Guess Theodore just has to go Anglican and define himself as the head of the Corsican Church.

The comedy option, of course, would be to emulate his old pal Ripperda, who allegedly had "divine inspiration" shortly before his death in 1737 and tried to start a new Christian-Jewish-Muslim syncretic religion whilst in exile in Morocco.
 
The Second Royalist Army
The Second Royalist Army
Excerpts from Merganser Publishing's "Rebellion!" Series #24: The Corsican Revolution



Uniforms of the "Truppa Regolata" as described in June 1744 (click to expand)


The first Corsican standing army did not prove to be a great success. Theodore’s best victories against the French, at San Pellegrino and Ponte Novu, had preceded its creation, and the Corsican forces succumbed to the French onslaught less than a year after its formation. Thereafter the “army” shattered; after Ponte Leccia it ceased to exist aside from a small remnant company which went with Theodore over the mountains. Its failure can be attributed mainly to the greater force which the newly-appointed General Lautrec was able to bring against it, the incompetence and treachery among some of the most senior officers, and a lack of training and professionalism among what was in fact little more than a paid militia.

Corsica’s second standing army was formed not because of any serious internal threat as the nationals had faced in the winter of 1739-40, but to fulfill a contract. By accepting Turin’s money, Theodore had committed himself to raising a force that would - at least in theory - soon fight on European battlefields. Nevertheless, Theodore and his officers agreed that a standing force of some kind would have internal value as well. The Corsican “Free Battalion,” originally a renegade Corsican regiment in Tuscan service, had served ably at Porto Vecchio and the siege of Ajaccio and demonstrated the value of a trained and uniformed corps. By 1744, however, the Free Battalion had ceased to exist as a cohesive unit. With the Genoese driven from the Dila (save for Bonifacio) the battalion had lost its primary raison d’être, and the government could not afford to pay their salaries anyway. Many of its soldiers had deserted to return to their homes, and those that remained were gradually amalgamated into local militias, the small garrison company of Ajaccio, or the second regular army once this force began assembling in the Spring of 1744.

Unlike the first iteration of the regular army (“Fabiani’s Army”), the second iteration (“Giappiconi’s Army”) was meant to be revolutionary rather than evolutionary. Marquis Fabiani had conceived the first army as a means to retain militia units already in service on a long-term basis so the government would not be bereft of men come springtime. Accordingly, his new force resembled the existing militia bands it was drawn from: small companies of around 50 men, each usually drawn from its own pieve, who were completely without uniforms save for the ubiquitous green cockade. In contrast, Giappiconi wanted to draw a clear distinction between the royalist militias and an actual standing army. Aware that the new force was intended to be a European regiment which might eventually serve alongside other European regiments, Giappiconi designed a force which hewed more closely to continental standards, standards which he was personally familiar with as a former colonel in the Venetian army who had administered his own regiment there. Compared to Fabiani’s organization, the size of the companies in the new army was nearly doubled (to 98 men) and a company of grenadiers was added to each battalion to bring the regiment in line with continental norms. Giappiconi made few changes to the officer structure but notably did away with the conch-horn trumpeters, believing that they would seem rustic and unprofessional in Europe.

National Regiment, 1744 (1,194 men)
First Battalion:
First Battalion Staff:
1 colonel
1 major
1 adjutant
1 chaplain
1 surgeon
1 armorer
1 quartermaster
1 drum-major
2 fifers​
5 Fusilier Companies, each with:
1 captain
1 lieutenant
2 ensigns
4 sergeants
8 corporals
80 fusiliers
2 drummers​
1 Grenadier Company, with:
1 captain
1 lieutenant
2 ensigns
4 sergeants
8 corporals
80 grenadiers
2 drummers​
Second Battalion:
Second Battalion Staff:
1 lieutenant-colonel
1 adjutant
1 chaplain
1 surgeon
1 armorer
1 quartermaster
2 fifers​
5 Fusilier Companies, same as 1st battalion
1 Grenadier Company, same as 1st battalion​
Grenadier companies were in essence “veteran companies” which drew as much as possible from veterans of various now-defunct National units (the Corsican Guard, Fabiani’s army, the Free Battalion) and those who had experience in continental armies, including a fair number of Giappiconi’s ex-Venetian troopers. The count intended for them to serve as “demonstration companies” to teach drill to the rest of the battalion and to function as elite troops when necessary. They were paid no more than the fusiliers but were exempt from certain menial tasks like guard duty at camp.

