| Mediterranean campaign of 1793–1796 | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theWar of the First Coalition | |||||||
.jpg) Lord Hotham's Action, March 14th 1795 Thomas Whitcombe, 1816 | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 Great Britain Spain (1793–1795) Sardinia Naples |  FranceSpain (1796) | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
 Samuel HoodWilliam HothamJohn JervisJuan de Lángara |  Pierre MartinFrançois-Paul BrueysJuan de Lángara | ||||||
TheMediterranean campaign of 1793–1796 was a major theater of conflict in the early years of theFrench Revolutionary Wars. Fought during theWar of the First Coalition, the campaign was primarily contested in the Western Mediterranean between theFrench Navy's Mediterranean Fleet, based atToulon in Southern France, and the BritishRoyal Navy's Mediterranean Fleet, supported by theSpanish Navy and the smaller navies of several Italian states. Major fighting was concentrated in theLigurian Sea, and focused on British maintenance of and French resistance to a Britishclose 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 anunsuccessful French attack on the neutral island ofSardinia in December 1792. In February 1793, France declared war onGreat Britain, and Britain dispatched a fleet to the Mediterranean under AdmiralLord 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 seizeToulon and the entire French fleet after a Royalist uprising in the town, followed by afour month siege by French Republican armies which included a youngNapoleon Bonaparte. The allies were eventually driven out and the French fleet recaptured, althoughnearly half had been destroyed by the retreating British.
While the French repaired, Hood devoted 1794 tocapturing the island ofCorsica, 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 byWilliam Hotham. Hotham faced the repaired French fleet underPierre Martin, who led several sorties from Toulon, leading to two inconclusive British victories at the battles ofGenoa and theHyères 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, theAdmiralty withdrew the British, now under the command ofSir John Jervis, to theTagus, abandoning the Mediterranean.
In the aftermath of theFrench Revolution of 1789, the newly formedFrench Republic had gone to war with theAustrian Empire andPrussia 1792,[1] and these enemies formed a coalition with other nations following the execution of the deposed French kingLouis XVI on 21 January 1793.[2] TheKingdom of Great Britain joined theWar of the First Coalition on 1 February 1793, and laid plans to open a new front in theMediterranean Sea.[3]
The Mediterranean of 1793 was dominated on its eastern shores by theOttoman Empire, which controlledGreece andAnatolia, theLevant and, through client states, the important North African nations ofTunis,Algiers andEgypt. 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 largepirate fleets which preyed on ships of all nations.[4] In theAdriatic Sea the only opposition to the Ottomans came from the small navy of theRepublic of Venice, while elsewhere the Italian peninsula was divided between anumber of independent states, dominated in the north by the Austrian Empire, and controlled in the south by theKingdom of Naples. On the northwestern coast there were theKingdom of Sardinia, theRepublic of Genoa and theGrand 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.[5] The regional powers in the west were France, which maintained a large fleet at the fortified port ofToulon,[6] and theKingdom of Spain.[7] Within this region the islands ofCorsica, French-held but with a rebellious population, and SpanishMinorca, were significant naval assets.[8][9] 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.[10] The Spanish were reluctant allies of Britain, with resentment over the recentNootka Crisis still widespread.[5]
The French fleet was in a state of disorder at the start of the French Revolutionary Wars. Although successful in theAmerican Revolutionary War of 1775–1783,[11] 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.[12] Toulon had been a political flashpoint during the Revolution, including a strike and riot by dockyard workers in November 1789.[13] Directives from the FrenchNational 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;[14] the Atlantic fleet atBrest experienced a series of mutinies between 1790 and 1792.[15] In Toulon the fleet and the town dissolved into factional infighting,[16] and in September 1792 the commander of the Mediterranean FleetJoseph, Marquis de Flotte was dragged from his home and beaten to death by a revolutionary mob.[17]
