Second Wave
A French 8-inch bronze mortar, mid 18th century
The French had evidently learned nothing from the mishap suffered by their fleet in the previous year, when an attempt to land soldiers on Corsica in February fell afoul of the notoriously rough winter seas. At least in 1738 the ships had been merely scattered and delayed, and since Lieutenant-General
Louis de Frétat de Boissieux had not intended to immediately lead them into action this delay did not greatly trouble him. In 1739, however, the landing was attempted even earlier, in early January, and once again a storm scattered the convoy. For most of the fleet, the disruption was minimal. Six companies of the Cambrais regiment, however, had a very different experience when their ships were blown off course to the east.
Four companies were wrecked near Ogliastro, seven miles east along the coast from Isola Rossa, and two more were blown clear into the Bay of San Fiorenzo. Those at Ogliastro were swiftly surrounded by the Balagnese militia, while the pair of tartanes which had blown into the bay were snapped up by the royalist warship
Madonna del Rosario, the captured Genoese galley which had featured in the siege of San Fiorenzo and had served as a rebel patrol craft in the bay since.
[1] In total, the rebels captured around 200 Frenchmen without losing a man, amounting to more than a third of the entire Cambrais regiment. The regimental staff was not on the transports which were captured, but the rebels took a number of company officers including five captains.
To capitalize on this unexpected windfall, Theodore sent a message to Boissieux proposing that the prisoners be exchanged for Corsicans in French custody. Most of these were militiamen captured near Ajaccio during and after the Vespers, but Theodore also sought the return of the eight hostages which had volunteered to go into captivity in Toulon as a guarantee of the cease-fire. The French had treated them well at first, but after the Vespers the government considered the Corsicans to have breached their promise. The eight hostages, including the sons of Chancellor
Sebastiano Costa and Marquis
Saviero Matra, were arrested and taken to Marseilles, where they were first imprisoned in Fort St. Nicolas and later moved to the Chateau d'If.
[A] Numerically it was an advantageous trade for the French and Boissieux was willing to entertain it, but his government refused. Boissieux proposed instead a more limited trade of French soldiers for the rebels captured at Ajaccio, but Theodore declined, that would entail trading French officers for ordinary rebel militiamen. Theodore instead informed Boissieux that the prisoners would remain in captivity until the hostages were released from the Chateau d'If, and added that the treatment of the French soldiers and officers would be commensurate with the welfare of those hostages.
[2]
Notwithstanding the loss of the Cambrais companies, Boissieux's position had still been reinforced by around 800 infantrymen plus a company of artillery. His first priority was breaking the rebel siege. On the 20th of January, he began a bombardment of the rebel position with his new artillery. The rebels quickly abandoned the military crest, but as before could easily withdraw to the summit of the hill where Boissieux's French guns were no more able to reach them than the Genoese pieces before. This left only indirect shell-fire from the French 8-inch mortars. While the mortar fire was inaccurate and does not appear to have caused many casualties, it unnerved the Corsicans, none of whom had ever experienced being shelled before.
[3]
While the rebel withdrawal to the summit protected their force, it also limited their visibility and prevented them from firing back with their two 12-pounder guns. Boissieux ordered Lieutenant-Colonel
Jean de Sanhard de Sasselange and two battalions to move east along the Calvi beach and then turn inland in an attempt to work around and cut off the rebel position. The royalist commander Colonel
Guiliani di Muro had not strongly defended this flank, and even as Sasselange advanced he resisted reinforcing it, still expecting the major French attack to come from his front. After an argument with di Muro, Captain
Paolo-Maria Paoli defied his orders and led at least a hundred men to oppose Sasselange, but they could not prevent the French from taking the ridge. Now Boissieux pressed home his attack, and with the French to both their south and north the Corsicans fled eastwards down the hill, hoping to escape by the seaside. Only Paoli's delaying action prevented the Corsicans from being cut off and totally annihilated, and this was paid for at the cost of his life.
[B] The French captured the hill along with the rebels' two cannon.
Thanks to his effective tactics, Boissieux had succeeded in breaking the siege with a minimum of casualties. Clearly this was a rebel defeat, particularly bitter after the much-lauded defense of Madonna della Serra in November. Some blame was cast on Fabiani, then at Calenzana, for not reinforcing them. Fabiani, however, argued that he could not have sustained a force large enough to deal with the whole French brigade on the barren and rocky hills near Calvi, and opined after the fact that the position was probably impossible to hold. Most of the rebel forces, however, survived the battle, and there was another benefit which derived from the loss: with the siege broken, Theodore could no longer justify holding back his own forces on the basis that it would be provocative to the French, and sent the Foreign Regiment (strength unknown, probably 200+) and four companies of the Corsican Guard (nominally 240 men) to the Balagna to support Fabiani.
