King Theodore's Corsica
- Thread starter Carp
- Start date
Austria had good general officers - Traun, Browne, Batthyany, Khevenhüller, Schulenburg, Aspremont, and Liechtenstein (just off the top of my head) were all at least decent, and some of them were quite talented. At least in my amateur opinion, they didn’t have anyone who was a real prodigy like Friedrich or Maurice de Saxe, but you don’t necessarily need genius to win a war, particularly when you have Austria’s manpower. The real problems at the general staff level were that alongside their decent generals they also fielded blunderers like Lobkowitz, Botta Adorno, and Neipperg, and that Maria Theresa chose her princely in-laws for supreme command in Germany - first her husband Franz Stefan, then his brother Karl Alexander - when neither of them were particularly skilled generals (although Karl Alexander, for all his faults, was a distinct improvement on future emperor Franz, who was awful).
His replacement is unlikely to be Browne. Browne was in Germany at the time - he was reassigned to Bavaria in 1745 - but both of Prince Karl’s flank commanders, Lobkowitz and Arenberg, were full field marshals, while Browne was a newly-promoted FZM. It’s far more likely Vienna would pick another FM. I don’t have an exhaustive list of available Austrian FMs at the time, but perhaps Liechtenstein - he was promoted to FM in May of 1745 and subsequently sent to Italy to take supreme command from Schulenburg, but he could potentially be sent to Bohemia instead. Liechtenstein is best remembered as a military administrator, as he was responsible for a major reform of the Austrian artillery, but he was at least competent as a tactician and managed to defeat Maillebois and Gages at Piacenza (although he also had a much larger force).
By “each side,” do you mean Corsica and Genoa?
If so, they’re each in a fairly similar position - that is, sustained by foreign money. Theodore only has an army because Turin is funding it, while Genoa’s present war effort would bankrupt the state if they weren’t being propped up by Madrid’s subsidies. The Corsican “state” still has virtually no internal revenue, or at least none that makes it to Theodore. Genoa is at least a functioning state, but their entry into the war has devastated maritime trade, the lifeblood of the economy. Not only are the British patrolling their coasts, but the Spanish have seized basically every private vessel in the port of Genoa for the war effort.
I'm afraid it's too late for that. After his failure to defend Bohemia in late 1741, Maria Theresa realized her beloved husband was not really cut out for the soldiering life and removed him from field command. His service to the Habsburg crown was to be political and social, not military.
Thereafter he fell back upon his personal strengths, of which he had three: Hosting parties, making money, and adultery.
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It was a complicated relationship. Maria Theresa was deeply in love with her husband. Franz Stefan respected his wife and their relationship was hardly cold (they had 16 children after all), but he clearly did not love her in the way she loved him, and had a series of torrid affairs with other women over the course of his life which were widely known. Given the time and the culture, it's hard to call him a monster; having mistresses was not a particularly odd thing for a monarch, and at least one can say that he didn't give his mistresses political power like Louis XV. His adultery was certainly not seen as a virtue, but it seems to have been generally regarded as a vice like drinking or gambling rather than a catastrophic personal betrayal as adultery is generally regarded today (at least in my culture). His daughter referred to it euphemistically as "his weakness."
Because it was basically "normal," because there wasn't really anything she could do, and most of all because she still loved him despite his infidelity, Maria Theresa grew to tolerate his mistresses - but she never felt good about it, I'm sure. She was jealous of the affection he showed them, for she undoubtedly wished Franz loved her as passionately as he loved his other women, and as passionately as she loved him.
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Franz Stephen. Well, at least he took care of the family jawline. Mostly.
This TL is hard work with all the mess of politics and personalities in Corsica and all of Europe to keep abreast of but its so much fun and so interesting its well worth the effort! 
I'm hoping that the brief mention of the Spanish treasure fleet due in the coming year was foreshadowing and Theodore's luck strikes hard. After all, someones going to get the gold.
I'm hoping that the brief mention of the Spanish treasure fleet due in the coming year was foreshadowing and Theodore's luck strikes hard. After all, someones going to get the gold.
I'm on vacation, so updates have been delayed. Hopefully we'll continue by this coming weekend.
Thanks! As for the hard work, I admit that even I search this thread to remind myself about which characters are where and what's become of them. It's a rather large cast of characters who are, save perhaps for Theodore himself, essentially unknown outside of Corsican histories. We owe what we know of the Corsicans of the 1730s and 1740s to a handful of "Revolutionary" writers, like Costa, and to the Genoese Secret Archives, where many letters between Genoa's officials are preserved, but very often we know only names. I still haven't yet invented a character, but I have definitely invented personalities!
Unfortunately it's only foreshadowing the admiral's venality; the treasure fleet will not be coming anywhere near Corsica. Theodore's lucky, but not that lucky...
This TL is hard work with all the mess of politics and personalities in Corsica and all of Europe to keep abreast of but its so much fun and so interesting its well worth the effort!
Thanks! As for the hard work, I admit that even I search this thread to remind myself about which characters are where and what's become of them. It's a rather large cast of characters who are, save perhaps for Theodore himself, essentially unknown outside of Corsican histories. We owe what we know of the Corsicans of the 1730s and 1740s to a handful of "Revolutionary" writers, like Costa, and to the Genoese Secret Archives, where many letters between Genoa's officials are preserved, but very often we know only names. I still haven't yet invented a character, but I have definitely invented personalities!
Unfortunately it's only foreshadowing the admiral's venality; the treasure fleet will not be coming anywhere near Corsica. Theodore's lucky, but not that lucky...