Britain maintained no colonies or naval bases in the Mediterranean at the start of the Revolutionary Wars, with the exception ofGibraltar, a fortified port on the southern coast of Spain which had been captured in 1704.[18] 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.[19] 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.[9] Unlike the French Navy, theRoyal Navy was in a state of high readiness, having been effectively modernised since the American war,[20] and partially mobilised in theSpanish Armament of 1790 and theRussian Armament of 1791.[21] At the outbreak of war the British had only a small frigate squadron, led by the 50-gunHMSRomney under Rear-AdmiralSamuel Goodall, stationed in the Mediterranean.[22]
The first operation in the Mediterranean campaign was alarge-scale French attack on the island ofSardinia, part of the neutralKingdom of Sardinia, ruled fromPiedmont inNorthwestern Italy. A French fleet and army under Vice-amiralLaurent Truguet, Flotte's replacement, attackedCagliari in January 1793 but was driven off with heavy casualties.[23] A second attack on the island ofLa Maddalena was equally unsuccessful.[24] The French fleet retired to Toulon in disorder and Truguet was replaced byTrogoff de Kerlessy,[25] commanding 30 ships of the line and 21 frigates in various states of repair.[6]
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.[26] As negotiations continued, the British assembled a fleet for operations in the Mediterranean, despite severe manpower shortages.[27] Command of this fleet was awarded to the veteran Vice-AdmiralLord Hood, and ships were sent out by division as they were ready; two sailed under Rear-AdmiralJohn Gell on 1 April, five on 15 April under Rear-AdmiralPhilip Cosby and five more under Vice-AdmiralWilliam Hotham in early May. Hood followed with his final division on 12 May with sevenships of the line, led by his flagshipHMSVictory.[3][28]
As Hood's fleet worked its way to theStraits 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.[29] 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.[30] In June, in response to the spreadingReign of Terror, the town council at Toulon had expelled the radicalJacobins from the city, declaring for the more moderateGirondists.[31] Trogoff had refused to align himself with either party, but his deputy Contre-amiralSaint-Julien [fr] was an adherent of the revolutionary cause, backed by a substantial proportion of the sailors of the French fleet.[32]
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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.[33] Following negotiations and a confrontation with rebellious sailors under Julien, Hood's fleet, supported by a Spanish force under AdmiralJuan de Lángara, entered the city on 27 August and seized the entire French fleet.[34]
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 ascartels to Brest with the mutinous seamen,[35] but the allied army defending Toulon was far from cohesive, comprising British, Spanish, Neapolitan and French Royalist troops.[36] By late September the French had captured some of the heights over the town, the assaults led in part by a young artillery officer namedNapoleon Bonaparte.[37] In September Hood sentHMSAgamemnon, commanded by CaptainHoratio Nelson, on a diplomatic mission toPalermo, where he liaised with the ambassadorSir William Hamilton and persuadedKing Ferdinand of Naples to supply troops for the siege.[38] In October these Neapolitan units staged a counterattack,[39] but by this time the relationship between Hood and Lángara had broken down completely, their flagships openly threatening one another in the anchorage.[40]
After Hood sent a squadron underJohn Gell toraid Genoa on 5 October and seize a French frigate anchored there,[41] the Genoese, sympathetic to the French, refused to allow any Austrian reinforcements to embark for Toulon from the port, weakening the position at Toulon.[42] A second French frigate was taken fromLa Spezia shortly afterward.[43] The following month the French Royalist ship of the lineScipion was lost with heavy loss of life atLeghorn in a possible arson attack.[44]
