Previous Review: Napoleon's Rise – The Battle of Toulon (II)
In fact, as early as a month ago, when he took office, Napoleon noticed the importance of Malgrave Castle. On the third day after arriving at the troops, Napoleon proposed to Carto to send a heavy army to Fort Margrave. But Carto did not recognize the importance of Malgrave Fort, and symbolically sent 400 men to garrison Cape Kerr.
The allied commander, Admiral Hood, was named after the battlecruiser Hood, which was sunk by the battleship Bismarck in World War II
The Allied commander, Admiral Hood, realized the importance of Fort Margrave to the defenders of Toulon, so he sent 4,000 men to land on Cape Kerr, easily repelled the defending French forces, and immediately began to build Fort Mulgrave on the top of the hill. He mobilized all the manpower and material resources of the port of Toulon, worked around the clock, and soon built the fort so strong that the British gave it the nickname "Margrave Fort". Three smaller forts were built around it, "St. Philip's", "St. Como", and "St. Charles", and by October, a lot of artillery and troops would be needed to retake Fort Mulgrave.
Due to Carto's incompetence, Paris soon removed Carto, and his successor, General Dope, who had previously worked as a dentist and was a halfway monk, performed worse than his predecessors.
On 16 November, the French besieging Malgraveburg attacked Margraveburg after witnessing Spanish soldiers mistreating prisoners of war. Due to the suddenness of the incident, General Dopp and Napoleon arrived at the scene of the battle at four o'clock in the afternoon. Napoleon thought that morale was available and simply took the Allied positions with a single blow.
General Dopp agreed with Napoleon and appointed him as commander of the former enemy, so Napoleon led the morale of the French army into the Allied positions and soon took control of the Cape Kerr Heights. But at this moment, one of General Dopp's lieutenants was shot and killed, and the general was frightened and ordered to stop the attack, seeing that the hand victory was lost. Napoleon was furious but helpless. The incident also caused great dissatisfaction among the soldiers, who strongly demanded the removal of the commander.
The commander of the French army, General Dugomière
General Dopp also realized that he was incompetent, and soon resigned himself. He was replaced by General Dugomier, who had been in the army for forty years and had fought to the death to protect Saint Pierre, who had all the good qualities that an old soldier should possess.
In preparation for the attack on Malgrave Fort, Napoleon also built a fort on the Allian Heights opposite The Fort Malbosk, equipped with eight cannons firing twenty-four-pounder shells and four mortar guns, and was named the "National Assembly Battery". In order to surprise and attack it, Napoleon cleverly hid this position with olive leaves, so that this position under the eyes of the enemy was never discovered.
On 29 November, some representatives of the people came up to inspect the fort, and after a look around, they ordered the gunners to open fire, a move that exposed napoleon's painstakingly hidden artillery positions. Napoleon was shocked to hear the cannons, but there was nothing he could do. After discovering this artillery position, the Allied army of 7,000 people rushed out to occupy the "National Assembly Battery" and destroy all the cannons.
Upon receiving news of the enemy's attack, General Dugomier immediately sent his troops to occupy the positions and advance forward, while Napoleon commanded the artillery on each position to fire to prevent the enemy from advancing. After the arrangement, Napoleon went to the high ground behind the "National Assembly Battery", which was connected by a secret path covered by bushes between the fort and the highlands. Napoleon led a group of soldiers secretly from this trail, and he had the soldiers shoot at the coalition forces on both sides of the road, and the coalition formation was disrupted. At this time, a man was frightened by the roaring bullets and fell off the gun emplacement, and was immediately caught by the French soldiers, it turned out that this person was officially the commander of the coalition army, O'Hara, which was also a coincidence.
Battlefield situation map
At the same time as Napoleon fought fiercely with the Allies, Dugomier also commanded his army to detour back to the right flank of the Allied forces in an attempt to cut off the Allied retreat. Realizing the danger, the Allies were forced to begin retreating, but the retreat soon turned into a rout, and the French pursued them all the way to The Marbosque Fort.
