King Theodore's Corsica
- Thread starter Carp
- Start date
Maybe, but it’s not guaranteed. Calvi, Ajaccio, and Bonifacio are strong fortresses, and Genoese naval superiority means that they can’t be starved out. Bonifacio is a particularly hard nut to crack; it's like the Gibraltar of Corsica. While the rebels received a lot of artillery from the syndicate, there are few Corsicans with any experience using artillery, and virtually none with knowledge of siege warfare. Even with a large and well-armed Corsican army on land, the Genoese could potentially have held on to these last few bastions for years. That's more or less how things stood at the height of Paoli's republic: the nationals dominated most of the island, but were unable to force the Genoese out of their last few fortresses.
One of the reasons the War of Austrian Succession is such a perfect time for a successful rebellion is that it involved Britain being at war with Genoa and having a squadron right in Corsican waters for several years (1745-48). With a British fleet interdicting Genoese supply ships and the potential for naval bombardment from British bombs and warships, there’s no better opportunity for the rebels to take these coastal bastions.
Neither, I’m afraid. Theodore’s daughter was born to his wife Catalina Sarsfield in 1719 or 1720, while Theodore was a young colonel in Spain. She died in infancy, and we don’t even know her name. As Theodore was separated from his wife in 1720 as a result of being forced to flee France on account of his bankruptcy, he had no other children with her (that we know of). Catalina’s death date is not precisely known, but she’s not mentioned after about 1724, so I assume she died around that time. (Theodore’s adjutant-general, Viscount Kilmallock, is Catalina’s brother.)
Theodore had relationships with several other women in the years between his flight from France in 1720 and his arrival in Corsica in 1736, including the renegade nun Maria Rhein who was his lover/assistant for years while Theodore worked as a traveling alchemist, but we have no record of any illegitimate children. If he sired any, presumably they were not aware of their connection to him. Theodore did marry again in the last years of his life, to a young Englishwoman named Isabella Edmonston (whose family disowned her for doing so and only took her back after Theodore’s death), but they had no children. By that time Theodore was around 60 and in poor health from repeated imprisonment.
IOTL, there was a man known commonly as “Colonel Frederick” who claimed to be Theodore’s son, but while many people took him seriously at the time he is now generally believed to have been an impostor. Although he was born around 1725, he only started claiming to be Theodore’s son after Theodore’s death in 1756. He is not mentioned once in any of Theodore’s correspondence, and it seems odd that Theodore would have referred to his nephew Charles-Philippe as a possible successor in 1736 if he already had an 11 year old natural son. Some sources give his name as “Felix” before he started calling himself Frederick von Neuhoff, while the Genoese alleged he was actually a Polish Jew named Wigliawiski.
That leaves only Theodore’s “nephews”: Charles-Philippe, Count of Trevou, who actually is his nephew, and his various German cousins, a few of whom (Rauschenburg and Drost) we have already met. As his sister’s son, Charles-Philippe is the closest to Theodore genealogically and was historically the only person whom Theodore mentioned as a possible heir, but given the present conflict with France the selection of a French nobleman as heir-designate seems unlikely.
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Let’s say this whole thing goes well for Theodore and he ends up solidifying himself and being recognized as a legitimate monarch. How does this improve the fortunes and prestige, if at all, of the Westphalian mainline barons? I would imagine it doesn’t do too much for them but I guess you can never really tell with these kind of things considering other families have come from obscurity based on relations before
This is true of most of the Italian nobility of this era.
And a good chunk of European nobility of this era in general.
I don't think it would have any appreciable effect on the barons generally, but Theodore had a surprising number of "cousins," not only in Westphalia but all over Europe. Apparently his attempt to get an audience with King George II of England was based in part on the fact that the king's mistress, Amalie von Wendt, was a cousin of his. Lieutenant-General Karl Franz von Wachtendonck, who led the imperial intervention in Corsica, also seems to have been a relation. The Marquis de Montallegre, Secretary of State of the King of Naples, was married to the sister of Theodore's late wife. If Theodore "wins," I imagine there are dozens of people in the strangest places all over the continent who suddenly become third or fourth cousins to royalty, although it may not have much practical meaning for them.
