The Mediterranean campaign of 1793–1796 was a major theater of conflict in the early years of the French Revolutionary Wars. Fought during the War of the First Coalition, the campaign was primarily contested in the Western Mediterranean between the French Navy's Mediterranean Fleet, based at Toulon in Southern France, and the British Royal Navy's Mediterranean Fleet, supported by the Spanish Navy and the smaller navies of several Italian states. Major fighting was concentrated in the Ligurian Sea, and focused on British maintenance of and French resistance to a British close blockade of the French Mediterranean coast. Additional conflict spread along Mediterranean trade routes, contested by individual warships and small squadrons.
The campaign began early in the War of the First Coalition, with an unsuccessful French attack on the neutral island of Sardinia in December 1792. In February 1793, France declared war on Great Britain, and Britain dispatched a fleet to the Mediterranean under Admiral Lord Hood to protect its trade routes in the region. The French Navy was in a state of disorder due to the ongoing social upheaval, and was initially unable to oppose the British and their allies. In August 1793, Hood and his Spanish and Italian allies were able to seize Toulon and the entire French fleet after a Royalist uprising in the town, followed by a four month siege by French Republican armies which included a young Napoleon Bonaparte. The allies were eventually driven out and the French fleet recaptured, although nearly half had been destroyed by the retreating British.
While the French repaired, Hood devoted 1794 to capturing the island of Corsica, intending to use it as a forward base for the blockade of Toulon. This took longer than expected, and by 1795 Hood had retired, replaced by William Hotham. Hotham faced the repaired French fleet under Pierre Martin, who led several sorties from Toulon, leading to two inconclusive British victories at the battles of Genoa and the Hyères Islands. Martin then deployed smaller squadrons on destructive operations against British commerce. Due to military success in Italy and diplomatic negotiations with Spain, by 1796 Britain's allies had broken away; Spain declared war on Britain in September, leaving the British fleet exposed between two powerful enemies. Unwilling to risk destruction of their fleet in the Mediterranean, the Admiralty withdrew the British, now under the command of Sir John Jervis, to the Tagus, abandoning the Mediterranean.
Background
In the aftermath of the French Revolution of 1789, the newly formed French Republic had gone to war with the Austrian Empire and Prussia 1792,Ireland, p.39 and these enemies formed a coalition with other nations following the execution of the deposed French king Louis XVI on 21 January 1793.Chandler, p.xxiv The Kingdom of Great Britain joined the War of the First Coalition on 1 February 1793, and laid plans to open a new front in the Mediterranean Sea.
The Mediterranean of 1793 was dominated on its eastern shores by the Ottoman Empire, which controlled Greece and Anatolia, the Levant and, through client states, the important North African nations of Tunis, Algiers and Egypt. The Ottoman Empire was ostensibly neutral in the conflict, but it had importance as a major international trading partner, while its North African cities maintained large pirate fleets which preyed on ships of all nations.Mostert, p.279 In the Adriatic Sea the only opposition to the Ottomans came from the small navy of the Republic of Venice, while elsewhere the Italian peninsula was divided between a number of independent states, dominated in the north by the Austrian Empire, and controlled in the south by the Kingdom of Naples. On the northwestern coast there were the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Republic of Genoa and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Although Naples retained a small fleet, none of the Italian states were notable sea powers; their importance lay in their ports and commercial strength in the Western Mediterranean.Mostert, p.97 The regional powers in the west were France, which maintained a large fleet at the fortified port of Toulon, and the Kingdom of Spain.James, Vol.1, p.51 Within this region the islands of Corsica, French-held but with a rebellious population, and Spanish Minorca, were significant naval assets.Ireland, p.145 The Spanish maintained a large fleet, which in 1793 was in a high-state of readiness for operations, but had allowed organisation and infrastructure to deteriorate in the preceding years through a lack of investment.Ireland, p.119 The Spanish were reluctant allies of Britain, with resentment over the recent Nootka Crisis still widespread.Mostert, p.97
The French fleet was in a state of disorder at the start of the French Revolutionary Wars. Although successful in the American Revolutionary War of 1775–1783,Ireland, p.58 there had been little investment in the intervening decade; one of the causes of the Revolution were efforts to raise naval taxes by the French crown.Ireland, p.60 Toulon had been a political flashpoint during the Revolution, including a strike and riot by dockyard workers in November 1789.Ireland, p.66 Directives from the French National Convention targeting the professional officer class, mainly drawn from the aristocracy, led to widespread desertion by experienced officers while waves of revolutionary sentiment swept though the seamen of the fleet;Ireland, p.77 the Atlantic fleet at Brest experienced a series of mutinies between 1790 and 1792.Ireland, p.70 In Toulon the fleet and the town dissolved into factional infighting,Ireland, p.78 and in September 1792 the commander of the Mediterranean Fleet Joseph, Marquis de Flotte was dragged from his home and beaten to death by a revolutionary mob.Ireland, p.79