The Seditionists
The Seditionists
The Church of St. Augustine, Ortiporio
The Church of St. Augustine, Ortiporio
There was little that Natale Giustiniani, the Lieutenant of Rogliano, could do to make profitable use of the winter pause in the naziunali offensive against him. He had less than a company of regular soldiers and scarcely more local militia, and the fall of Bastia had cut him off from his source of ammunition, money, and reinforcements. His only means of securing resupply was from the Genoese post on the island of Capraia, which was itself at the end of a tenuous maritime supply line troubled by both British cruisers and the occasional Corsican privateer. The rebels, in contrast, enjoyed a short coastal supply route out of Bastia, to say nothing of artillery and vastly superior numbers.
Giustiniani could offer no serious resistance, and his attempts to preserve the Republic’s foothold were decisively foiled on April 5th when the rebel forces captured Macinaggio, Rogliano’s port and the only harbor of any size remaining to the loyalists in Capo Corso. Rather than making a last stand at Rogliano, Guistiniani retreated to the Torre d’Agnello on the northern coast and fled to the Isle of Giraglia with his regulars, a small rock a mile offshore, where they endured a miserable ten days of hunger (as the Genoese tower only had stores for its usual five-man complement) before being evacuated to Capraia. Lieutenant-General Carlo Francesco Alessandrini was given the royalist governorship of Rogliano and the Cape, but chose to exercise this authority from Centuri rather than Rogliano.
King Theodore’s military focus now shifted to the Balagna, where the Genoese had been building up their forces in an attempt to salvage the general situation. In early 1744 the garrison of the Stato Calvi (including both Calvi and the lieutenancy of Algajola) had a nominal regular garrison of only 500 men, but this had been augmented late in the year by around 300 French soldiers, and in March by two more Genoese regular companies dispatched from the mainland (about 250 men). This not only strengthened the Genoese hold on Algajola, which had been coming under increasing threat from the royalist militia of Marquis Simone Fabiani, but raised the possibility that the Republic would seek to expand its hold on the northwest, possibly by seizing Calenzana.
Although Vice-Admiral William Rowley was no great enthusiast of the Revolution and had extensive demands on his ships elsewhere, he was under instructions to assist the Corsicans and understood the value of Calvi to the enemy. The French had not sent 300 men to Calvi merely to satisfy the Genoese, who by now were part of the general war whether they wanted to be or not. Calvi was an excellent way-station for Spanish shipping sailing from Catalonia to Liguria, and Rowley's cruisers in the area reported that Spanish tartanes and xebecs regularly darted into Calvi to escape British pursuit. Because Rowley did not have the ships to actually blockade the harbor, led alone to bomb this formidable fortress into submission by naval gunfire alone, a landward assault by the “malcontents” appeared to be the only plausible (if seemingly unlikely) way of denying the use of the port to the Bourbons. Thus, while he could offer no real naval support against Calvi itself, Rowley did provide an armed escort for Corsican transports which, following the fall of Rogliano, ferried Theodore’s soldiers and most of his heavy artillery and munitions from Bastia to Isola Rossa.
Spring was to prove a new test of the autonomy of the new regular army which Theodore and Count Marcantonio Giappiconi had created. On March 20th, somewhat later than he had promised, a 600-man battalion under Major Pietro Giovan Battaglini sailed to Livorno on Tuscan transports to join the continental war, while a second battalion sailed to Isola Rossa with the British in late April under Lieutenant Colonel Milanino Lusinchi. Both situations left Theodore feeling apprehensive. A good deal of money - not his own money, but still - had gone into raising, training, and equipping these soldiers, and Theodore feared that Battaglini’s battalion might simply dissolve in Italy (as foreign armies in Italy often did, primarily to desertion) or end up sacrificed on the battlefield by a feckless foreign general. Lusinchi’s position posed different problems, as although he was given independent command he was in practice subordinate to the whims of Marquis Fabiani, without whom Lusinchi’s battalion would not even be able to feed themselves, let alone conduct an offensive. Although Fabiani was a trusted lieutenant, he had been amassing a considerable amount of autonomy for himself in the Balagna, and he had his opponents within the royalist government who encouraged Theodore to be wary of trusting him with too many military resources.
The success of the royalists in late 1744 and early 1745 belied the very serious schisms which still remained among the Corsicans and within their government. The king appeared to have vanquished the pro-reconciliation forces which had sparred with the inconciliabili over the wisdom of prosecuting the rebellion, but the forces of division had since found new outlets. Although clearly successful, the creation of the Truppa Regolata was not without its discontents. Theodore’s previous “terzi” militia system had been a clear military failure, but it had been politically productive in that it had disseminated the king’s largesse (such as it was) throughout the countryside in the form of arms and money. Now, however, arms and other resources had become increasingly concentrated at the “military capital” of Vescovato and among a fairly close-knit group of “regulated” officers (many of whom knew each other from Venetian service) at the expense of Corsican notables and their followers elsewhere. This concentration was only accelerated by the atrocious behavior of the militia at Bastia, which caused Theodore to further cut both his reliance and his expenditures on the Corsican militia.