Although the Genoese urged him onward, Boissieux paused to issue a new ultimatum to the rebels in the Balagna. He demanded that they surrender their arms and consign themselves to the King of France, who would guarantee the redress of valid grievances and equitable treatment of the people under Genoese sovereignty. Certainly there were those in the region, particularly in heavily
filogenovesi towns like Algajola, who would have been happy to accept, but Fabiani strictly forbade it and declared disarmament or collaboration to be treason. Another letter was dispatched to Theodore, the first such missive Boissieux had sent directly to the king, saying that if his desire for a peaceful resolution was real then he should immediately press the Corsican leaders, particularly Fabiani, to comply with his ultimatum. Theodore sent a vague reply that he would do his utmost to preserve the peace and would speak with Fabiani, but offered no pledges of disarmament.
This pause allowed Fabiani some time to gather the forces which had fled from Madonna della Serra and prepare a defense, but he was pessimistic about the situation. Although he regarded the Genoese army with contempt, Fabiani knew that he was at a disadvantage in the field against French regulars. The Balagna lacked the forbidding mountains that made much of the rest of the island so difficult to conquer, and instead had a long coastline allowing the French to land troops at will. Fabiani garrisoned Algajola and Isola Rossa, but felt that a general coastal defense would disperse his forces into uselessness. Instead, he remained at Calenzana in order to counter any French attack overland.
Two weeks later, as it became clear that the Corsicans were not disarming and Theodore would be of no use in convincing them to, Boissieux launched his Balagnese campaign. As Fabiani predicted, he used his naval supremacy to his advantage, and on February 16th French forces marched eastward around the Bay of Calvi and landed another force at the cove of San Ambrogio to the north. They quickly routed local militia at Lumio and captured the village, placing them within striking distance of Algajola. Fabiani and the Balagnese hurried northwards, but in the Battle of Bracajo on the ridge above Lumio Fabiani's militia army was put to flight by the French. The militia at Algajola put up a spirited defense, but once a flotilla of five vessels (two French frigates and three Genoese vessels) appeared and started bombarding their position, they abandoned the town.
This defeat put Fabiani - and the rebels in general - in a dangerous position. Algajola was less than five miles from Isola Rossa, one of the rebels' most important ports and the primary point of departure for Balagnese oil. Calenzana was too far away to defend it, and Fabiani was forced to relocate his army northeast, to Aregno, as to be in a position to block a French push further into the Balagna. Boissieux took advantage of this, and on February 27th a Franco-Genoese force captured Calenzana from its weakened garrison. Boissieux's offensive was well-executed and a demoralizing blow to the Corsicans, and he wanted to swiftly conclude it with the seizure of Isola Rossa. The French prepared for a new attack along the Balagnese coast, to be supported by the fleet.
The Corsicans, who had always enjoyed a significant numerical advantage over the Genoese, found themselves on a more even footing against much better troops. Boissieux's brigade at Calvi consisted of five battalions, amounting to a nominal strength of about 2,550 men given the average battalion size at this time, but the journal of a French apothecary records that the sum total of losses—killed, wounded, and captured—the force had sustained between its landing and the capture of Madonna della Serra amounted to 684 men. This left Boissieux with something in the neighborhood of 1,800 infantry. Added to this were two companies of Genoese infantry provided by Commissioner-General
Giovanni-Battista de Mari, who by now had agreed to provide at least a small auxiliary in the field, with a nominal total of 240 regulars. Fabiani had more men, in the neighborhood of 3,000, but of these no more than 500 were "regular" soldiers with any significant training, and the rest were militiamen who had demonstrated at Bracajo their propensity to flee rather than stand when facing French infantry in the field.
To approach Isola Rossa, the French had to pass beneath the village of Corbara, located on a rocky spur of a north-south mountain ridge. After retreating from Bracajo, Fabiani had made his headquarters in a Franciscan convent on the mountainside near Corbara which overlooked the vale of Nonza, a flat expanse of fields and orchards which the French would have to cross. By this means Fabiani had placed himself and his troops where the French were forced to attack him, and denied them any possibility of surprise. Nevertheless, after previous victories the French were confident, and on March 5th Boissieux led a force of 1,500 men and four 4-pounder field guns over the plain.
The Franciscan Monastery of Corbara. Algajola can be seen in the distance, as well as the plain of farmland the French crossed to begin the Battle of Corbara.
The French encountered a large force of militia in an olive grove just west of the ridge. Succumbing to the well-drilled musketry and artillery support of the French, the Corsicans did not hold long, and fled east. The French advanced quickly after them, and ran headlong into a second line of Corsicans in the woods. This line, however, was composed mainly of regular troops, Corsican Guardsmen and foreign soldiers under Lieutenant-Colonel
Karl Christian Drevitz. Drevitz had only been given orders to make a fighting retreat if the militia collapsed, but as many of the fleeing militiamen rallied behind his line he decided to stand instead. In their pursuit, the French had been funneled into a valley narrower than the frontage of their original line, which limited their ability to return fire, and they had left their cumbersome artillery behind them.
