unaware of the acute crisis at Toulon at the time of its surrender. In the age of telegraphy, that disaster would have been averted. The delays of the Austrians, and the muddles at Gibraltar and Cork, would have been known betimes.

Strange to say, there was at that time lying at anchor at Spithead a force under Lord Moira's command, destined for Brittany, but held back for various causes, which would probably have turned the balance at Toulon, had Ministers known of the dire need of reinforcements. It is mortifying to read the letters of Pitt and the Marquis of Buckingham early in December, complaining that Moira's force is strangely inactive.[267] Still more startling is it to read the hurried order of 23rd December (six days after the loss of Toulon), that the 40th regiment, then unexpectedly detained at Cork, though detached for service with Lord Moira, should set sail at once for the French stronghold along with the other regiments also detained at Cork.[268] What might not have happened, had those troops set sail for Toulon before the close of November?

Hero-worshippers will probably maintain that, even if Toulon had been held harmoniously by all the troops which the imagination of Pitt and Dundas conjured up, nevertheless the genius and daring of the little Corsican would have prevailed. This view is tenable; but the prosaic mind, which notes the venturesome extension of Bonaparte's batteries in November–December, until they presented their right flanks to the cliffs and their rear to the open sea, though at too high a level to be cannonaded, will probably conclude that, if Hood and Langara had had a force of 20,000 men, they could have driven the French from those works. As it was, the Allies, not having enough men, stood on the defensive all along their very extensive front, and were overpowered at Fort Mulgrave, which was some miles away from the city. Its garrison of 700 men (British, Spanish, and a few Neapolitans) was assailed in the stormy night of 16th–17th December by 7,000 of the best of the Republican troops. The ensuing conflict will best be understood from the hitherto unpublished account given by the commander-in-chief. After describing the heavy cannonade from three French batteries against Fort Mulgrave, he continues thus:

In this despatch David Dundas proclaimed his own incompetence. For some time it had been obvious that the Republicans were about to attack Fort Mulgrave, which everybody knew to be essential to the defence of the fleet. Yet he took no steps to strengthen this "temporary post" so that it might resist a determined attack. He also entrusted one half of the battery to the Spaniards whom he had declared to be "everything that is bad." On his own showing, as many as 2,500 allied troops were near at hand on the Balaguier or Eguilette heights to act as supports, before Bonaparte's attack began; and 400 more were sent thither soon afterwards. A spirited attack by those troops on the victors at Fort Mulgrave on its blind side might have retrieved the day; but a panic seized part of the supports, whom Sidney Smith describes as rushing like swine towards the sea though the enemy was only in a condition to attack "faintly." Hood was furious at this spiritless acceptance of defeat; and in his despatch to Whitehall censured the troops for not making a timely effort;[270] but as David Dundas had all along opined that the place was untenable, he decided to hold a council of war. It registered the wishes of the desponding chief. The officers decided that it was impossible either to retake the two positions lost, or to establish a post on the outer, or Cepet, peninsula, capable of protecting the roadstead from the cross fires which the French would pour in from the Balaguier and Cape Brun promontories.

During the next three days the evacuation took place amidst scenes of misery for the royalist refugees that baffle the imagination. As many as 14,877 were crowded on board the British ships, together with some 8,000 troops. At the same time Captains Sidney Smith, Hare, and Edge, with a picked body of men burnt or otherwise damaged 27 French warships left in the harbour, while 18 were brought away by the Allies. Eleven of the twenty-seven were not seriously injured by the fire, and they afterwards flew the tricolour. But the loss of 34 warships and nearly all the masts and other valuable stores was a blow from which the French navy did not recover until Bonaparte before his Egyptian expedition breathed his own matchless vigour into the administration. In ships and stores, then, France suffered far more heavily than the Allies. Their losses elude the inquiries of the statistician. They consisted in the utter discredit of the royalist cause throughout France, the resentment that ever follows on clumsy or disloyal co-operation, and the revelation of the hollowness of the imposing fabric of the First Coalition. In the south of France four nations failed to hold a single fortress which her own sons had placed in their power.

The Nemesis which waits upon weakness and vacillation has rarely appeared in more mocking guise than at the close of the year 1793. About the time when Toulon surrendered, the Austrian Government finally came to the determination to despatch thither the 5,000 men which it had formerly promised to send. Grenville received this news from Eden in the first days of 1794, shortly after the surrender of the fortress was known. Thereupon he penned these bitter words: "If the first promise had been fulfilled agreeably to the expectation which His Majesty was justified in forming, the assistance of such a body of disciplined troops would have sufficed to ensure the defence of that important post; and the injury which the common cause has sustained on this occasion can be ascribed only to the tardiness and indecision which so strongly characterize the Austrian Government."[271] Most tactfully he bade Eden refrain from reproaches on this occasion and to use it merely as an argument for throwing greater vigour into the next campaign.

Events pointed the moral far more strongly than Eden could do. As by a lightning flash, the purblind politicians of Vienna could now discern the storm-wrack drifting upon them. The weakness of the Piedmontese army, their own unpreparedness in the Milanese, the friendliness of Genoa to France, and the Jacobinical ferment in all parts of Italy, portended a speedy irruption of the Republicans into an almost defenceless land where they were sure of a welcome from the now awakened populace. So long as Toulon held out, Piedmont and Milan were safe. Now, the slackness of Austria enabled her future destroyer to place his foot on the first rung of the ladder of fame, and prompted those mighty plans for the conquest of the Italian States which were to ensure her overthrow and his supremacy.

Well might Eden dwell on the consternation prevalent at Vienna early in 1794. For, along with news of the loss of Toulon, tidings of defeat and retreat came from the Rhineland. Able and vigorous young generals, Hoche and Pichegru, had beaten back Austrians and Prussians from the hills around WÖrth and Weissenburg; so that the Allies fell back with heavy losses towards the Rhine. Thus, on the whole, the efforts of Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, Holland, and some of the smaller German States had availed merely to capture four fortresses, Mainz, CondÉ, Valenciennes, and Quesnoy. It is not surprising that public opinion in England, even in loyal circles, became clamorous against the conduct of the war.[272]

Not the least of the misfortunes attending the Toulon episode was that the logic of events, and also the growing savagery of the Reign of Terror, edged Pitt away from his standpoint of complete neutrality as to the future government of France. How could the ally of the Toulonese Royalists profess indifference on that topic? On 5th October he wrote as follows to Grenville respecting the powers to be granted to Sir Gilbert Elliot at Toulon:

These words are remarkable. Clearly, in Pitt's view of things, "security" for England and Holland was the paramount aim; but he was beginning to feel that the Republican groups which scrambled to power at Paris over the headless trunks of their enemies, could offer no adequate security. When the Revolution began to solidify, as it seemed about to do in 1795–7, he was willing to treat with its chiefs; but already he was feeling the horns of the dilemma, which may be described in words adapted from Talleyrand's famous mot of the year 1814: "Either the Bourbons or the Republic: everything else is an intrigue." The Toulon episode, more than anything else, bound France to the regicide cause, and Pitt, albeit unwillingly, to the irreconcilable Royalists. Thus the event which brought Bonaparte to the front, shattered the aim of the Prime Minister to effect merely the restoration of the Balance of Power.

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