Theodore’s presence at Vescovato and the disposition of resources it entailed was favorable to Count Giappiconi, who was from the neighboring village of Venzolasca, but it threatened the power of men like Count Gianpietro Gaffori of Corti. Gaffori had been among the most prominent men in government when Theodore had ruled from his city, but had passed somewhat out of favor after his opposition to the inconciliabili and falling out with Johann Friedrich von Neuhoff zu Rauschenburg. Now, with the king’s new resources flowing into the northeast and being handed out to Giappiconi and his “Venetian” friends, the stakes were higher than ever. The appearance of Alerio Francesco Matra at Bastia, Gaffori’s brother-in-law, may have been an attempt by the Gaffori-Matra axis to reassert some prominence in the government, but Matra was unable to gain the general command of the militia at Bastia which he had hoped for, and the performance of the militia at Bastia was in any case not something which elicited much pride. That winter, Gaffori sent a letter to the king urging him to return to his “capital” at Corti, giving vague warnings of unrest and conspiracy, but Theodore rebuffed him. The king, knowing that his support from the British and Sardinians was stronger than ever, wanted to remain in easy contact with them, and did not want to put too much distance between himself and the army or the restive city of Bastia.
Gaffori’s warning turned out to be prescient. In April, representatives from several Castagniccian pieves, including Rostino, Casaconi, Caccia, Ampugnani, and Bigorno, declared their intentions to summon their own consulta at Ortiporio and separate themselves from the national government. Theodore was alerted to this plot shortly before the declaration by none other than Gaffori, who sent a messenger to the king claiming that a revolt of the filogenovesi was imminent in Casaconi and Rostino, as well as a list of names. The move is perhaps surprising as the relationship between Gaffori and the king had seemed to be at a low point, but Castagniccian separatism threatened Gaffori too; his influence among the delegates of the consulta could only be eroded if pieves “broke off” and formed their own regional assemblies. He may have also hoped that his prompt warning to the king would restore him to favor, and thus reestablish his connection to royal (and thus Sardinian) patronage. This time Theodore heeded his message and proceeded towards Ampugnani with his Leibgarde and a company of regulars. The advance was not made quickly or forcefully enough to smother the conspiracy in its crib, but the royalists succeeded in seizing control of Ampugnani, where alleged conspirators fled or were arrested. On April 16th, the royalists executed four such “vittoli” by firing squad, possibly those who had been proscribed by Gaffori.
The true nature of the Spring 1745 revolt and the motivations of its protagonists remain hazy. In Corsican historiography the incident is known as the Rivolta dei Sediziosi (“Revolt of the Seditionists;” sediziosi may also be translated as “subversives” or “insurrectionists”), quite the loaded phrase, and the “sediziosi” are commonly presented as merely another flavor of filogenovesi out to betray Corsica to the Genoese. Certainly such motives cannot be entirely dismissed, neither can they be accepted without reservations. The clans of Ambrosi di Castinetta and Pasqualini, whose officers were implicated in the Good Friday Plot, were prominent in the revolt, but there were other credible reasons for them to be dissatisfied with the present state of affairs; the Pasqualini clan in particular had made no secret of their resentment against the Marcia and the regime it served, which had refused to make any inquiry into the murder of Marco Pasqualini in 1743 after his return from exile. It has been pointed out that the main author of the Ortiporio declaration, Giovan Paolo Limperani, had attempted to calm the stirrings of rebellion in 1730 at the behest of the Genoese and had been driven out of Casinca as a consequence, but this was 15 years in the past and Limperani was hardly the only Corsican notable to have sided with the Republic in the first few months of the Revolution. Giovanni Cosimo Bernardini of Ortiporio was among the signatories of the declaration, who not only had unimpeachable naziunali bona fides but had in fact raided Morosaglia alongside Rauschenburg.
In fact the Ortiporio conspirators had substantive complaints which were largely ignored by the traditional post-Revolutionary historical narrative. They alleged that the Marcia was heavy-handed and its officials partial to their familial and political favorites. They resented the tax levied by the consulta for the maintenance of the judicial troops (the “flying companies”), perhaps not so much because of general anti-tax sentiment as the perception that these forces, despite being notionally under local command, were seen as acting at the behest of the national government and carrying out the bloody work of the Marcia instead of maintaining order in their own communities. The loss of royal patronage and militia money (mentioned above) was also clearly a source of discontent, as it discredited the clan notables (who could no longer disburse arms and money to their own followers) and harmed young men of military age who, given the general poverty of the island and the ravages of war which had exacerbated it, already existed on the margins of subsistence.
Unfortunately the Ortiporio Declaration itself does not survive; we have only Father Carlo Rostini’s brief summary of it in his memoirs, who mentions both the Marcia (in reference to Pasqualini’s killing) and the desire of the sediziosi to form their own regional consulta. It may be that the original objective of the “conspirators” was not to overthrow the government or reject Theodore’s kingship, but to claim a similar semi-autonomous status as the Balagnese enjoyed under Fabiani, whose territory had its own independent judicial troops and appears to have been virtually exempt from the attentions of the Marcia. If the original intent was some sort of reform or autonomy, however, any possibility of achieving this goal through nonviolent means was dissolved when the royalists marched into Ampugnani and shot four men dead. Ampugnani was secured and some of the signatories of the Ortiporio Declaration subsequently renounced their association with the document, but the flight of the more conciliatory and “moderate” leaders of the revolt only ensured that those who remained were more radical, including the true anti-royalists. The accusations of filogenovese sentiment proved self-fulfilling, as once met with force the alarmed adherents of the declaration ended up turning to the Genoese to save their own skins.