I would point out one Westphalian baronial house which is more closely related to Theodore than most, however: the Romberg family. One of Theodore's paternal aunts, Philippa Adolpha Margaretha von Neuhoff zu Pungelscheid, married a Westphalian baron named Otto Caspar von Romberg. Otto was not a very historically significant person, but his grandson Caspar Adolf (b. 1721, so alive ITTL, and Theodore's first cousin once removed) was a pioneering coal mining entrepreneur in the Ruhr and became one of the richest men in Westphalia. His family played an important part in the early industrialization of the Ruhr (as well as serving in various civil and administrative posts in the area) and were apparently among the first to explore the use of steam power in coal mining there. Two of Caspar Adolf's brothers were Prussian army officers and fought in the SYW, and both became Lieutenant-Generals. Were Theodore to succeed and the crown to remain in his family, the Rombergs might well play up their relationship to their Neuhoff cousins - by the late 18th century they've got plenty of money, but you can't buy royal blood.
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Bonifacio is quite easier to take with artillery than Gibraltar: whereas they share the characteristics of being rocks on a peninsula, in the case of Bonifacio there are lots of cliffs around the place which are at roughly the same level as the fortress. In particular, there are some cliffs on the other side of the harbour (in the North) that offer an excellent view of the city, and an enfilade fire on the walls. And I am not quite certain that the main artillery can be rotated to face North (the fortifications face East, toward the isthmus).
This site also has the advantage of overlooking the harbour, which makes resupply quite complicated. Of course, one still needs to move artillery here (through a semi-desert and cliffs), which is not so easy (harder for a sea-based adversary, since there are not a lot of places to offload except at Bonifacio itself).
For those of you who are having trouble keeping our various Neuhoff nephews straight, here's a family tree with the descendants of Dietrich Stephan von Neuhoff, Theodore's grandfather, as of 1739. Note that this includes only the patrilineal descendants of Dietrich, and not, say, the family of Theodore's mother (for instance, he has a half-sister, born of his mother's remarriage to Joseph Marneau, a commoner). Theodore is in bold, as are those I consider to have a chance of succeeding him. Matthias von Drost is not here because, as mentioned, I suspect he was a rather more distant cousin.
1. Caspar Stephan Heinrich [or "Friedrich Wilhelm?"] (1663-1695 or earlier)
2. Adolpha Agnes (1665-?), died in infancy
3. Philippa Adolpha Margaretha (1666-1726)
8. Johann Heinrich (?-?), no info except that he was a castle steward of Siegen
9. Clara Dorothea (?-?), a nun
Point taken; the comparison is more aesthetic than strategic. My understanding was that, as you mention, the hardest part about investing the fortress by land was not so much the fortress itself as the inhospitable terrain around it. Bonifacio might be easier to starve out than Calvi or Ajaccio because of the vulnerable position of the harbor, but it seems like its besiegers are going to have a hard time with supplies too.
1. Caspar Stephan Heinrich [or "Friedrich Wilhelm?"] (1663-1695 or earlier)
2. Adolpha Agnes (1665-?), died in infancy
3. Philippa Adolpha Margaretha (1666-1726)
with Otto Caspar von Romberg (1658-1715), Freiherr von Romberg zu Brüninghausen:
• Conrad Stephan von Romberg (1691-)
4. [Anton] Leopold Wilhelm (1667-1695), killed at Siege of Namur, disinherited posthumously• Conrad Stephan von Romberg (1691-)
with Mechthild Maria Christine von Bottlenberg-Kessell (?-?):
• Caspar Adolf (1721-)
• Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Moritz (1724-)
• Friedrich Gisbert Wilhelm (1729-)
• Caspar Adolf (1721-)
• Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Moritz (1724-)
• Friedrich Gisbert Wilhelm (1729-)
with Maria Catharina von Neyssen (?-1716):
• Theodor Heinrich Nicetius Steffan von Neuhoff (1694-), King of Corsica
5. Franz Bernhard Johann, Freiherr von Neuhoff zu Pungelscheid (?-)• Theodor Heinrich Nicetius Steffan von Neuhoff (1694-), King of Corsica
with Catalina Sarsfield (?-1724):
• ??? (1720-before 1724), unnamed daughter
• Marie Anne Leopoldine a.k.a “Elizabeth” (1696-1725)• ??? (1720-before 1724), unnamed daughter