Giappiconi also established Corsica’s first regular artillery unit. Although Theodore was not expected to provide artillery to the King of Sardinia (and the Corsicans would undoubtedly have embarrassed themselves if they had tried), it was clear that some kind of dedicated artillery corps would be valuable for use against Genoese fortifications. Giappiconi’s “battalion of artillery” was in fact a company of artillery, and a small one at that, which was accompanied by its own company of fusiliers. In theory, these “artillery fusiliers” were to serve as a guard detail for the guns and magazines, which is probably why Giappiconi noted that the men in this special unit should be chosen for their “reliability and sobriety.” They were also expected to serve as non-specialist gunnery assistants when the guns were in action.

Owing to the lack of competent personnel, the artillery company was always under strength, often critically so. The army was so desperate for gunners that anyone who had even handled a cannon, whether Corsican or foreign, was potentially eligible, and on occasion captured Genoese bombardieri were forcibly conscripted into the unit. Giappiconi offered a bounty to any smugglers or privateers who managed to recruit a gunner at Livorno or elsewhere and brought him back to Corsica, although it is unclear whether anyone actually claimed this reward. The artillery had no logistical or ordnance staff aside from a handful of carpenters and ferriers to build and repair carriages, and in practice the Corsican artillery relied heavily on local volunteers and militiamen to obtain and drive draft animals, move pieces, construct gun emplacements, and even to assist in firing when the attached infantry company was unavailable or insufficient.

National Artillery Battalion, 1744 (150 men)
Battalion Staff:
1 major-commandant
1 adjutant
1 quartermaster
1 surgeon
1 chaplain
1 armorer
2 clerks
2 fifers​
1 Artillery Company, with:
1 captain
2 lieutenants
3 carpenters
2 ferriers
4 master bombardiers
30 bombardiers​
1 Fusilier Company, with:
1 captain
1 lieutenant
2 ensigns
4 sergeants
8 corporals
80 fusiliers
2 drummers​

Aside from these units there was also the foreign Leibgarde of the king, but that unit was not placed under Giappiconi’s jurisdiction and was not subject to his reforms. The composition of that unit is unknown, and its size varied considerably over the course of the war.

Uniforms

Count Giappiconi firmly believed that a standing army had to have uniforms. They were in the first place a point of pride, both for the nation and the soldiers themselves, but they also discouraged desertion by making it harder for soldiers to disappear into the civilian population. In Fabiani’s army transforming into a civilian had been as easy as unpinning a cockade from one’s hat, and many of his soldiers had done exactly that after their defeat by the French.

Prior to 1744, uniforms were a rare luxury among the national forces. A few hundred green-coated uniforms were delivered by the Syndicate Armada and worn during the campaign against the French, but as far as is known no more were made. These uniforms had presumably been designed by Theodore himself, but green dye was expensive, and despite Theodore’s newfound funding it was necessary to provide a more economically sensible uniform for the kingdom’s new regular forces. Traditionally, “white” uniforms (actually various shades of off-white) were common on the continent, particularly in the huge armies of France and Austria, because they could be made with undyed wool. Theodore’s government sought to economize in the same manner, but this resulted in a different sort of uniform because the wool of the Corsican sheep (the Muvra) was mostly brown and black.
Accordingly, the uniform ordinance of June 1744 stipulated that the “truppa regolata” (regulated troops) were required to wear black overcoats and breeches, which were ideally made from the undyed black wool on the breast of the Muvra. Corsican production, however, did not prove equal to demand, and particularly after the end of the blockade the army's supply of uniforms was supplemented by raiment produced in Tuscany and shipped to Corsica. As the Tuscans did not have access to the black wool of the Muvra, such foreign-made uniforms were dyed, usually with oak galls and iron, ingredients commonly used in the production of black ink. “True” blacks used in continental formal wear were usually dyed with logwood and copperas, imported ingredients which were significantly more expensive than locally obtained gall and iron, and it is likely that only officers would have been able to afford them (although a Corsican felucca was recorded as capturing a Genoese tartane carrying logwood off the west coast of Corsica in October of 1744, which for all we know may have been taken by the army). In practice the army's uniforms must have varied considerably in shade based on whether they were dyed or undyed; if dyed, the age of the uniform, the type of dye, and the quality of the dye job; and if undyed, the exact color of the wool used.