As the Ortiporio declaration turned into a full-fledged revolt in the northern Castagniccia, Theodore found he did not have the forces to move beyond Ampugnani and was forced to abandon a proposed march on Ortiporio itself. It was, in retrospect, an inconvenient time to have just sent off a regular battalion to Italy. The king was now forced to rely on the militia, chiefly from Orezza, Talcini, Bozio, and Rogna-Serra, representing the southern Castagniccia and the lands under the control of Gaffori and Matra, who now styled themselves as protectors of the national movement against traitors. A separate front was in Caccia, where after some initial vacillation Colonel Carlo Felice Giuseppe of Pietralba affirmed his loyalty to the crown and began hunting down sediziosi.
In retrospect the sediziosi had little chance of success. Contrary to the traditional late 18th century assertion that the Rivolta dei Sediziosi was a well-planned (and well-funded by the Genoese) uprising against the government, the revolt was poorly organized and had all the hallmarks of a halfhearted uprising. It never established a coordinated government, the planned consulta never met in full, and the leaders who remained after the Ampugnani executions did not successfully coordinate their efforts across the various pieves. The royalists were more numerous, better armed, better supplied, and better paid. Although the leaders of the sediziosi eventually reached out to the Genoese for aid, the position of the Genoese on Corsica admitted no possibility of direct assistance, and with Pietralba and Vescovato in royalist hands the revolt was isolated from any shipment of arms and supplies. The best that could be said for the sediziosi was that they were fighting on their own turf, and as such it took some time for the uprising to be quelled despite their manifest disadvantages. Although the movements of the royalist militia are not well documented, Morosaglia and Castineta appear to have been back in royalist hands in mid-May, while control over Ortiporio was reasserted only in June. Clashes in Casaconi and Casinca were reported throughout July, but this proved to be the dying embers of the “rebellion,” which in all lasted less than three months. Few “rebels” were actually executed; most received pardons, including Limperani and Bernardini (who had abandoned the cause in July), while some escaped to the Genoese.[1]
This season of disorder was welcomed by Commissioner-General Stefano de Mari,[2] Bishop Giustiniani’s replacement, who had arrived at Calvi in February. Initially, Mari hoped to win some military successes, but even with French and Genoese reinforcements his opportunities to capitalize on the situation were limited. A plan to relieve the republic’s forces at Rogliano in March had proved impossible to implement without control of the sea, and Mari’s opportunistic attempts to bolster the rebellion of the sediziosi likewise came up short. The best he could do was to offer asylum to a number of “rebels” who managed to flee the rebellion’s subsequent collapse. His most tangible success was the restoration of Genoese rule in Calenzana in June, as Fabiani had feared, but this was accomplished only because the attention of the nationals was elsewhere. Attempts to roll back royalist control any further foundered upon the refusal of the French garrison to assist him, as their commander was under strict orders to defend Calvi rather than gallivanting off into the interior. Soon Mari fell back upon the tried and true Genoese methods of dealing with the rebellion: buying loyalty, suborning rebel leaders, and encouraging assassination, albeit on a scale commensurate to his limited means. In July, as the rebellion of the sediziosi was dying, Mari attempted to sustain the anti-royalist momentum by bringing back Ignazio Arrighi, the one-time leader of the indifferenti faction. Arrighi had previously served as an officer in France’s Régiment Royal-Corse and was now charged by Mari with raising a new company of micheletti from among the anti-Theodoran refugees and loyal Balagnese. Any hopes that Arrighi might somehow form the nucleus of a strong “loyalist” opposition to Theodore, however, proved somewhat optimistic, as years in exile had not done much for his influence on the island. Nevertheless, he presumably rendered some marginally useful service as a proxy for a government which sought to conserve resources by rebuilding a native filogenovese party.
The real victor of the Rivolta dei Sediziosi was Gaffori, who accomplished a number of his objectives in one fell swoop. The violent suppression of the rebels defused a threat to his political prominence and liquidated a number of his regional rivals, as well as strengthening the hand of his ally Clemente Paoli, one of the chiefs of Rostino who had remained loyal (or at least abstained from the rebellion). His timely warning to Theodore, as well as his contribution of militia to the suppression of the revolt, restored him to the king’s confidence, while Theodore himself was convinced to return to Corti on the assumption that the uprising had been encouraged by his absence from the interior. Resuming his position of secretary of state, Gaffori once more sought to position himself as gatekeeper to the king and the king’s resources.
Despite their defeat, the revolt of the sediziosi did prompt some reforms. The directive to confer with local notables before passing sentences of death and familial retribution, previously a mere guideline which was often ignored, became formalized. The magistrates of the Marcia were henceforth required to consult with the padri del commune (“fathers of the commune,” traditional councillors of the Corsican parishes) before deciding upon serious remedies. The padri, in turn, were permitted to appeal sentences to the crown (notionally Theodore himself, but in usual practice his Minister of Justice). Payments to militia captains were resumed, at least in part, which helped defuse resistance among the clan leaders.
The royalist military campaign was effectively stalled for the summer. The uprising had shaken the confidence of the national leadership, Theodore included, while the threat of malaria made campaigning around the Bay of Calvi undesirable. Operations in the north were further hampered by disagreements between Fabiani and Lusinchi. Although the captain-general was in theory Lusinchi’s superior, Lusinchi was a regular officer with a nominally independent command who jealously guarded the independence and prerogatives of the regulated soldiery. Their disagreements did not prove to be fatal, but were a further complication. No serious military campaign was undertaken until late September, when national forces succeeded in harrying the Genoese communications and supply lines so badly that Mari was forced to retreat from Calenzana and neighboring Montegrosso. Finally, after months of delay, Fabiani felt the time was right for an assault against Algajola, held by around 300 regulars (mostly Genoese) and a few dozen militia and provincial troops. Naval support was still lacking, but Algajola was not nearly so formidable a position as Calvi, and the Corsicans in the Balagna possessed most of the artillery they had used to good effect at Bastia.