After this battle, the Austrian government lost hope in the coalition forces and refused to send reinforcements. The French were reinforced by 2,500 elite hunters and grenadiers. The time is ripe to retake Malgrave Castle.
On 14 December, a total of 30 large-caliber guns and 15 mortar guns of the French army began shelling The Mulgrave Fort, destroying the Allied fortifications after 48 hours of intense artillery fire. By midnight on the 16th, the French army divided into four columns and used two columns to monitor the two battery positions of Balagye and Egiliate. The main force was the third column, commanded by Labold. The fourth column was a reserve, and Napoleon was in charge.
Colonel of Napoleon's artillery
Although Fort Margrave suffered heavy losses in two consecutive days of shelling, the French still encountered stubborn resistance when they attacked. Since the attack was raining again at night, at first the line troops were disoriented. After some twists and turns, the French attacked Malgrave Castle, but were defeated again and again under the strong fire of the fort.
At this critical juncture, Dugomier ordered Napoleon to lead a reserve. Napoleon commanded the third column to join the battle, Napoleon personally commanded the troops to attack head-on, and at the same time ordered the artillery captain Miron to lead a group of soldiers to unexpectedly attack The Fort Mulgrave from the back gate of the fortress, napoleon took the opportunity to command the troops to capture the entire Fort of Mulgrave.
In order to retake this important point, the enemy mobilized reserves to launch three counterattacks, and the French turned the captured artillery into muzzles and bombarded the counterattacking coalition forces. Seeing that there was no hope of retaking the fort, the coalition began to retreat at dawn. In this battle, the French lost 1,000 men, and the Allied suffered about 2,500 casualties. Napoleon was killed in a fierce battle, and was stabbed in the thigh with a bayonet, but fortunately not seriously, this was the first time in his life that he was wounded on the battlefield, but also the only time.
The fortune-obsessed general Massena, who at this time had a higher rank than the future emperor, led a brigade into battle
At about 10 o'clock in the morning of the 17th, the repaired French army launched a charge against the retreating Chinese coalition forces, the coalition troops abandoned their equipment, fled back to the warships, and the French army took control of the cape of Bala goje and the cape of Egilet. On the other side, General Lapopoe commanded the Eastern Front Corps to capture the Position of Mount Faron, while Massena led his army to capture the fortress of De Arieus. At this point, most of the positions and fortresses on the outskirts of Toulon were occupied by the French.
After capturing Malgrave Castle, Napoleon immediately laid out artillery positions on the high ground to prevent the enemy from counterattacking, and began to shell the enemy fleet in the harbor with large-caliber long-range artillery, blocking the enemy's retreat route.
Coalition forces retreat
British Admiral Hood panicked when he learned of the fall of Malgrave Castle, and personally went to Toulon and demanded that six thousand men be sent to retake Malgrave Fort at once, or to dig trenches on the two promontories of Cape Kerr, and to hold out for eight to ten days while waiting for reinforcements to arrive.
By noon, when the admiral learned that the two promontories had been completely occupied by the French, he knew that Toulon could not be defended, so he decisively ordered a retreat. While organizing the Allied retreat, Hood ordered Brigadier General Smith of Sydney and Don Pedro Cortilia to lead the Spitfire to destroy the French fleet's docks and harbors.
Set fire to French ships before retreating
Of the 31 French warships anchored in the port of Toulon, 10 were burned and 4 were hijacked. The coalition forces and royalists retreated in a hurry, leaving the flaming port of Toulon behind. The fires that had been ignited in the arsenal and dock were quickly extinguished by hundreds of citizens and dock workers.
The French marched into Toulon on 19 December. On 22 December, Napoleon was promoted to brigadier general. Napoleon was only 24 years old at this time.
Although the Battle of Toulon was limited in scale, Napoleon showed his superior command and keen insight. Encouraged by this victory, our young artillery brigadier general was full of confidence and ambition began to swell. At this time his gaze began to cross the Alps and to the riches of Italy.
Stay tuned for the next issue: The Battle of Montenot