The uniform overcoat was simply made with no lining or lapels, distinguished from an ordinary black coat only by red cuffs and collar. Underneath the overcoat soldiers were to wear a waistcoat of the same red color, which like the color of the “black” overcoat tended to vary from uniform to uniform. The reason for the choice of red is unknown, but it was certainly one of Theodore’s favorite colors, and as imported dyes went red madder was fairly common and inexpensive to obtain. The ensemble was completed by buff-colored (undyed) leather gaiters and a black tricorne with the green royalist cockade. The result was a uniform that was relatively cheap to produce and at least made an effort to distinguish the soldier from the civilian. Certainly the red and black uniform was a clear contrast with the whites and blues worn by many Genoese regular troops, which may have been the intent.

The overcoat of the artillery corps was identical to that of the national infantry, but their waistcoats and breeches were camoscio (“chamois,” buff-colored) and their gaiters black. As the Corsicans did not have bearskins or miter caps, grenadiers were originally to be distinguished by carrying sabres, but this proved to be a financially questionable choice and the army never seems to have acquired many sabers over the course of the war. By 1745, and perhaps earlier, Corsican grenadiers were distinguished only by a red neckstock. Officers’ uniforms were not highly regulated but they usually added some lace (if they could afford it) and were instructed to carry a sword and an officer’s stick or cane.

Arms

The Second Royalist Army does not appear to have suffered from a lack of muskets, although procuring gunpowder, ammunition, and spare parts was a constant obsession of Theodore’s government. The types of arms used were extremely eclectic, but in 1744 were probably dominated by Livornesi imports; leftover Dutch muskets from the Syndicate (many of which had been hidden away by the rebels during the French occupation); and Genoese muskets either smuggled from Genoa or captured from Genoese troops and armories, which included French and Spanish imports but were chiefly Brescia-made barrels stocked and finished in Genoa. Bayonets were mandatory but nevertheless not universally available in 1744.

The bayonet-musket was the only required and provided weapon for the regulated soldiers, aside from the aforementioned (and rarely obtained) grenadier saber. Commissioned officers were required to carry a sword and typically wore pistols as well, but were not required to. The soldiers nevertheless armed themselves to the teeth, to the point where a British observer writing in 1745 was under the impression that the standard armament of the Corsican infantry was a musket, a pistol, and either a cutlass or dagger, although only the musket was ever required in the ordinances.
 
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Isaac Beach

Banned

Well that explains what happened to the Free Battalion, I was wondering why they stopped appearing after a few updates. And boo about the conch-horns getting superseded, they sounded badass and pretty unnerving when I listened to a few on Youtube. Out of curiosity, and I'm sure we'll see in the forthcoming updates, but in the interest of early prying how successful will the formation of these two battalions actually be? Theodore has a lot more money and men to throw around then he did when the Austro-French were curb-stomping the rebellion, but that doesn't necessarily make the Corsicans anymore receptive to continental military norms.
 
Violent, armed to the teeth, vengeful and borderline barbaric, with a talent for guerilla warfare in mountainous terrain. I do have a feeling they will cause a few headaches once they land on the continent.

Searching for the 'Muvra sheep' leads me to these.
 
Out of curiosity, and I'm sure we'll see in the forthcoming updates, but in the interest of early prying how successful will the formation of these two battalions actually be? Theodore has a lot more money and men to throw around then he did when the Austro-French were curb-stomping the rebellion, but that doesn't necessarily make the Corsicans anymore receptive to continental military norms.