Corsica in early October 1745. The shaded area denotes the general area of activity of the "seditionists" in the late spring and summer.
[1] Limperani, a physician by trade, had a notable second career as a writer and penned a history of Corsica in the 1760s. Unfortunately he sheds no light on the 1745 rebellion in which he played a key role, as his history proceeds only to the early 18th century and does not cover the Corsican Revolution at all. Although his activities in 1745 (and 1730) do not appear to have been held against him after the Revolution’s end, his desire to avoid dredging them up in his own work is understandable.
[2] The cousin of Giovanni-Battista de Mari, Commissioner-General of Corsica prior to Spinola, who was made infamous by his uncompromising nature, distrust of the French, and harsh treatment of the rebels.
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There was historically a disconnect between the British diplomatic corps, which favored assisting the Corsicans, and the British navy itself, whose officers considered the Corsican expedition to be a pointless and dangerous endeavour. The officers involved in OTL's intervention in Corsica correctly pointed out that Corsica could not possibly make any difference in the wider war, and the detachment there put the British in a perilous position by dividing their forces while the Bourbon fleets at Cartagena and Toulon were free to roam. Fortunately for the British, the Bourbons had no stomach for major naval engagements in the theater after Toulon, but with a more aggressive leadership they could have easily descended upon Townshend's Corsican fleet (which was only a dozen ships) and crushed them, potentially shifting the balance of power in the Mediterranean. It was poor strategy driven by diplomats with little appreciation for the broader strategic situation, and the ill-conceived venture was only abandoned when the situation in Lombardy became truly dire and Rivarola proved completely incapable of uniting the rebels as he had promised. The admiral eventually gave Carlo Emanuele a choice: he could enforce the Ligurian blockade, or he could continue with the farce in Corsica in the unlikely hope that the rebels would get their act together, but he could not do both. The King of Sardinia wisely chose the former.
Rowley would really prefer to do nothing at all, but since his instructions (which come by way of the diplomatic service through Secretary Newcastle) are to assist the Corsicans, he'll make a minimum effort to do that. Sparing a few cruisers to escort Corsican cargo ships is reasonable, but unless he gets more specific instructions from Newcastle he won't be sending a bombardment fleet to Calvi anytime soon.
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A pity Theodore did not try to work his charm against the so-called seditionists and bring them to a negotiation table (guarded solely by his Leibgarde, of course). Then again, it would probably have encouraged further revolts and attempts to get a better deal by other groups not entirely happy with his rule.
What is the food & water situation at Calvi? The Genoese have limited ability to ship in supplies with the Royal Navy in theatre, but they do seem to hold a decent amount of land around Calvi to perhaps get their food off the farmers and shephards of the area.
What is the food & water situation at Calvi? The Genoese have limited ability to ship in supplies with the Royal Navy in theatre, but they do seem to hold a decent amount of land around Calvi to perhaps get their food off the farmers and shephards of the area.
The next update will come as soon as I figure out what the hell I want to do with the 1745 Italian campaign. Did I mention the grand campaign stuff is not really my favorite thing to write?
Calvi is not under blockade. There are British cruisers in the area, but their presence is very far from ubiquitous. Certainly any supply runs to Calvi entail some risk, as it's always possible a British frigate will appear and ruin your day, and the Genoese probably lose a ship every now and then. As we'll see, however, the British presence off Corsican waters is feeble enough that this is not much more than an annoyance to the Genoese at Calvi. In fact large numbers of Spanish ships - in one instance IOTL, 60 small vessels at one time - are able to go around the British fleet off the Riviera by sailing through the waters north of Corsica and reach Genoa or Spezia thereby.
If conquered, Calvi could make a good patrol base from which to cut off this traffic, but only if the British are willing and able to spare the ships for it. With a third of his fleet out beyond Gibraltar hunting for treasure and most of the rest off blockading the Spanish fleet in Cartagena, however, Rowley isn't really in a position to make use of Calvi even if it were handed to him on a silver platter.
Moreover, Calvi's demand for supplies is not terribly high compared to other citadels on the island. The civilian population of Calvi is at this point less than a thousand people; at this time ITTL there are actually more soldiers in the city than civilians. Compare Bastia, with some 5,000 residents, or even Ajaccio, with somewhere between 3 and 4 thousand. Of all the settlements on Corsica which can plausibly be called "cities," Calvi is one of the smallest.
For reference, here's the population of Corsica's cities in the mid-1780s based on the French Plan Terrier, the post-conquest cadastral survey of Corsica:
Bastia: 5,286
Ajaccio: 3,907
Bonifacio: 2,468
Corti: 1,378
Calvi: 1,042
Sartena: 809
Calvi is not under blockade. There are British cruisers in the area, but their presence is very far from ubiquitous. Certainly any supply runs to Calvi entail some risk, as it's always possible a British frigate will appear and ruin your day, and the Genoese probably lose a ship every now and then. As we'll see, however, the British presence off Corsican waters is feeble enough that this is not much more than an annoyance to the Genoese at Calvi. In fact large numbers of Spanish ships - in one instance IOTL, 60 small vessels at one time - are able to go around the British fleet off the Riviera by sailing through the waters north of Corsica and reach Genoa or Spezia thereby.