with Andre de Bellefeullac de Trevou (?-1719), Comte de Trevou:
• Theodore-Hyacinthe (1712 or 1714-?, died young)
• Charles-Philippe de Bellefeullac de Trevou (1719-), Comte de Trevou
with Joseph de Lorraine (1679-1739), Comte d'Harcourt, as his mistress:
• Elizabeth Cherrier Jeanne de Saint-Alban (1725-), illegitimate
• Theodore-Hyacinthe (1712 or 1714-?, died young)
• Charles-Philippe de Bellefeullac de Trevou (1719-), Comte de Trevou
with Joseph de Lorraine (1679-1739), Comte d'Harcourt, as his mistress:
• Elizabeth Cherrier Jeanne de Saint-Alban (1725-), illegitimate
with Amalia Wilhelmina Elisabeth von der Mark (1700-):
• Friedrich August Diederich (1724-1725)
• Friedrich Wilhelm Franz Heinrich von Neuhoff zu Pungelscheid (1725-)
• Sofia Theodora (1727-)
• Margreta Christina Josina (1729-)
• Maria Katharina Wilhelmina Elisabeth (1736-)
6. Werner Jobst Lothar (?-1730), Herr von Rauschenburg• Friedrich August Diederich (1724-1725)
• Friedrich Wilhelm Franz Heinrich von Neuhoff zu Pungelscheid (1725-)
• Sofia Theodora (1727-)
• Margreta Christina Josina (1729-)
• Maria Katharina Wilhelmina Elisabeth (1736-)
with Dorothea von Heyden-Rynsch (?-?):
• Johann Friedrich Caspar von Neuhoff zu Rauschenburg (1713-)
7. Ernst Alexander (?-1702, died at Battle of Kaiserswerth)• Johann Friedrich Caspar von Neuhoff zu Rauschenburg (1713-)
8. Johann Heinrich (?-?), no info except that he was a castle steward of Siegen
9. Clara Dorothea (?-?), a nun
with ???, a real champ who got a nun pregnant:
• ??? (1720-), illegitimate son, no info
10. Anna Henrina Catarina (?-?)• ??? (1720-), illegitimate son, no info
married Johann Christian Hermann von Neuhoff gen. Ley zu Bennickhofen, but no known children
Point taken; the comparison is more aesthetic than strategic. My understanding was that, as you mention, the hardest part about investing the fortress by land was not so much the fortress itself as the inhospitable terrain around it. Bonifacio might be easier to starve out than Calvi or Ajaccio because of the vulnerable position of the harbor, but it seems like its besiegers are going to have a hard time with supplies too.
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It'd be interesting (but incredibly unlikely to say the least), if Corsica practiced some form of aristocratic tanistry, where Theodore and his cousins and nephews (the male von Neuhoffs, basically) were sort of the eligible candidates for the crown of Corsica but they had to be approved by a consulta of the great families and figures of Corsica. I imagine in a way that would suit some of Theodore's republican tendencies while also appealing to his populist sentiments and molifying the Corsicans as to their perpetual position RE the crown. It'd also keep things interesting in the long term regarding domestic royal politics, though I imagine that Carp has his own ideas and that this would quickly bring in foreign powers like the Kingdoms of France and Naples as well as the HRE.
I'd be careful about ascribing "republican tendencies" to Theodore. He comes off as an "enlightened" figure because of his radical views on religion, opposition to slavery, and meritocratic sentiments, but I've never read anything about him which suggested an admiration for republicanism or democracy. He submitted to election, the consulta, and the (so far toothless) Diet because there was no other option; he did not arrive with a conquering army at his back and was not in a position to dictate terms to the Corsicans.
Indeed, what we do know of his reign suggests that his instincts tended towards the autocratic. He considered his word to be final and thought nothing of sentencing people to death for insulting the majesty of the king. He displayed contempt for elected and "bourgeois" governments in his published broadsides against the Genoese, in which he sneered at the Republic for having acquired everything it owned through "cupidity and trading" and denigrated the Doge as a "wholesaler" and hardware merchant, who could not have his majesty insulted because he possessed none. Theodore might have had some unusual ideas for a man of his time and station, but one should never forget that he's an 18th century aristocrat raised at the French court. Fortunately for him, he was usually smart enough to know that he wasn't in a position to actually be autocratic, and his advisors - particularly Costa - were able to convince him on several occasions to back down when they felt he was going over the line.