While the Corsican militia has not been known for its discipline, it’s worth keeping in mind that Corsica was a frequent recruiting ground for professional military forces and that they definitely were “receptive to continental military norms” when properly instructed in them. Over the course of the 18th century, Britain, France, Venice, the Papal States, Sardinia, Naples, and Genoa all had Corsican regiments/battalions, and with the exception of the British Napoleonic-era “Corsican Rangers” all of these units were line infantry, not light troops or irregulars. If the Corsicans had been in some way constitutionally averse to continental discipline, one presumes they would not have been so widely incorporated into continental armies. There’s no real reason, in my mind, that they should perform worse under a Corsican flag than a foreign one, provided that they are given the same level of drill and instruction.

The Corsicans may prove somewhat “rough” or unruly in a continental setting, and they did have something of a reputation for rowdiness. The mid-17th century Corsican Guard of the Papal States, for instance, was notorious for brawling and was ultimately disbanded under French diplomatic pressure as a result of the infamous “Corsican Guard Affair” in which the Corsicans got in a fight with French troops and opened fire on the retinue of the French ambassador. But they couldn’t possibly be as bad as Austria’s Croatian light troops, the Pandours and Grenzers, who were active in Italy throughout the WotAS. The Croats were famously ill-disciplined and notorious brigands as well, whom the Austrians used not only to harass and harry enemy troops but to terrorize enemy civilian populations. To my knowledge, Corsicans in foreign service in the 18th century were never used in that way and did not have a similar reputation.

So is this wool kind of a purple-brown-black color?

Ideally, it’s supposed to be the color of this guy’s chest hair:

mhjkRYxl.jpg


In practice, it’s “whatever we can get that’s dark enough to be considered black,” which likely includes all kinds of “off-blacks” from very dark browns to dark greys to bluish-blacks. Oak gall dye makes wool look something like this, with oak gall alone on the right and oak gall with copperas (a.k.a “green vitriol,” iron sulphate) on the left:

ywo6Ejwl.png


Copperas would be a dyer’s first choice and is produced from bathing iron in sulfuric acid, but my understanding is that you can get reasonably similar results by soaking rusty nails in vinegar.

Logwood, the favorite dye for formal blacks of the period, can make a deep purple-black, although the shade depends on the process and the mordant (apparently the best results are with logwood, copperas, and alum).

Although the Corsicans might be more varied than most owing to their financial and supply constraints, there was a considerable amount of variation in all uniform hues at the time. British “redcoat” officers were much brighter red than their soldiers, as the former tended to use expensive cochineal and the latter common red madder. Since uniforms were usually contracted out, different companies/regiments might have very different versions of a common color depending on who their supplier was and what technique they used. Even within a unit, fading and weathering meant that in this age before true color-fast dyes, there were often considerable differences between older and newer uniforms even if they were made by the same dyer and process.
 
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Convergence
Convergence


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The town of Vescovato

The progress of Lieutenant-General Carlo Francesco Alessandrini and his naziunali militia into the pieve of Luri gravely concerned the filogenovesi of the Cape. After the rebels dispersed a loyalist militia force and occupied the village of Ersa in July, the podestas of Ersa, Cagnano, Rogliano, and Luri sent an urgent message to Bastia asking for arms and support. Commissioner-General Pier Maria Giustiniani would have liked nothing more than to oblige them fully, particularly considering that his relative Natale Giustiniani was the Lieutenant of Rogliano, but with the main rebel army only 15 miles from Bastia he feared to dilute his regular forces any further. Alessandrini’s incursion, after all, might just be a feint. The most he offered was a 50-man company of micheletti, but they were at least led by Captain Filippo Grimaldi, arguably the most talented of the filogenovese commanders. Grimaldi was instructed to organize local resistance in coordination with Lieutenant Giustiniani and his regular infantry under Captain Valdestein. Grimaldi successfully organized a “united” Luri militia, although they were plagued by a shortage of weapons. In addition to 35 regulars and his own 50 micheletti, Grimaldi estimated that the loyalist militia was around 160 strong of whom only about 120 had functioning firearms.

