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Treachery and Triumph
Bastia in the 1830s
At the first meeting of the war council, days after his coronation, Theodore announced that a quick strike would first be made against Porto Vecchio with the forces then available. This was probably inspired by the objection of Ignazio Arrighi, one of those more skeptical rebel leaders who had rather grudgingly accepted his election as king. Arrighi had at one point argued that Theodore should not be made king until he had proven himself in some military enterprise. This argument made little headway at the consulta, and Arrighi seems to have been placated after the fact by being made a count, but Theodore doubtless wished to gain a swift victory to silence similar critics. Porto Vecchio was the best harbor on the island, and its acquisition would be a great boon to the rebels. The attack was led by Colonel Antonio Colonna, a nephew of Chancellor Sebastiano Costa and former captain in the Genoese army who had defected to the rebels. With virtually no preparation, Colonna managed to achieve complete surprise over the unsuspecting garrison. The the town was stormed on April 23rd and the garrison captain fled by boat to Bonifacio. Theodore had only been on the throne for eight days.
Having established his reputation for quick and victorious action, Theodore now planned an offensive on all fronts to take advantage of his initiative. Marquis Luca Ornano would besiege Ajaccio on the west coast, while Captain Angelo Luccioni, having been made governor of the recently-captured Porto Vecchio, would lead a reconnaissance-in-force against Bonifacio in the south and capture it if practicable. Marquis Simone Fabiani would return to his native Balagna, the richest Corsican province, and move to besiege Calvi in the northwest. Theodore, in the meantime, would take personal command of the rest of the forces in the Diqua and lead them north with the ultimate objective of capturing Bastia, the Genoese capital. A detachment from this army, under Count Arrighi, would attack San Fiorenzo in the Nebbio, while another detachment under Count Anton-Francesco Giappiconi, the secretary of war, was sent to invest San Pellegrino on the eastern coast to secure his flank.
At the time, some outside observers questioned the wisdom of subdividing his force to such an extent, but it seems to have been a political necessity. There had already been quarrels among his "generals" as to their precedence; Marquis Luigi Giafferi had bristled at the prospect of Fabiani, some three decades his junior, being chosen as vice-president of the war council, and had only been placated by Theodore making him a marquis. By giving each of his most prominent commanders their own command and their own task, the king hoped to satisfy the pride of all.
On the 1st of May, the rebel host in the Diqua attacked Furiani, where the Genoese held a fortified position on the outskirts of Bastia. The Genoese, who had come to expect ambushing and skirmish warfare from the rebels, were quite surprised to find some 2,000 rebel militia and irregulars advancing across open ground less than ten miles from Bastia. Theodore led the attack in person, and despite taking artillery fire from the Genoese position and from an offshore galley, the rebels drove the Genoese from Furiani after a day-long battle. The garrison retreated into Bastia. The rebel army was close on their heels, and on the 3rd the rebels invested the city and set up Theodore's six heavy guns on the hills above it. The king gave the garrison an ultimatum, demanding their surrender within ten days.
The Genoese commissioner-general, Count Paulo Battista Rivarola, rejected his demands. Theodore, however, had means other than assault at his disposal, for he knew Bastia's weakness. Situated on a rocky stretch of the eastern coast, Bastia had been chosen as the capital of Genoese Corsica solely for its proximity to Genoa and the coast of Italy, not because of any great geographical advantages. It had no natural harbor, but more importantly for Theodore it had no secure water source. All the city's water was diverted from springs and creeks in the nearby hills through a number of pipes and channels. Learning the location of these channels from local informers, Theodore ordered them all to be cut, hoping to thereby gain a bloodless victory. As waiting for the city to capitulate did not require his personal presence, he left Count Gio Giacomo Ambrosi di Castinetta there with the bulk of the force to maintain the blockade. The king himself would relocate to San Pellegrino and monitor the progress there.
Besieged Bastia roiled with anxiety. There were rumors that the rebels would slaughter everyone if victorious, possibly stoked by the Genoese. Theodore, before his departure, had attempted to counter these rumors with declarations of his own, circulated within the city by his sympathizers, which invited them to join the cause and promised amnesty to all Corsicans. Rivarola did his best to organize a general defense, sending messages to the commandants of the other citadels demanding an inventory of their armed forces, but the initiative and morale to take any offensive action against the rebels was lacking. The commandant of Calvi, writing to a senator in Genoa, opined dejectedly that the loss of the whole island was only a matter of time.