Hood detached squadrons from the fleet at Toulon to engage other French forces in the Mediterranean, including one underRobert Linzee which attempted to persuade French garrisons on Corsica to surrender.[45] When this failed, Linzee attackedSan Fiorenzo in the north of the island in late September but was driven off by shore defences.[46] Linzee was joined byAgamemnon at Caligari in late October after the latter had fought abrief and inconclusive engagement with a French frigate squadron.[47] He sailed forTunis, where a French merchant convoy had anchored. Linzee attempted to persuade BeyHammuda ibn Ali to permit a British attack on the French, but was rebuffed.[48] Nelson urged that the attack go ahead anyway, but Linzee declined.[49]
At Toulon a major Republican attack was driven back on 15 November, but an allied attack two weeks later failed.[50] GeneralDugommier launched a major assault on 14 December, which broke through the Neapolitan lines.[51] Three days later the Spanish held fortifications were lost and French artillery was in a position to bombard the allied fleet.[52] Hood ordered his ships to withdraw to open water, and evacuate Toulon . As allied troops were removed from the docks, British and Spanish boat parties led by CaptainSir Sidney Smith entered the Arsenal with instructions to burn the disarmed French fleet.[53] Smith's crews destroyed eight ships of the line and two frigates.[54] Three ships of the line, six frigates and eight corvettes were removed by the allies and distributed to their navies, most going to the British.[55] The remaining 15 ships of the line and several smaller ships were damaged to a greater or lesser degree but were subsequently salvaged and repaired by the French. Significant parts of the French dockyard stores remained intact,[56] although the timber stores were destroyed.[57] Accusations were made against the Spanish; one historian accused them of "jealousy and treachery" in preserving the French fleet to prevent British supremacy in the region.[46] The allied soldiers were successfully removed, as well as more than 7,000 Royalist refugees.[58] In the aftermath of the siege 6,000 Toulonaise inhabitants were massacred by the Republicans, and there was a plan, later abandoned, to demolish the town entirely as punishment for rebellion.[59]
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At the start of 1794 Hood's fleet was anchored off theÎles d'Hyères. Hood gave orders for landings to be made on Corsica in preparation for seizing the island from the French and making use of the Bay ofSan Fiorenzo as a fleet anchorage;[8] Corsica had been in open rebellion against France since July 1793, under the command ofPasquale Paoli.[60] Landings were made at San Fiorenzo in early February, and despite effective resistance British land forces, working in conjunction with Corsican irregulars, hadseized the town's main defences by 18 February, forcing the French garrison to abandon the two frigates in the bay and retreat across the Serra Mountains toBastia.[61]
Bastia was a much larger town with a significant garrison, and a bitter argument between Hood and army commanderDavid Dundas delayed operations, until Dundas resigned.[62] The attack was led by Nelson and ColonelWilliam Villettes, who stagedlandings near Bastia on 4 April.[63] An attack from the sea was driven off byheated shot, and the strength of the town's gun batteries resulted in a lengthy siege through May.[64] Bastia surrendered on 22 May when food supplies ran out.[65] Cheered by successive British victories, Paoli staged elections among the Corsican population on 1 June, and by 16 June had ratified a new constitution that confirmed theAnglo-Corsican Kingdom as a self-governing part of theBritish Empire.[66]
The final operation was atCalvi, where two large forts blocked the approaches to the town. Substantial British reinforcements had arrived from Gibraltar, led byCharles Stuart, and he and Nelson landed an expeditionary force near Calvi on 17 June.[67] After British batteries were established on commanding positions, the French forts came under attack. Fort Mollinochesco was abandoned by 6 July, while Fort Mozello was stormed and captured on 18 July by forces underJohn Moore.[68] British casualties were significant; Nelson lost an eye during the fighting,[69] and more than a thousand British soldiers were reported sick withdysentery andmalaria.[70][71] Over several weeks the town was battered into surrender, taking heavy damage and capitulating following extended negotiations on 10 August.[72]
The British sent their prisoners to Toulon on sevencartel ships, includingSovereign. The French initially detained the vessels there,[73] but later released them.