If conquered, Calvi could make a good patrol base from which to cut off this traffic, but only if the British are willing and able to spare the ships for it. With a third of his fleet out beyond Gibraltar hunting for treasure and most of the rest off blockading the Spanish fleet in Cartagena, however, Rowley isn't really in a position to make use of Calvi even if it were handed to him on a silver platter.
Moreover, Calvi's demand for supplies is not terribly high compared to other citadels on the island. The civilian population of Calvi is at this point less than a thousand people; at this time ITTL there are actually more soldiers in the city than civilians. Compare Bastia, with some 5,000 residents, or even Ajaccio, with somewhere between 3 and 4 thousand. Of all the settlements on Corsica which can plausibly be called "cities," Calvi is one of the smallest.
For reference, here's the population of Corsica's cities in the mid-1780s based on the French Plan Terrier, the post-conquest cadastral survey of Corsica:
Bastia: 5,286
Ajaccio: 3,907
Bonifacio: 2,468
Corti: 1,378
Calvi: 1,042
Sartena: 809
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March to the Sea
March to the Sea
Feldzeugmeister Ludwig Ferdinand, Graf von Schulenburg-Oeynhausen
Feldzeugmeister Ludwig Ferdinand, Graf von Schulenburg-Oeynhausen
Before their 1745 Italian campaign could even begin, the Bourbon powers would have to resolve their differences with one another. The split of the grand Gallispan army after the capture of Ceva in 1744 had hobbled what had seemed like a promising campaign and created resentment and mutual recriminations among both the Bourbon commanders and their courts. King Louis XV, at least, was willing to address the issue of leadership; Marshal Lautrec was removed from his position at the head of the French army in Italy and replaced with Marshal Charles Louis Auguste Fouquet, duc de Belle-Isle, who happened to be the man principally responsible for France’s entry into the war in the first place. He had been discredited by the failure of France’s German campaign and had been clearly out of favor since 1743, but his military talents proved too important for him to be left forever on the sidelines.
On the matter of strategy, too, the two courts were starting to come together. Ceva provided a useful jumping-off point into Piedmont, but the French foreign minister d’Argenson, who was now reopening negotiations with Turin, hesitated to assault Piedmont directly as had been the French plan in 1744 to avoid scuttling those negotiations. Thus, despite claiming that Spain was “a bad comrade in war, still worse in negotiations,” d’Argenson was actually shifting French strategy in a way that was quite agreeable to the Spanish, who much preferred a march on Lombardy to wasting time on Sardinia. Although Spain’s foray into Lombardy had failed disastrously in the previous autumn, it was argued that numbers had been more to blame than planning. The army of Infante Felipe and General la Mina, numbering a mere 11,000 men by the end of the campaign season, had been outnumbered by the Sardinians and Austrians to either side and had to beat a costly retreat as a consequence. Now, however, both France and Spain had considerably reinforced their armies in Provence, and by the start of summer the Bourbon allies would have some 80,000 troops in the theater (including around 10,000 Genoese) opposing approximately 40,000 Sardinians and 20,000 Austrians.
Belle-Isle proposed to maintain forces at Ceva and other threatening points to keep the Sardinian army on the defensive, while the main body of the Gallispan army would proceed to Genoa and strike north from there as the Spanish had done in 1744. This would result in the capture of Madrid’s objectives and the isolation of Sardinia from its Austrian ally. If King Carlo Emanuele did not beg for an armistice, direct pressure could then be applied from the east until he was willing to come to the table, and the Austrians would be completely unable to assist him. The main remaining question was the strength of the “threatening points” which French forces would hold; Belle-Isle wished to maintain enough forces in Savoy, Nice, and Ceva to actually attempt an invasion (even if it was to be merely diversionary), an allocation of forces which he believed would keep the Sardinians quiescent.
Although clearly disadvantaged in numbers, the Worms Allies did have the advantage of time. French and Spanish reinforcements were still moving to Villefranche throughout the spring. An attack on Genoa itself was written off as too costly, but Ceva was held by only 1,600 Genoese soldiers who were poorly supplied for ammunition and isolated in enemy territory. In late March, the King of Sardinia laid siege to Ceva with an army of 12,000 men, attempting to recapture this vital position before the Bourbons could reinforce it. Much to the dismay of the French, who had labored long to take it in the previous year, the Genoese defenders made a poor showing and capitulated on April 13th, as soon as the Sardinian bombardment began in earnest. By the end of April, Carlo Emanuele had undone practically all of Lautrec’s progress in the 1744 Piedmont campaign. Ceva, which Belle-Isle had imagined would serve as a point from which to threaten an invasion of Piedmont, would now threaten his own advance.
Had this Sardinian initiative been matched by equal vigor by the British navy, Belle-Isle’s task would have been immeasurably harder. The Mediterranean squadron, however, was hindered by poor disposition. This was not entirely the fault of Vice-Admiral William Rowley, as the Admiralty had recalled several of his battleships to bolster the Western Fleet and left him with fewer ships than ever. Rowley compounded this problem, however, by positioning the bulk of his fleet far to the west. By the spring of 1745, of Rowley’s 35 ships of the line only 8 were serving in Ligurian waters, while the remainder were split between Cartagena and Cadiz. The former station was understandable, and indeed required by Rowley’s orders, as the Spanish fleet was blockaded there and from this position the British could potentially disrupt any attempted convergence between the Spanish, the French at Toulon, and the French in the Atlantic, whose arrival in the Mediterranean was still feared. The choice of Cadiz, however, was questionable. Ostensibly Rowley had sent a squadron here - larger by half than the Ligurian squadron - to catch a French cruising squadron off Spartel. They remained, however, in the hopes that they would intercept a Spanish treasure fleet which was expected back from the West Indies. Certainly such a capture would have hurt Spain’s war effort, insofar as silver and gold are the sinews of war, but Rowley was a man known for looking out for his own interests and it can hardly be doubted that the prospect of a fortune in prize money played a role in this choice. In any case, the treasure fleet landed at San Sebastián in Navarre, nowhere near Cadiz, and the only result of the Cadiz diversion was to waste a third of Rowley’s squadron in months of indolence.