Nicolò Cattaneo Della Volta, 153rd Doge of Genoa
The Doge of Genoa, Nicolò Cattaneo Della Volta, ordered the publication on May 9th of an extended screed against the "Baron Neuhoff." By this time his identity was known—initially the Genoese (and the rest of Europe) were uncertain as to who the mysterious king was, with some suggesting it was Ripperda himself. As soon as they learned his true identity, the Genoese had scrambled to find any sort of dirt they could on the adventurer who had unexpectedly turned up on the island and ruined their attempt to pacify the rebels.
The publication gave an abbreviated and scurrilous account of his life containing a mix of truths, half-truths, and baseless rumors. The Doge claimed Theodore was a "mountebank" dressed in "oriental fashion," a "wandering vagabond devoid of fortune," as well as a "heretic," "magician," and "cabalist." The Doge derided the "few arms and supplies" which Theodore had brought and called his cause hopeless. He lamented the "evil influence" such a man might have over the Republic's loyal Corsican subjects and fretted that he would "disturb the repose of our people." He finally accused Theodore of breaching the peace, treason, and committing lese majeste, and promised that he would be dealt with like the common criminal he was. How seriously anyone took this document is hard to say; John Bagshaw, the English consul in Genoa, forwarded it to his government and noted that it did no credit to the Doge, who sounded "petulant" and "most desperate." In besieged Bastia, rebel sympathizers defaced a number of the posted copies by scrawling "Long Live Theodore" upon them.
The king, however, did feel it necessary to pen his own response. He dismissed the account of his past as a cheap fabrication and mocked the charges laid against him. He could not have breached the peace, he wrote, as there had been no peace upon his arrival. Treason, he said, could only be committed against one's friends, and he had "never pretended nor desired" to be friends with the Genoese. As for lese majeste, he made a jest of the Doge and the mercantile origins of the Republic. "Did not an Englishman once address a letter to 'The Doge of Genoa and General Dealer?'" he wondered. "How can majesty possibly be possessed by a hardware merchant?" He ridiculed the tone of concern in the Doge's proclamation, claiming that the "repose" which Genoa wished for the Coriscans was that of the grave, and turned the accusation that he had "few arms and supplies" back on the Doge, saying that he had brought a modest amount because overcoming the feeble Genoese would not require any great exertion. He claimed the Genoese were cowards, men who had acquired everything they possessed through "cupidity and trading," and sarcastically praised their "courage" for hiding within their citadels rather than face him and the "ten thousand brave Corsicans" at his command. He offered a threat, as well: "Since the Genoese say I am a mountebank, I shall go and play from their stage at Bastia!"[1]
The king was in the meantime at San Pellegrino. Not much could be done there for a dearth of artillery, as all of Theodore's heavy guns were at Bastia, but Theodore was at least able to inspire the men with his personal bravery. He allegedly toured the perimeter on horseback with serene calm even as cannonballs hurled from the fortress tore up the path before him. From there he retired to Venzolasca, five miles to the northwest of San Pellegrino, where he established a temporary headquarters and prepared his forces to attack in whichever direction the Genoese might appear as his lieutenants continued their endeavors.
While at Venzolasca, a messenger arrived with the most dire of news. Captain Angelo Luccioni, whom the king had placed in command of Porto Vecchio and charged with attacking Bonifacio, had sold his city to the Genoese for 30 sequins and was presently on his way to convince Theodore to go south with him, where he would betray the king to the Genoese. Luccioni indeed arrived the next day, claiming that he had been forced to retreat from the city and asking for the king to join him in retaking it. There was no question of his guilt, and he was immediately arrested; the king, in a rage, told him that he would have access to a confessor and then be shot within the quarter-hour. Costa and Giafferi, concerned that an execution of a prominent man would make enemies, urged leniency, but Theodore insisted that no sovereign could stand for such treachery. He was duly executed by firing squad, only slightly later than Theodore had promised.
Better news, however, was to come within days. The position of Rivarola at Bastia had grown hopeless. Although some succor could be had by supply ships from Genoa, it was impossible to supply a city of thousands with water by ship alone. On the 14th of May, Consul Bagshaw sent a report to his superiors claiming that, according to an informant he had within Bastia itself, the people of Bastia were pleading with Rivarola to capitulate and that there was a very real chance they would "revolt against the Garrison in favor of the Malcontents." There were rumors that the garrison was bleeding out of the city daily, defecting to the rebels to avoid reprisal or simply to get some water.