Nevertheless, this was a sufficient force to challenge Alessandrini when in the hands of competent commanders. On August 6th, the loyalists occupied a small pass near Ersa called the Bocca di San Nicolo, essentially daring the rebels to eject them. Alessandrini obliged, only to be attacked from the flank by a column of militia and micheletti which had, with the help of some Ersa locals, worked around the small Bocca di Cataro to the north. Despite outnumbering the enemy, the rebels were quickly routed. Grimaldi captured or killed 30 rebels at the cost of only two deaths and four wounded men, and even more importantly captured dozens of muskets, nearly enough to arm the rest of his volunteers. The setback forced the nationals to abandon Ersa entirely and fall back on Centuri.

This defeat was very distressing to Theodore, particularly as there were whispers that Alessandrini’s force had been betrayed by soldiers within his own ranks. His response was to summon his “nephew” Lieutenant-General Johann Friedrich von Neuhoff zu Rauschenburg to take control of the situation on the Cape. He had plenty of experience fighting small-unit campaigns in difficult terrain and, the king hoped, might bring some competence to the table. But it was also beneficial to remove him from the interior, where idleness and his own argumentative nature had not yielded good results. His poor relationship with Count Gianpietro Gaffori had been made worse by the accusation that he had protected one of his “banditi” friends who had murdered one of the count’s followers in Talcini, which naturally led to questions as to whether the harsh law of the Marca really applied to favorites of the king’s nephews. While the Battle of Erba was a humiliation, it thus also provided the king with an opportunity to remove Rauschenburg from his position in the interior.

Count Marcantonio Giappiconi had no patience for the miniscule “battles” being fought over the Cape. He had been growing increasingly impatient for the opportunity to test his forces against the Genoese at Bastia, and urged Theodore to move on the capital. By the beginning of August he had around 800 regular troops under arms at Vescovato, and the artillery situation was improving as well. A “convoy” of a Livorensi pinque and two armed Corsican feluccas out of Ajaccio anchored off San Pellegrino on August 6th, disembarking yet more plundered military supplies including two more 24-pounder guns. The situation had never looked more favorable for an assault on the capital, and something would have to be done soon - Theodore’s money would not last forever, but the more immediate concern was food, as it was a serious logistical challenge to keep well over a thousand people - soldiers, their dependents, craftsmen and laborers involved with the army, to say nothing of the citizens of Vescovato - fed and supplied in one location.

Yet Theodore held out. His stated reason was that he was waiting for the British, whose assistance he expected soon. The fleet was only a hundred miles away off the Ligurian coast, and even a small squadron carried enough artillery to put Theodore’s little siege train to shame. So far, however, while British ships had occasionally shown themselves cruising off the Coriscan coast, they had yet to show any sign of aggression towards the Genoese themselves, and the king feared that an attack on Bastia without them would be too risky. The state of the capital’s defenses was not good, and Theodore had spies within the city who reported shortages of arms and gunpowder and a constant stream of desertions from lack of pay. Even weakened, however, Bastia’s defenders still had walls and guns, and Theodore’s new army had never been tested in such an assault (to say nothing of the militia, who would still necessarily make up a large portion of the attacking force).

After the Battle of Ersa, however, Theodore felt some demonstration of force was necessary. On the 15th, he authorized Giappiconi to attack the village of Furiani, a Genoese-held outpost just four miles to the south of Bastia, with a force of regulars and militia. It was not the quick and easy victory with Giappiconi would have liked; despite being heavily outnumbered, the Genoese defenders held out for four hours of fighting, and ultimately the Corsican attack faltered against the Tower of Furiani itself, a 16th century tower which was inaccessible from the ground without a ladder, something which the attackers had neglected to bring. Giappiconi was forced to fall back to await artillery, which was in position by the 19th and finally compelled the defenders to evacuate. The Corsicans, however, were not able to cut them off, and most of the remaining defending forces were able to withdraw to Bastia. The rebels proudly raised the national flag was raised atop the tower, where it was plainly visible to the residents of Bastia. For the moment, however, he would go no further.