Hood and his fleet were absent for the siege of Calvi as the French fleet, following extensive repairs, hadfinally emerged from Toulon under Contre-amiralPierre Martin on 5 June.[74] On 11 June the fleets were within sight of one another, the French retreating intoGourjean Bay.[75] Hood planned an attack, but the operation was deemed too dangerous. Hood withdrew, leaving a large squadron under Vice-AdmiralWilliam Hotham to blockade the bay, although Hotham's force was driven off by a storm and Martin succeeded in returning to Toulon in November.[76]
Elsewhere in the Mediterranean, the ship of the lineHMS Ardent disappeared on patrol offVillefranche-sur-Mer in April, presumed lost in an explosion with all hands.[77] On convoy protection in the Eastern Mediterranean,Romney encountered theFrench frigate Sibylle inMykonos harbour. CaptainWilliam Paget attacked the frigate and in the ensuingBattle of Mykonos forced the French captain to surrender.[78] In the early autumn the 70-year old Hood was recalled to Britain inVictory, Hotham taking command of the fleet and blockade.[79] In December there was a minor mutiny at San Fiorenzo onHMS Windsor Castle that Hotham resolved peacefully.[80] In the last weeks of the year, Martin sent a frigate squadron on a raiding cruise in the Mediterranean under CommodoreJean-Baptiste Perrée, capturing 25 merchant vessels and 600 prisoners before returning on 7 January 1795.[81]
Hotham had spent the winter patrolling from San Fiorenzo, whereHMSBerwick was damaged in a gale.[82] While Captain Littlejohn was still effecting repairs, Hotham sailed the fleet to Leghorn, leavingBerwick behind with onlyjury masts. WhenBerwick followed, Littlejohn ran directly into Martin's fleet, which had sailed for an operation in theGulf of Genoa.[83] Littlejohn's crippled ship tried to run from the French but was overrun by Martin's frigates. At the ensuingAction of 7 March 1795 Littlejohn was decapitated by cannon fire andBerwick overwhelmed and captured.[84]
The following day Hotham learned that Martin was at sea and sailed in search. On 13 March he caught the French offCape Noli and as Martin fled back towards Toulon, Hotham's ships attacked the French rearguard in a series of running engagements known as theBattle of Genoa.[85] Two French ships were overhauled and defeated with heavy casualties,[86] but three days after the battle the damaged British shipHMSIllustrious was driven ashore in a storm and wrecked.[87] Martin withdrew to the Îles d'Hyères, sending his most damaged ships andBerwick back to Toulon for repairs,[88] while Hotham anchored at San Fiorenzo to refit his own fleet.[89]
Both fleets received reinforcements in the spring, a force under Contre-amiralJean François Renaudin arriving at Toulon to find the fleet there in a state of mutiny, which was resolved byReprésentantJoseph Niou.[88] Hotham meanwhile was joined off Menorca by reinforcements under Rear-AdmiralRobert Mann.[88] British and French scouting frigate squadrons clashed at theaction of 24 June 1795,[90] and that month Martin sailed once more. Hotham initially declined to pursue, but a detached squadron under Nelson was operating offCap Corse.[91] Nelson led Martin to Hotham and the British fleet chased the French to the Îles d'Hyères, where in theBattle of the Hyères Islands the rearmost French ship was cut off and destroyed. Hotham discontinued the action with the French fleeing and vulnerable to the fury of his subordinates, and Martin was able to retire toFréjus and then Toulon.[92]
Martin did not take the French fleet to sea again during the campaign. Instead, he detached raiding squadrons against British commerce. Firstly he sentRichery's expedition into the Atlantic,[93] where itattacked and badly damaged a valuable British convoy from the Levant before sheltering in the Spanish port ofCádiz.[94] Spain, under pressure from French victories in theWar of the Pyrenees, had agreed a peace treaty with France on 19 August.[95] A British force under Mann sent in pursuit of Richery instituted a blockade of the port.[96] A second squadron,Ganteaume's expedition, attacked British commerce in theAegean Sea before returning to Toulon ahead of a pursuit squadron under CaptainThomas Troubridge.[97] Hotham remained with his main fleet at San Fiorenzo and Leghorn, sending forces to harass French coastal convoys supporting theItalian campaign; a squadron under Nelson destroyed large French supply convoy atAlassio on 26 August,[98] andHMSSouthampton fought an inconclusive engagement with a French convoy offGenoa on 29 September.[99]