Count Rivarola decided that it was necessary to escape his confinement by force, and he attempted it on the 16th of May. Despite the rather poor preparation of Castinetta, who does not seem to have been able to get his soldiers to do much defensive preparation in the two weeks during which they invested the city, the rebels were able to beat back Rivarola's attack. Costa remarked that the garrison soon ran out of steam, and engaged in desultory skirmishing with the rebels instead of pressing home an attack which might have caught the poorly prepared defenders off-guard. Part of the blame may be placed on the absentee leadership of Rivarola, a career bureaucrat who "led" the breakout from the safety of the citadel, but his forces were clearly demoralized. Bagshaw reported a "reliable" story that one Genoese group of foreign mercenaries threw down their weapons and surrendered "at the first crack of musket-fire."
Theodore arrived two days later, having rushed north from Venzolasca to aid the besiegers, only to find that Castinetta had matters well in hand. Reinforced with another 500 or so men, Theodore ordered preparations for an assault. It did not came. Rivarola, without water, without reliable soldiers, and fearing a rebellion from within, capitulated.[A]
Footnotes
[1] The joke is clearer if you know that the etymology of "mountebank" is the Italian montambanco, literally meaning one who "mounts the bench," i.e. leaps upon a stage. In context, of course, it usually means one who mounts a stage to hawk fraudulent medicines or goods.
Timeline Notes
[A] IOTL, Giacinto Paoli was placed in charge of the siege of Bastia. Theodore's strategy was the same as ITTL—he cut the water to the city and left matters in Paoli's hands. Bagshaw's reports are mostly quoted verbatim; the Genoese position was desperate. Just as the city was close to surrender, however, Paoli inexplicably departed with many of his men, and the defenders sallied forth and defeated the remainder. Theodore thus lost the best chance he ever got of taking Bastia. According to legend, Theodore was enraged and wanted to seize him as a traitor, but was convinced by his other commanders that Paoli had only left because he had to attend his father's funeral in accordance with custom. This seems rather dubious; Theodore probably spared him for the same reason he made him a general in the first place, because he was too powerful and important to leave out, and a bad friend was better than an enemy. ITTL, Paoli doesn't screw everything up because he's quite dead. Castinetta is not a military genius, but he is at least capable of staying in one place for two weeks. Much of Theodore's subsequent success ITTL will hinge on this crucial conquest.
Treachery and Triumph
Bastia in the 1830s
At the first meeting of the war council, days after his coronation, Theodore announced that a quick strike would first be made against Porto Vecchio with the forces then available. This was probably inspired by the objection of Ignazio Arrighi, one of those more skeptical rebel leaders who had rather grudgingly accepted his election as king. Arrighi had at one point argued that Theodore should not be made king until he had proven himself in some military enterprise. This argument made little headway at the consulta, and Arrighi seems to have been placated after the fact by being made a count, but Theodore doubtless wished to gain a swift victory to silence similar critics. Porto Vecchio was the best harbor on the island, and its acquisition would be a great boon to the rebels. The attack was led by Colonel Antonio Colonna, a nephew of Chancellor Sebastiano Costa and former captain in the Genoese army who had defected to the rebels. With virtually no preparation, Colonna managed to achieve complete surprise over the unsuspecting garrison. The the town was stormed on April 23rd and the garrison captain fled by boat to Bonifacio. Theodore had only been on the throne for eight days.
Having established his reputation for quick and victorious action, Theodore now planned an offensive on all fronts to take advantage of his initiative. Marquis Luca Ornano would besiege Ajaccio on the west coast, while Captain Angelo Luccioni, having been made governor of the recently-captured Porto Vecchio, would lead a reconnaissance-in-force against Bonifacio in the south and capture it if practicable. Marquis Simone Fabiani would return to his native Balagna, the richest Corsican province, and move to besiege Calvi in the northwest. Theodore, in the meantime, would take personal command of the rest of the forces in the Diqua and lead them north with the ultimate objective of capturing Bastia, the Genoese capital. A detachment from this army, under Count Arrighi, would attack San Fiorenzo in the Nebbio, while another detachment under Count Anton-Francesco Giappiconi, the secretary of war, was sent to invest San Pellegrino on the eastern coast to secure his flank.
At the time, some outside observers questioned the wisdom of subdividing his force to such an extent, but it seems to have been a political necessity. There had already been quarrels among his "generals" as to their precedence; Marquis Luigi Giafferi had bristled at the prospect of Fabiani, some three decades his junior, being chosen as vice-president of the war council, and had only been placated by Theodore making him a marquis. By giving each of his most prominent commanders their own command and their own task, the king hoped to satisfy the pride of all.