A fierce firefight ensued, at times at frightfully close range. With their lines compressed and visibility cut by the wood, the French did not successfully coordinate a charge to overrun the Corsican line. Instead, various companies mounted individual attacks that occasionally met the Corsicans in hand-to-hand combat but fell back under the local superiority of the Corsican soldiers. Fabiani, realizing what Drevitz was doing, led several hundred militia from the village of Pigna, where they came pouring down the steep hillside on the French right. Captain
de Vaux, commanding the Auvergne infantry on the right flank, was killed almost immediately after this attack, and the wing fell back in confusion. This soon turned into a general retreat, and the French were driven from the woods.
Losses on both sides had been heavy, and although they had won a tactical victory the Corsicans had suffered more, with more than 300 dead or wounded compared to around 200 on the part of the French. While Fabiani was soon reinforced by more militia, however, Boissieux could not replace his losses locally, and soon he was obliged to make more detachments that dwindled his main force. The geography of the Balagna was a double-edged sword, for while the region had a long coast which was vulnerable to attack it had an equally long frontier with the mountains to the south, territory which the rebels controlled and from which they could launch raids and infiltrate the occupied zone. After the Battle of Corbara, bands of fighters from Niolo, Caccia, and Talcini began attacking Franco-Genoese positions in the south. Boissieux had preferred to garrison these towns with Genoese infantry, as he preferred to keep his field army composed of more reliable Frenchmen, but after Genoese companies was actually driven out of Zilia and Montemaggiore by the Niolesi he was obligated to station French companies there to maintain his conquests. By late March, the French had fought numerous skirmishes but to no real gain, while Boissieux's main force at Algajola had dwindled to less than a thousand men. He could no longer seriously threaten Fabiani's position in the vicinity of Isola Rossa.
Leaving the Genoese in the countryside also produced other problems. De Mari, champion of a scorched earth strategy an an uncompromising foe of "traitors," ordered the razing of orchards in the western Balagna. He claimed that such actions were punishment dealt out to rebels and their suspected sympathizers, but also that the threat of destitution and starvation would cow the other rebels into submission knowing what lay in store for them. Boissieux, despite the outbreak of war, still believed that reconciliation was necessary to end the rebellion. He forbade such actions, but it was difficult to keep the Genoese in check, and de Mari's fury was aroused at the very notion that Boissieux, who he considered little more than a mercenary, dared to tell him how to run Genoese sovereign territory.
In the south, meanwhile, the French position at Ajaccio had also been reinforced by two battalions and a company of artillery, although the latter proved mostly useless. The commander there, Marquis
Jean-Baptiste François de Villemur, engaged local militias with some success, but details are thin. Unlike the Balagna, the Dila in the vicinity of Ajaccio had few open expanses outside the immediate environs of the city. After suffering a defeat at Villemur's hands, Lieutenant-General Marquis
Luca d'Ornano took to the mountains and waited for opportunities to cut up French columns as they attempted to gain control of villages and valleys in the foothills of the mountains. The lone French battalion at Porto Vecchio received no reinforcements in January and remained principally as a garrison force for the next several months. It was obvious that even more men were needed. A new wave would come, the largest commitment yet of French forces, but it would not arrive until May.
Positions on Corsica at the end of March 1739
Footnotes
[1] The choice of name does not appear to have been Theodore's; it may have been christened by Captain Giovan Lucca Poggi, who had captured and initially captained her. Perhaps the name was owed to the fact that the ship was taken just a few days after the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, which originally commemorated the Battle of Lepanto.
[2] Presumably Theodore had no way of knowing how the hostages were doing in the Chateau d'If, so this was merely a warning to the French not to mistreat or execute them.
[3] The French artillery companies on Corsica possessed chiefly 4 and 8-pounder guns, but none saw frequent use and the 8-pounders virtually none at all. The guns of the French Vallière system of standardized artillery, introduced in 1732, were effective in stationary positions but not very mobile owing to their notorious weight and size. The 8-pounder's barrel alone weighed over a ton. Corsica was an insurmountable challenge for such artillery. The French also did not formally adopt a howitzer into their artillery system until the 1740s, which left mortars as the only pieces capable of bombarding the main rebel force on the summit above Calvi.
Timeline Notes
[A] The island fortress-prison featured in the Count of Monte Cristo, a book which will presumably and unfortunately never be written ITTL.
[B] Another Paoli bites the dust.
This Paoli, however, has no relationship to the famous family of Giacinto and Pasquale Paoli; it was a reasonably common family name.