On 1 November 1795 Hotham was replaced by Vice-AdmiralSir John Jervis, commanding 18 ships of the line, and towards the end of the year Martin was replaced by Vice-amiralFrançois-Paul Brueys, commanding 15 ships of the line.[100] Jervis was also concerned by the presence of seven Spanish ships of the line at Cartagena; the Spanish were still neutral, but their relationship with France was becoming closer.[100] In early 1796 Jervis sent a number of detached squadrons to sea in the spring; Vice-AdmiralWilliam Waldegrave took a squadron to Tunis and violated Tunisian neutrality by seizing three small French ships in the harbour.[101] A squadron under Nelson was sent to the Italian coast,[102] where theMontenotte Campaign, led by Napoleon Bonaparte, was inflicting severe defeats on the Austrian and Sardinian armies. On 10 April Nelson's force was positioned to provide artillery support for theBattle of Voltri, only to witness an Austrian failure to inflict serious damage on the retreating French.[103] On 25 April a supply convoy was destroyed atFinale Ligure, and on 31 April Napoleon'ssiege train was captured on board a coastal convoy atOneglia, the loss of which later had a major impact on French efficiency at theSiege of Mantua.[104] Jervis remained off Toulon; on 11 April HMSÇa Ira was accidentally burned off San Fiorenzo,[105] and in June Jervis sentSouthampton on a successful attack on a French corvette off the Îles d'Hyères.[106]
Nelson's operations were unable to check Bonaparte's advance inland, and on 15 MayVictor Amadeus III of Sardinia signed a treaty ceding large tracts of land to France.[103] Naples sought peace soon afterwards. Napoleon's army advanced and defeated the Austrians at theBattle of Lodi, allowing French forces to spread across Northern Italy, threatening Leghorn.[107] On 27 June Jervis ordered a hasty evacuation of personnel, stores and shipping from the harbour, andHMSInconstant came under heavy fire from advance French troops as it withdrew.[108] Jervis responded by seizing the Tuscan island ofElba to prevent the French occupying the island in preparation for an attack on Corsica.[109] In Corsica anti-British sentiment, initially provoked by British efforts to protect French-supporting Corsicans from reprisals,[110] had spread. Bitter infighting between supporters of Paoli and of the new presidentCarlo Andrea Pozzo di Borgo drove Paoli into exile in October 1795,[111] and British efforts to impose taxation on the populace led to an armed uprising centred onCorte in early 1796.[112] British troops initially moved against the rebels, before ViceroySir Gilbert Elliot managed to negotiate a truce.[113]
On 12 September 1796 theTreaty of San Ildefonso was signed inParis between France and Spain. Britain immediately embargoed Spanish merchant shipping from British ports in anticipation of a Spanish declaration of war, which came on 5 October.[114] Orders were sent bySecretary of State for WarHenry Dundas to Jervis, now operating at the end of a lengthy and vulnerable supply route in a region in which every British ally had been eliminated, to evacuate Corsica and retire to Gibraltar.[114][115] In anticipation of the Spanish reversal, Jervis had recalled the squadron off Cádiz under Mann on 29 July, but Mann sailed without restocking his ships and Jervis was forced to send him back to Gibraltar to collect supplies.[114] In the week before the declaration of war, Lángara sailed from Cádiz with the main Spanish fleet and encountered the returning squadron under Mann at sea; the British admiral abandoned two transports in a precipitate retreat to Gibraltar.[116]
The Spanish sailed past Gibraltar into the Mediterranean and joined with the squadron at Cartagena, forming a fleet of 26 ships of the line.[117] This fleet cruised in the Ligurian Sea, passing Cap Corse and sighting scouts from Jervis' fleet at San Fiorenzo. Jervis had only 14 ships of the line and might have been overwhelmed, but Lángara declined to attack, retiring to Toulon and uniting with Brueys.[118] Jervis was now hugely outnumbered by the 38 ships of the combined fleet, and anxiously awaited Mann's return,[119] unaware that the junior admiral had decided to return to Britain on his own initiative and against orders.[120] By mid-October it was clear that Mann would not return and Jervis gave orders for a complete British withdrawal from the Mediterranean.[121] British frigates had already clashed with Spanish scouts; at theaction of 13 October 1796HMSTerpsichore captured the Spanish frigateMahonesa off Cartagena.[122]
