War, Armed Forces & Society S.
1 total work
This work focuses on the important city of Toulon and its contribution to revolutionary events between 1750 and 1820, and particularly between the years 1789 (the Estates General) and 1815 (the Hundred Days), when an almost unprecedented degree of upheaval affected the city. The exploration this book carries out into Toulon's part in the Revolution contributes to an understanding of the Revolution as a whole as well as to an enhanced knowledge of the naval history of revolutionary France. The rebellion of Toulon in 1793 lies at the heart of what followed - being the longest-lasting and the most serious of the "federalist" revolts which swept through France that year. Although the Toulonnais rejected the authority of the central government of France as did other urban rebels, they were alone in continuing to swear allegiance to Louis XVII, and made a vain effort to avoid defeat by making common cause with the British. Their subsequent 4-month occupation of the port only ended at the end of 1793 when a youthful Bonaparte recaptured the town at the cost of huge losses to the Toulonnais through executions and emigration.
For the French Navy, this episode constituted a worse disaster than Trafalgar. This "betrayal" by the erstwhile ardently patriotic Toulon perplexed contemporaries as well as it has historians, and both have resorted to theories of conspiracy to explain it. However, as this book argues, there were more complex factors at work in the resistance to the Revolution and the Counter-Revolution assumed many forms and encompassed diverse social groups. In Toulon, rebellion sprang from deep-rooted social and political divisions, some of which could be traced back to the "Ancien Ragime". This book addresses the need for these factors to be set in their full revolutionary context.
For the French Navy, this episode constituted a worse disaster than Trafalgar. This "betrayal" by the erstwhile ardently patriotic Toulon perplexed contemporaries as well as it has historians, and both have resorted to theories of conspiracy to explain it. However, as this book argues, there were more complex factors at work in the resistance to the Revolution and the Counter-Revolution assumed many forms and encompassed diverse social groups. In Toulon, rebellion sprang from deep-rooted social and political divisions, some of which could be traced back to the "Ancien Ragime". This book addresses the need for these factors to be set in their full revolutionary context.