Theodore's ideal government might have contained some sort of popular assembly, if only to provide him with a stage upon which to perform, but when it comes to actually wielding power I expect his ideal would be an absolute monarchy in which he rules with the sage advice of his wise and trusted ministers (whom he has selected freely based on their merits, naturally).
As for the "tanistry" idea, while I agree that such a system would be incredibly unlikely to come about formally, it's possible that you might see something like that happen in the event of a constitutional crisis. Should Theodore's line (or the line of his designated heir) run out, sovereignty reverts to the people, and I could certainly imagine a popular consulta choosing "continuity" for the sake of stability and selecting a new king from one of the other Neuhoff lines. As you say, however, such an election would undoubtedly invite foreign meddling.
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Heh, yeah. I'm just obssessed with some of the more complicated succession laws in medieval Europe, like proximity of blood and tanistry. Your writings on Theodore's complicated family just refreshed it in my head.
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Oh yeah, proximity is a pain. Especially when you also consider transmission and representation.
Bitter Harvest
Bitter Harvest
A stretch of the lower Golo River
A stretch of the lower Golo River
Having seized the coastal pieves of Mariana and Casinca, the southern advance of Maréchal de Camp Jean-Charles de Gaultier de Girenton, Seigneur de Rousset seemed unstoppable. The fall of San Pellegrino left Cervioni as the last major rebel-held position between the main French force in the northeast and the remnants of the eastern brigade under Brigadier Jean-Baptiste François, Marquis de Villemur, then at Aleria. Royalist Lieutenant-General Andrea Ceccaldi had recaptured Cervioni in the course of Villemur's retreat from San Pellegrino with a predominantly local force of militia, and that had been sufficient to dissuade counterattacks from Villemur, whose operational strength had declined by more than half since the beginning of the campaign. Against Rousset's division, however—or worse, Villemur and Rousset together—Ceccaldi's position appeared impossible.
Such a pincer movement is exactly what Rousset intended, but his full force was hardly necessary. On the 7th of August, he ordered the Île de France regiment under Lieutenant-Colonel du Terme du Saux, his company of artillery, and the first squadron of the Rattsky hussars to proceed towards Cervioni and dispatched orders to Brigadier Villemur to rendezvous with him at the coast. Ceccaldi caught wind of Saux's march and attempted to ambush his reinforced battalion, but he lost the element of surprise on account of the hussars and was forced to retreat in disarray when a French frigate off the coast began bombarding his men. The loss of the rebel ports to the French advance had permitted the French naval squadron to curtail its anti-smuggling patrols and coordinate its movements more closely with the army, and Ceccaldi had no answer to such firepower.
Despite continued harassment, he could not prevent Villemur and Saux from combining forces. Ceccaldi's force, outnumbered and outgunned, was defeated east of Cervioni on the 11th. Falling back into the town, the royalists managed to hold it against an initial attack, but it was clear their position would be untenable once the French artillery was in place. Once the bombardment began in earnest, Ceccaldi led his remaining forces into the valley of Alesani, surrendering Cervioni to the French once more. Franco-Genoese forces now controlled nearly the entire eastern coastal plain.
News from the Dila was hardly more encouraging. Maréchal de Camp Louis-François Crozat, Marquis du Châtel had been caught by surprise by the guerrilla tactics of Colonel Antonio Colonna-Bozzi and had ceded ground initially, but he and his officers soon regrouped and responded by launching reprisals against villages which sheltered the rebels or expelling their population entirely. On the 8th of August, Colonna's party was betrayed by an informer (or so alleges Costa) and struck in a prolonged and bloody firefight against a French force. The Corsicans were badly mauled and Colonna barely escaped with his life. Following this victory, Châtel went back on the offensive, and sent the Marquis de Valence with the Béarn regiment to attack Vico. Vico and its environs had not long ago been the stronghold of the indifferenti, and were not the most enthusiastic royalists. The town surrendered to Valence without a fight, and most of the rest of the sparsely-populated region capitulated soon thereafter.