The remaining British presence off Italy was not entirely without effect. The Riviera squadron managed to halt a French attempt to move forces to Genoa by sea and forced the French ships into Villefranche, while a Spanish advance overland was thwarted by naval gunfire at San Remo in May. But this careful watch on the Riviera came at the expense of the British presence further east, where a mere handful of cruisers were unable to stop the Spanish from slipping thousands of men and considerable stocks of grain and munitions into Genoa and Spezia. By April, the Spanish had managed to ship some 5,000 soldiers to Genoa, and there was some hope that yet more reinforcements would be arriving. The Battle of Monterosi in 1744 had hobbled but not completely destroyed the southern “Napolispan” army. The remnants of that force, some 12,000 men, were now under the leadership of General Fernando de la Torre y Solís, Marqués de Campo Santo, who had been tapped to replace the disgraced Gages.[1]
Campo Santo’s first choice was to take the maritime route to Genoa, and to this end marched as far north as Orbetello, part of the Spanish-owned Stato dei Presidi in the south of Tuscany. This path was closed, however, by the belated action of Admiral Rowley, who had received new orders to recommit his forces to the Italian theater prompted by the desperate pleas of British diplomats in Italy who had witnessed the narrow victory of 1744 and watched Spanish troops and supplies pour into Liguria with ever-growing dismay. Eight ships of the line and a dozen smaller vessels arrived on the scene in March, just in time to foil Campo Santo’s hopes of sneaking into Spezia, although not soon enough to prevent another 3,000 Spaniards on ships out of Barcelona from slipping past the blockade and disembarking at Genoa.
With his preferred route obstructed, Campo Santo had to examine other possibilities. The most direct overland route was straight through Tuscany, which despite the marriage of Grand Duke Franz Stefan to the Queen of Hungary was technically neutral. Neutrality, as it was then understood, did not preclude the passage of belligerent armies, and the Spanish had already marched through Tuscany in 1742 without incident. But whereas the Austrians had then been powerless to protect Tuscany, they were now ready and willing to stand in Campo Santo’s way. FZM Ludwig Ferdinand, Graf von Schulenburg-Oeynhausen, the Austrian supreme commander in Italy, had been ordered to protect Tuscany and the Milanese, while FML Johann Ernst, Freiherr von Breitwitz commanded some 7,000 Tuscan irregulars and militia who would be of little value in a pitched battle but could cause serious problems for any invader. It seemed probable that the Tuscan regency would refuse passage to Campo Santo rather than let the Spaniards march across the length of Tuscany and reinforce the Spanish army in Liguria.
The alternative was to go around Tuscany by way of the Papal territories, Modena, and Lucca. This had the advantage of avoiding Breitwitz’s involvement and the abrogation of Tuscany’s neutral status, but Schulenburg would surely oppose this march, and the route would require the army to cross the Apennines in enemy-held territory at a time of year when there was still snow in the mountain passes and the mountain streams were flooded with snowmelt. Certainly the army could not take artillery with it on such an advance, which would have to be left at Orbetello. Campo Santo resumed his advance in late April, intending to march through Umbria and the Romagna before crossing the mountains and descending towards Lucca. Schulenburg presumed that the Spanish were intending once more to invade Parma and the Milanese, and marched to Modena with 14,000 men.
Campo Santo had no intention of marching against Schulenburg and his superior force in a strong defensive position. Instead he turned west after reaching Bologna and headed towards Lucchese territory.[2] This caught Schulenburg quite by surprise, and the Spanish gained a commanding lead in their race to to the Tyrrhenian coast. Some resistance was encountered from the Tuscan militia, which Breitwitz had mobilized in the mountains of northern Tuscany with the approach of the Spanish army, particularly around to town of Piteglio (occupying a salient of Tuscan territory which the Spanish passed through), but these irregulars were only a mild annoyance to the Spanish army. Once Schulenburg realized what the Spanish were doing, the general dispatched his own irregulars to pursue them and led the rest of his army southwest along the Secchio river towards the Apennines. To have any chance of catching his adversary, he decided it was necessary to take his army over the Pass of the Radici, the highest pass in the Apennines. This was a perilous route, which even this late in the spring had snow on the ground, and his troops were lashed by strong and freezing winds. Nevertheless, despite this adversity the Austrians trudged on over the mountains and descended into the Garfagnana.
The Spanish were enjoying a considerably easier progress. Upon reaching Lucca, they were welcomed by the friendly (albeit ostensibly neutral) population and were able to resupply before marching on to the sea. They were delayed somewhat by the diversions offered here - some soldiers were a bit too inclined to enjoy the city and its wine - but Campo Santo proved an able enough disciplinarian and managed to continue his march without too much time being lost. Once they had reached the coast, the Spaniards turned north to complete the last leg of their journey through the little state of Massa-Carrara before reaching Sarzana, the easternmost town of the Genoese Republic. All that concerned Campo Santo was the presence of Austrian irregulars - not Tuscan militia, but Croat irregulars and Catalan partisans[3] - who had arrived on the scene and were harassing his rear. Still, there was no sign of the main Austrian army, and Campo Santo presumed that they were too far behind to catch him. In fact Schulenburg had elected not to pursue the Spanish into Lucca and had instead marched northwest into the Lunigiana, attempting to circle around and cut off the Spanish before they reached Sarzana. He did not manage this, for he was still too far behind, but nature would grant him another chance.