On the 1st of May, the rebel host in the Diqua attacked Furiani, where the Genoese held a fortified position on the outskirts of Bastia. The Genoese, who had come to expect ambushing and skirmish warfare from the rebels, were quite surprised to find some 2,000 rebel militia and irregulars advancing across open ground less than ten miles from Bastia. Theodore led the attack in person, and despite taking artillery fire from the Genoese position and from an offshore galley, the rebels drove the Genoese from Furiani after a day-long battle. The garrison retreated into Bastia. The rebel army was close on their heels, and on the 3rd the rebels invested the city and set up Theodore's six heavy guns on the hills above it. The king gave the garrison an ultimatum, demanding their surrender within ten days.
The Genoese commissioner-general, Count Paulo Battista Rivarola, rejected his demands. Theodore, however, had means other than assault at his disposal, for he knew Bastia's weakness. Situated on a rocky stretch of the eastern coast, Bastia had been chosen as the capital of Genoese Corsica solely for its proximity to Genoa and the coast of Italy, not because of any great geographical advantages. It had no natural harbor, but more importantly for Theodore it had no secure water source. All the city's water was diverted from springs and creeks in the nearby hills through a number of pipes and channels. Learning the location of these channels from local informers, Theodore ordered them all to be cut, hoping to thereby gain a bloodless victory. As waiting for the city to capitulate did not require his personal presence, he left Count Gio Giacomo Ambrosi di Castinetta there with the bulk of the force to maintain the blockade. The king himself would relocate to San Pellegrino and monitor the progress there.
Besieged Bastia roiled with anxiety. There were rumors that the rebels would slaughter everyone if victorious, possibly stoked by the Genoese. Theodore, before his departure, had attempted to counter these rumors with declarations of his own, circulated within the city by his sympathizers, which invited them to join the cause and promised amnesty to all Corsicans. Rivarola did his best to organize a general defense, sending messages to the commandants of the other citadels demanding an inventory of their armed forces, but the initiative and morale to take any offensive action against the rebels was lacking. The commandant of Calvi, writing to a senator in Genoa, opined dejectedly that the loss of the whole island was only a matter of time.
Nicolò Cattaneo Della Volta, 153rd Doge of Genoa
The Doge of Genoa, Nicolò Cattaneo Della Volta, ordered the publication on May 9th of an extended screed against the "Baron Neuhoff." By this time his identity was known—initially the Genoese (and the rest of Europe) were uncertain as to who the mysterious king was, with some suggesting it was Ripperda himself. As soon as they learned his true identity, the Genoese had scrambled to find any sort of dirt they could on the adventurer who had unexpectedly turned up on the island and ruined their attempt to pacify the rebels.
The publication gave an abbreviated and scurrilous account of his life containing a mix of truths, half-truths, and baseless rumors. The Doge claimed Theodore was a "mountebank" dressed in "oriental fashion," a "wandering vagabond devoid of fortune," as well as a "heretic," "magician," and "cabalist." The Doge derided the "few arms and supplies" which Theodore had brought and called his cause hopeless. He lamented the "evil influence" such a man might have over the Republic's loyal Corsican subjects and fretted that he would "disturb the repose of our people." He finally accused Theodore of breaching the peace, treason, and committing lese majeste, and promised that he would be dealt with like the common criminal he was. How seriously anyone took this document is hard to say; John Bagshaw, the English consul in Genoa, forwarded it to his government and noted that it did no credit to the Doge, who sounded "petulant" and "most desperate." In besieged Bastia, rebel sympathizers defaced a number of the posted copies by scrawling "Long Live Theodore" upon them.
The king, however, did feel it necessary to pen his own response. He dismissed the account of his past as a cheap fabrication and mocked the charges laid against him. He could not have breached the peace, he wrote, as there had been no peace upon his arrival. Treason, he said, could only be committed against one's friends, and he had "never pretended nor desired" to be friends with the Genoese. As for lese majeste, he made a jest of the Doge and the mercantile origins of the Republic. "Did not an Englishman once address a letter to 'The Doge of Genoa and General Dealer?'" he wondered. "How can majesty possibly be possessed by a hardware merchant?" He ridiculed the tone of concern in the Doge's proclamation, claiming that the "repose" which Genoa wished for the Coriscans was that of the grave, and turned the accusation that he had "few arms and supplies" back on the Doge, saying that he had brought a modest amount because overcoming the feeble Genoese would not require any great exertion. He claimed the Genoese were cowards, men who had acquired everything they possessed through "cupidity and trading," and sarcastically praised their "courage" for hiding within their citadels rather than face him and the "ten thousand brave Corsicans" at his command. He offered a threat, as well: "Since the Genoese say I am a mountebank, I shall go and play from their stage at Bastia!"[1]
The king was in the meantime at San Pellegrino. Not much could be done there for a dearth of artillery, as all of Theodore's heavy guns were at Bastia, but Theodore was at least able to inspire the men with his personal bravery. He allegedly toured the perimeter on horseback with serene calm even as cannonballs hurled from the fortress tore up the path before him. From there he retired to Venzolasca, five miles to the northwest of San Pellegrino, where he established a temporary headquarters and prepared his forces to attack in whichever direction the Genoese might appear as his lieutenants continued their endeavors.