It is worth noting that the loss of the province of Vico was not as important to the rebels as it might have seemed on a map. The northwestern Dila was, and remains, one of the least populated and most isolated parts of the country. It provided few men or resources for the royalist cause, and its rugged terrain and treacherous coastline meant that was of no great use to Corsican smugglers either. As a springboard into the interior it was practically useless, owing to the forbidding mountains to the east. The only men who traversed those mountains with regularity were the Niolesi mountaineers, against whom a single French battalion would not suffice to prevent the infiltration of the province. Still, the continued loss of territory to the rebels did nothing to help rebel morale.
One of the contributing factors to the difficulties of the rebels at this time was that late summer was the season of the harvest, when many of the rebel fighters returned to their villages. Local forces could still muster briefly when a threat arose, as happened at Borgo in mid-July, but Theodore's standing forces were small and unable to hold and defend much territory against the forces which the French possessed. Marquis Luca D'Ornano offered the same explanation for his lack of action against the French in the south; he simply could not find the men to confront the Franco-Genoese forces in Cinarca and Ajaccio, let alone defend Vico.
It was an opportune time to attack, but once he had completed his coastal campaign Rousset moved cautiously. Though quite successful, the French campaign had come at a bitter cost; of the more than 9,000 French soldiers on Corsica at the height of the operation, nearly a third had been lost, either dead, captured, or incapacitated by wounds or disease. Disease in particular was taking a frightening toll on the French, as the bulk of their forces on the island were now encamped on the malarial eastern seaboard. Even in their moment of triumph, an apothecary's journal reports soldiers dropping like flies.
Rousset was conscious of the health issues presented by his position, and endeavored to take positions in the foothills where the air was more congenial. The key positions in the east were, from north to south, Borgo, Vescovato, Talasani, and Cervioni, each roughly five miles from its neighbor. Controlling these posts allowed him to permanently block rebel traffic to the sea between Bastia and Aleria, while his battalions could reinforce one another if the rebels launched another attack. Aside from some occasional skirmishing, however, an attack was not forthcoming.
The royalist government had withdrawn to Morosaglia in Rostino. Residing in the Convent of St. Francis there, King Theodore did his best to keep up the spirits of his increasingly pessimistic generals. A subdued meeting of the war council had concluded that a major French advance up the Golo, which seemed the most likely route of attack into the interior, would be almost impossible to stop. Resistance in the river gorge might slow down such an advance; there were several points, like the Ponte Novo ("new bridge") over the Golo at Castello di Rostino, where a small force might hold back a larger one for a time. Adjutant-General Edward Sarsfield, Viscount Kilmallock, Theodore's brother-in-law, occupied himself with making a survey of the lower Golo while continuing to supervise the drill of the regular forces.
The syndicate arsenal was still considerable and had been relocated to Corti under the command of Secretary Gianpietro Gaffori, but concerns over food were more pressing. Although the weather was good and the harvest no worse than most years, disruptions caused by the war made supplying soldiers difficult. In late August, Theodore was compelled to release several hundred French prisoners because he simply could not feed them. Most of the released were enlisted men, as Theodore still hoped the officers, particularly Colonel Armand de Bourbon, Comte de Malauze, who had been captured at San Pellegrino, might be useful bargaining chips. The "paroled" men were required to swear an oath that they would not fight against the Corsicans for the remainder of the year, but it is questionable whether the French considered themselves bound by oaths to rebels.
There was a general sense that the cause was slipping away, and dissent was growing. Rumors of defections within the rebel ranks. In August, no fewer than eight men were hanged or shot on the order of the king for consorting with the enemy. Two men entered the convent at Morosaglia and attempted to kill the king, a plot which was allegedly foiled only by the vigilance of Theodore's Muslim servant Montecristo,[1] who heard the men breaking in and raised a cry of alarm. Theodore was unharmed, and the would-be regicides—both Corsicans, albeit allegedly in Genoese pay—were captured by the leibgarde and hanged. Theodore, attempting to raise morale, assured his followers that foreign help would undoubtedly be on its way, and acted as if there was some secret plot involving unnamed foreign backers which would soon bear fruit. True, he had delivered before—the arrival of the syndicate armada had been an astonishing coup—but his promises were met now with increasing skepticism.