Britain maintained no colonies or naval bases in the Mediterranean at the start of the Revolutionary Wars, with the exception of Gibraltar, a fortified port on the southern coast of Spain which had been captured in 1704.Musteen, p.5 For most of the eighteenth century Minorca had also been under British control, but it was recaptured by the Spanish in the American Revolutionary War, leaving the British with few assets in the region.Ireland, p.118 Britain did however have significant commercial interests in the Mediterranean and had, for more than a century, routinely deployed fleets to the sea in times of war to protect British trade routes.Gregory, p.29 Unlike the French Navy, the Royal Navy was in a state of high readiness, having been effectively modernised since the American war,Mostert, p.52 and partially mobilised in the Spanish Armament of 1790 and the Russian Armament of 1791.Mostert, p.91 At the outbreak of war the British had only a small frigate squadron, led by the 50-gun HMS Romney under Rear-Admiral Samuel Goodall, stationed in the Mediterranean.Ireland, p.140
Deployment
The first operation in the Mediterranean campaign was a large-scale French attack on the island of Sardinia, part of the neutral Kingdom of Sardinia, ruled from Piedmont in Northwestern Italy. A French fleet and army under Vice-amiral Laurent Truguet, Flotte's replacement, attacked Cagliari in January 1793 but was driven off with heavy casualties.Smyth, p.57 A second attack on the island of La Maddalena was equally unsuccessful.McLynn, p.60 The French fleet retired to Toulon in disorder and Truguet was replaced by Trogoff de Kerlessy,Ireland, p.81 commanding 30 ships of the line and 21 frigates in various states of repair.James, Vol.1, p.66
With the French in confusion, the British government sought alliances with the other enemies of France, including an attempt to gain Spanish agreement to place a British commander in overall command of the allied fleets in the Mediterranean. The Spanish, suspicious that the British would seek to engineer a mutually destructive engagement between the French and Spanish fleets and dominate the region in the aftermath, refused.Ireland, p.144 As negotiations continued, the British assembled a fleet for operations in the Mediterranean, despite severe manpower shortages.Mostert, p.99 Command of this fleet was awarded to the veteran Vice-Admiral Lord Hood, and ships were sent out by division as they were ready; two sailed under Rear-Admiral John Gell on 1 April, five on 15 April under Rear-Admiral Philip Cosby and five more under Vice-Admiral William Hotham in early May. Hood followed with his final division on 12 May with seven ships of the line, led by his flagship HMS Victory.James, Vol.1, p.65Ireland, p.142
As Hood's fleet worked its way to the Straits of Gibraltar and then northeast to the Ligurian Sea, a Spanish squadron cruised off Southern France, although it was forced to withdraw in June with substantial numbers of sailors absent from duty due to sickness.Bradford, p.90 During this time the French remained at anchor in Toulon; 17 ships of the line were ready for sea, with another 13 refitting or under repair in the town's Arsenal.Clowes, p.204 In June, in response to the spreading Reign of Terror, the town council at Toulon had expelled the radical Jacobins from the city, declaring for the more moderate Girondists.Ireland, p.161 Trogoff had refused to align himself with either party, but his deputy Contre-amiral was an adherent of the revolutionary cause, backed by a substantial proportion of the sailors of the French fleet.Mostert, p.103
Siege of Toulon
Hood's fleet reached the waters off Toulon in mid-August, and within days emissaries from the rebellious Royalists in the South of France had reached his flagship offering an alliance. Hood agreed, but only if they could guarantee the surrender of Toulon and the fleet within.Mostert, p. 105 Following negotiations and a confrontation with rebellious sailors under Julien, Hood's fleet, supported by a Spanish force under Admiral Juan de Lángara, entered the city on 27 August and seized the entire French fleet.Clowes, p.206
In September French Republican armies approached Toulon from the east and west, while thousands of rebellious sailors remained in the port. To solve the latter problem, Hood disarmed four French ships of the line and sent them as cartels to Brest with the mutinous seamen,James, Vol.1, p.70 but the allied army defending Toulon was far from cohesive, comprising British, Spanish, Neapolitan and French Royalist troops.Gardiner, p. 86 By late September the French had captured some of the heights over the town, the assaults led in part by a young artillery officer named Napoleon Bonaparte.Ireland, p.197 In September Hood sent HMS Agamemnon, commanded by Captain Horatio Nelson, on a diplomatic mission to Palermo, where he liaised with the ambassador Sir William Hamilton and persuaded King Ferdinand of Naples to supply troops for the siege.Bennett, p.32 In October these Neapolitan units staged a counterattack,Rose, p.55 but by this time the relationship between Hood and Lángara had broken down completely, their flagships openly threatening one another in the anchorage.Mostert, p. 113
After Hood sent a squadron under John Gell to raid Genoa on 5 October and seize a French frigate anchored there,Rose, p. 48 the Genoese, sympathetic to the French, refused to allow any Austrian reinforcements to embark for Toulon from the port, weakening the position at Toulon.Gardiner, p. 99 A second French frigate was taken from La Spezia shortly afterward.James, Vol. 1, p. 88 The following month the French Royalist ship of the line Scipion was lost with heavy loss of life at Leghorn in a possible arson attack.Grocott, p.4