While at Venzolasca, a messenger arrived with the most dire of news. Captain Angelo Luccioni, whom the king had placed in command of Porto Vecchio and charged with attacking Bonifacio, had sold his city to the Genoese for 30 sequins and was presently on his way to convince Theodore to go south with him, where he would betray the king to the Genoese. Luccioni indeed arrived the next day, claiming that he had been forced to retreat from the city and asking for the king to join him in retaking it. There was no question of his guilt, and he was immediately arrested; the king, in a rage, told him that he would have access to a confessor and then be shot within the quarter-hour. Costa and Giafferi, concerned that an execution of a prominent man would make enemies, urged leniency, but Theodore insisted that no sovereign could stand for such treachery. He was duly executed by firing squad, only slightly later than Theodore had promised.
Better news, however, was to come within days. The position of Rivarola at Bastia had grown hopeless. Although some succor could be had by supply ships from Genoa, it was impossible to supply a city of thousands with water by ship alone. On the 14th of May, Consul Bagshaw sent a report to his superiors claiming that, according to an informant he had within Bastia itself, the people of Bastia were pleading with Rivarola to capitulate and that there was a very real chance they would "revolt against the Garrison in favor of the Malcontents." There were rumors that the garrison was bleeding out of the city daily, defecting to the rebels to avoid reprisal or simply to get some water.
Count Rivarola decided that it was necessary to escape his confinement by force, and he attempted it on the 16th of May. Despite the rather poor preparation of Castinetta, who does not seem to have been able to get his soldiers to do much defensive preparation in the two weeks during which they invested the city, the rebels were able to beat back Rivarola's attack. Costa remarked that the garrison soon ran out of steam, and engaged in desultory skirmishing with the rebels instead of pressing home an attack which might have caught the poorly prepared defenders off-guard. Part of the blame may be placed on the absentee leadership of Rivarola, a career bureaucrat who "led" the breakout from the safety of the citadel, but his forces were clearly demoralized. Bagshaw reported a "reliable" story that one Genoese group of foreign mercenaries threw down their weapons and surrendered "at the first crack of musket-fire."
Theodore arrived two days later, having rushed north from Venzolasca to aid the besiegers, only to find that Castinetta had matters well in hand. Reinforced with another 500 or so men, Theodore ordered preparations for an assault. It did not came. Rivarola, without water, without reliable soldiers, and fearing a rebellion from within, capitulated.[A]
Footnotes
[1] The joke is clearer if you know that the etymology of "mountebank" is the Italian montambanco, literally meaning one who "mounts the bench," i.e. leaps upon a stage. In context, of course, it usually means one who mounts a stage to hawk fraudulent medicines or goods.
Timeline Notes
[A] IOTL, Giacinto Paoli was placed in charge of the siege of Bastia. Theodore's strategy was the same as ITTL—he cut the water to the city and left matters in Paoli's hands. Bagshaw's reports are mostly quoted verbatim; the Genoese position was desperate. Just as the city was close to surrender, however, Paoli inexplicably departed with many of his men, and the defenders sallied forth and defeated the remainder. Theodore thus lost the best chance he ever got of taking Bastia. According to legend, Theodore was enraged and wanted to seize him as a traitor, but was convinced by his other commanders that Paoli had only left because he had to attend his father's funeral in accordance with custom. This seems rather dubious; Theodore probably spared him for the same reason he made him a general in the first place, because he was too powerful and important to leave out, and a bad friend was better than an enemy. ITTL, Paoli doesn't screw everything up because he's quite dead. Castinetta is not a military genius, but he is at least capable of staying in one place for two weeks. Much of Theodore's subsequent success ITTL will hinge on this crucial conquest.
- Carp
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