The only place where royalist fortune seemed to be holding was in the north, where Lieutenant-General Johann Friedrich Caspar von Neuhoff zu Rauschenburg continued to raid into the occupied Balagna. Because his troops were mainly Niolesi and other pastoralists who did little farming, the harvest season had less impact upon him. His raids continued to infuriate the Genoese, who were hoping that a strong harvest in the northern provinces would help the woeful state of their finances, and cursed as Rauschenburg's commandos burned granaries and storehouses. As August dragged on without a serious French incursion into the interior, other commanders began to follow his lead. In particular, the passes of Lento and Bigorno above the lower Golo allowed Corsican fighters to infiltrate into the southern Nebbio, where they rustled livestock, stole food from granaries, and shot at Genoese patrols.
This situation became serious enough that Rousset decided to take action. He had the backing of Boissieux, who had largely recovered from his earlier ailment but was still in a fragile state of health, and not as resilient as he once was to incessant Genoese demands. Rousset proposed marching up the Golo as far as Lento so as to deny the rebels the use of the mountain passes to attack the Nebbio, and placed three brigades under the command of Louis Georges Erasme, Marquis de Contades to accomplish this. Contades had not gone far before meeting resistance from the natives, which was not well-organized but proved extremely difficult to quash. At every narrow point in the road or bend in the river, the French column was assailed by small bands of local militiamen who could not hope to destroy the invaders but could bog them down for hours. After a painfully slow march westwards through innumerable skirmishes, there was a fierce battle for the mountain village of Lento, in which according to legend fewer than a hundred Corsicans held back more than a thousand Frenchmen for a full day. The numbers are likely an exaggeration, particularly when we consider that Kilmallock supposedly dispatched a hundred-man guard company to support the local militia. Still, it is clear that Contades' force vastly outnumbered their opponents yet still suffered a thorough bloodletting. The Corsicans could not hold the village, but were able to withdraw with only light casualties.
Despite such heroic stands, by the end of August the royalist frontiers nevertheless seemed to be contracting everywhere. Even the Genoese had made gains in the south as villages in the environs of Porto Vecchio and Propriano agreed to come back into the arms of the Republic to escape punishment. Only the quick action of Lieutenant-General Michele Durazzo in the south had prevented Sartena from capitulating as well, and his position there was precarious. The French, however, were now more thinly spread than ever before, obligated by Boissieux's plan to hold an extensive cordon through difficult terrain encircling the inland rebel state.
Situation in Corsica in early August 1739
Green: Royalist controlled
Red: Genoese controlled
Blue: French or joint Franco-Genoese occupation
White: Unknown, neutral, or uninhabited
Footnotes
[1] Montecristo was a "Turk" (although he was probably from the Barbary states) who had been a galley slave of the Grand Duke of Tuscany but was released on the request of Theodore and had remained in the king's service ever since. His actual name was "Muhammad," but Theodore already had another servant named Muhammad, and thus decided to name him for one of the Tuscan islands off Corsica's coast—the Isle of Montecristo.
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One-in-three of the French soldiers being dead or incapacitated is a pretty brutal toll, all things considered. Wonder if they'd be looking for an "out" soon even before the War of Austrian Succession kicks off.
Yeah, as grim as this looks for the Corsicans, the French are basically bleeding profusely for what is at best a sideshow for French interests.
That tends to lead to considerations of ways to deescalate.
That tends to lead to considerations of ways to deescalate.
I think it's also worth noting that Genoa is being a pretty difficult ally...
This is comparable to the toll on the French during the 1768-9 conquest of Corsica, in which the French appear to have lost around 10,000 of their approximately 30,000 man invasion force, most of which I suspect were casualties of disease rather than battle.
IOTL, Maillebois had relatively light casualties in the First Intervention of 1739, but the Corsicans were disunited and poorly armed. Theodore may not be the the most highly competent king, but he provides a unifying point for the rebellion, and thanks to the efforts of the syndicate the rebels are at on an equal footing with French infantry in terms of armaments.
Interesting but not very detailed TL. Regardless, it's still good but i don't read this TL too much because of it...
@Carp, considering that eventually Corsica would end up being successful and remains independent from France ITTL, will Corsica ever have a chance to unite Italy? (Yes. Corsica-dominated Italy.)
@Carp, considering that eventually Corsica would end up being successful and remains independent from France ITTL, will Corsica ever have a chance to unite Italy? (Yes. Corsica-dominated Italy.)