French forces landed in Corsica unopposed on 19 October, enthusiastically supported by Corsican rebels,[123] and Jervis detached Nelson to evacuate British personnel and sympathisers from Bastia.[124] Threatening to destroy the town if opposed, Nelson removed almost all British troops and stores by 21 October, when French troops appeared on the heights overlooking the town.[119] The French, commanded byAntoine Gentili, then drove through Corsican defences to San Fiorenzo, already evacuated by the British, followed shortly afterwards by an advance onAjaccio.[125] By 4 November the entire island was in French hands once more.[126] The same day Jervis readied his fleet, accompanied by a large convoy of transports and merchant ships, and sailed westwards, arriving at anchor inRosia Bay at Gibraltar on 11 December.[121] The Spanish fleet set out in pursuit, accompanied by a French squadron underPierre-Charles Villeneuve, but was delayed at Cartagena and Villeneuve continued alone, passing Jervis and heading westwards into the Atlantic on 10 December during a storm.[127] The same storm wrecked the British shipHMSCourageux on the Moroccan coast atMonte Hacho with the loss of 464 lives.[128] On 16 December Jervis took his fleet out of theStraits of Gibraltar to the mouth of theTagus nearLisbon, where he could more easily procure supplies and receive reinforcements from Britain;[121] during this operation another ship,HMSBombay Castle, was wrecked on a sandbar.[129]
With Jervis at Gibraltar, the only remaining British force still in the Mediterranean was a small squadron under Nelson sent to retrieve the garrison on Elba. On 19 December Nelson, in the frigateHMSMinerve was attacked by the Spanish frigateSanta Sabina. The Spanish ship was defeated at theaction of 19 December 1796, but Nelson was forced to abandon the prize as Spanish reinforcements arrived.[130] Nelson reachedPortoferraio shortly afterwards and took the remaining British troops and supplies on the island on board, sailing back to Gibraltar in convoy on 29 January 1797.[131] The last operation of the campaign was byMinerve andHMSRomulus, which reconnoitered Toulon,Barcelona and Cartagena on passage back to Gibraltar, arriving on 10 February as the last British forces in the Mediterranean.[132]
Jervis was forced to the Tagus, from where he rebuilt his fleet with reinforcements from Britain.[95] He focused operations on theCádiz blockade, patrolling in search of the Spanish fleet. On 14 February 1797 he encountered a much larger Spanish force in fog offCape St. Vincent and inflicted a severe defeat on the Spanish at theBattle of Cape St. Vincent, who retreated to Cádiz and did not re-emerge until theCroisière de Bruix campaign in 1799.[133] With British dominance at the Atlantic entrance to the Mediterranean established, Jervis awaited an opportunity to return to the Sea, while his blockading squadrons under Nelson harassed the Spanish, including a failedassault on Cádiz in June,[134] and the disastrousBattle of Santa Cruz in July at which Nelson lost an arm.[135] It was not until the spring of 1798 and the attempt by a French army under Bonaparteto invade Egypt that a British fleet was able once more to enter the Mediterranean.[136] In theMediterranean campaign of 1798 a recovered Nelson tracked the French fleet and destroyed it at theBattle of the Nile,[137] reasserting British naval supremacy in the region and initiating theWar of the Second Coalition.[138]
Blame for the failure of the British Mediterranean campaign of 1793–1796 has been apportioned by historians to Hotham, in his failure to inflict decisive defeats on the French Navy in 1795,[139] and Mann for deserting Jervis.[114]Sir William Hamilton, British ambassador to theKingdom of Naples, wrote that "I can,entre nous, perceive that my old friend Hotham is not quite awake enough for such a command as that of the King's fleet in the Mediterranean."[140] HistorianC. S. Forester criticised "the lack of energy and diligence on the part of [the] British Admiral",[92] and Noel Mostert wrote that "Man's actions were beyond all reason.[John] Byng was shot for less."[141] French victory in the campaign was due to the prowess of their armies on land, particularly Bonaparte's campaigns in Italy, and their diplomatic manoeuvering which left Britain isolated and outnumbered in the prosecution of the Toulon blockade.[95]
Truguet.