The Spanish reached Sarzana with no further incident save for the continued harassment of the Austrian light troops. Once there, however, they found that there was no suitable passage over the Magra, the river which separated Sarzana. Snowmelt from the mountains had greatly swollen the river and turned it into a surging, icy torrent. The Spanish had no choice to begin constructing a bridge, but this was expected to take several days, and was further delayed when the first bridge they tried to raise unceremoniously collapsed into the river. This crucial delay allowed Schulenburg to arrive on the scene with his main corps. The Austrians launched an attack against the Spanish, seeking to drive them into the river; as both sides lacked artillery and there was not much room in the valley for cavalry maneuvers, the fight was largely an infantry brawl. The Austrians outnumbered their foes but were exhausted by their gruelling march over the mountains, and the Spanish infantry fought with exceptional valor. A general assault by the Austrians was met by a counter-charge of Spanish bayonets, which sent the Austrians tumbling back in confusion. Rather than risk further losses, Schulenburg withdrew to a safe distance, and the Spanish were dissuaded from pursuit by the covering action of the Croats and Catalans.
The Magra flooding near Sarzana
In a technical sense, Campo Santo had accomplished his goal: He had evaded the Austrians and managed to reach Liguria with his army. But that army was a shadow of its former self. The Austrian irregulars had steadily chipped away at them during their march to the sea, they had been savaged in the Battle of Sarzana, and the Austrian seizure of the bridge allowed elements of Schulenburg’s army to cross the Magra and inflict serious casualties on the Spaniards as they made a disordered retreat towards Spezia. Of the 12,000 men Campo Santo possessed at the start of the campaign, fewer than 7,000 were in a fit state to fight at the end of May. His artillery had been left behind at Orbetello, his cavalry had lost most of their horses, and many of his men were walking wounded. Madrid attempted to spin the Battle of Sarzana as a heroic escape, and the Spanish had indeed performed heroics. The Spanish infantry fought tenaciously and the Irishmen were particularly praised, with the Hibernia regiment (or what was left of it) bearing the proud but macabre nickname of the “Irish Regiment of Death” for years thereafter. But despite this performance it is difficult to call Sarzana a Spanish victory, for the weary and depleted army which came staggering into Genoa in June was probably not of tremendous value to the Bourbon offensive.
As Schulenburg and his opponent were chasing each other through the Apennines, the grand Gallispan army had begun its slow but inexorable advance into Liguria. Belle-Isle’s greatest fear was that the Sardinians would strike him on the march as his army was stretched in a long, snaking column, but no such attack was forthcoming. The Sardinians found the Ligurian Apennines to be devoid of supplies and even with the capture of Ceva could not bring a serious counterattack to bear against the invaders. Owing to delays caused by bad roads and British bombardment, the Gallispan host would not even set foot in enemy territory until late June, but the glacial speed of the advance did not lessen the overwhelming force which it was poised to deliver.
Approximate routes of Schulenburg (red) and Campo Santo (green) in May of 1745 leading up to the Battle of Sarzana (click to enlarge)
Footnotes
[1] “Marquis de Campo Santo” was a victory title given to de la Torre after his participation in the Battle of Campo Santo in 1743, in which he led a commendable cavalry action. Coincidentally, his maneuverings between Modena and Bologna in the spring of 1745 were not far from the 1743 battle site just north of the Panaro.
[2] The Republic of Lucca was a small and weak state centered around the city of Lucca just north of Tuscany. Adroit diplomacy and strong fortifications had managed thus far to preserve Lucca’s independence against stronger neighbors and they had wisely remained neutral in the war, but it seems clear that the Lucchesi themselves favored the Bourbon cause. It was not a violation of neutrality (as it was understood in the 18th century) to accede to the mere passage of a belligerent army, nor to permit the sale of provisions to said army.
[3] The Austrian army in Italy employed a unit of several hundred Catalan irregulars or "partisans," most of them apparently deserters from the Spanish army, led by a certain Colonel Soro (Count Soro in some sources). The Spaniards considered Soro to be a rebel and a traitor, and had standing orders to execute any soldiers of his unit who were captured.
Timeline Notes
[A] IOTL, Gages followed a somewhat similar strategy, although the pass he used was the same that Schulenburg used ITTL, while Campo Santo made an easier crossing further south (IOTL Gages sent his baggage along that route instead). Gages, however, benefited from the fact that he had the larger army - he was originally supposed to attack the Austrians in Modena before suddenly receiving orders to go to Genoa instead - and that the Austrians were initially commanded by Lobkowitz, who was not entirely without merit in the early 1745 campaign but failed to assiduously pursue the foe. He was sacked and replaced with Schulenburg during the campaign, but not soon enough to matter. The Magra indeed presented a formidable challenge to the Spanish and they encountered considerable trouble trying to span it, but they were ultimately able to cross. As they made their crossing they came under attack from Austrian irregulars who nearly managed to seize the bridge behind them, but a small group of Irish soldiers managed to cut the bridge and swim back through the freezing, churning river whilst under enemy fire.
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Well, it's not like the OTL war was much different in this respect. No wonder that after it, alliances changed completely (while remaining highly dysfunctional).