02dwLE5.png

Torre di Furiani


Ever since the Spanish and French fleets went their separate ways after the Battle of Toulon, the strategy of Vice Admiral Thomas Mathews had been to keep the bulk of his forces together off Toulon to prevent the enemy fleets from combining. Although he was much criticized by his allies for insufficiently supporting their aims in Italy - particularly by the Austrians, who were now realizing that their Neapolitan conquest was a failure - his naval strategy was sound. If the French tried to escape Toulon, they would be outnumbered by his ships, and if the Spanish tried to approach Toulon to meet them, it was likely (although wind-dependent) the British could attack the Spaniards before the French were able to sail out of the port and join them. To achieve this concentration, however, Mathews had been forced to limit his involvement in other critical tasks, and he had left the Spanish fleet at Cartagena totally unwatched.

In fact the naval battle for the Mediterranean had already been won. Despite the lacklustre performance of the British at the Battle of Toulon, there was no longer any will in Paris or Madrid to challenge Mathews’ squadron. Although the Spanish had hailed their fleet’s performance as heroic, the damage had been severe and costly, and there was not much eagerness to seek another engagement. The French navy, meanwhile, had been humiliated by its failure at the Battle of Dungeness, and the naval minister Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux, Comte de Maurepas - who once held pretensions of dominating the council of ministers - was discredited and forced to retreat back to within the confines of his own ministry. The financial demands of the French army, which was now fielding large forces on three fronts - Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands - were considerable, and accordingly the council of ministers felt it appropriate to move resources from the disappointing navy to the all-important army. Most importantly of all, however, the venture no longer seemed necessary. Challenging Mathews had been attractive only because it would open the sea to the transport of the Gallispan army into Italy and the relief of the Spanish army of General Jean Thierry du Mont, Comte de Gages, but the adherence of Genoa to the Bourbon cause provided another way into Italy which the Gallispan army was already committed to, and the failure of Austria’s Neapolitan invasion freed the Spanish from any urgent need to rescue Gages, who now held the upper hand in central Italy.

With his funding diminished and his influence curtailed, Maurepas directed the navy to pursue that strategy frequently undertaken by the lesser power at sea, that of the guerre de course. Over the next few months, the French fleet was broken up into small operational groups and dispersed over the Mediterranean and Atlantic to accost British shipping and communications. It was, in retrospect, a poor strategic choice. Certainly these French squadrons caused damage and made many headaches for the British over the next several years, but the dissolution of the French battle fleet freed Mathews and his successors from needing to keep so many of their ships occupied at Hyères Roadstead. As we have seen, even as a fleet-in-being the French squadron at Toulon was a great enough threat to require most of Britain’s resources in the theater, which in turn limited the impact of the fleet elsewhere in the Mediterranean to the advantage of Bourbon fortunes. After 1744, however, the French no longer possessed a combined fleet which could potentially challenge British naval supremacy in the Mediterranean, which gave the squadron’s admirals much greater freedom to use their forces in the furtherance of the Italian war.

This newfound freedom was not immediately apparent to Mathews, who had no way of knowing what his enemy’s intent was. Navigating the new strategic situation would be left to his successor, as in late July Mathews’ resignation, requested some months before, was approved by the Admiralty. His position was assumed by Vice Admiral William Rowley, who had led Mathews’ rearguard at Toulon and had just been promoted from rear admiral in June. The demands facing Rowley were considerable; the siege of Ceva, beginning in earnest in August, demanded a naval presence off Liguria to interfere with enemy supplies and communications on the coastal route, and Genoa itself - which had revealed itself to be complicit in the the Gallispan invasion - had to be blockaded and cut off from succors arriving from Barcelona, Marseilles, Antibes, and elsewhere. There were dozens of British merchant ships stranded at Port Mahon awaiting a suitable escort before they could sail for Gibraltar, and the victualling convoy was still held up in Portugal. This final problem was the most severe, for Genoa’s new antagonism meant that taking on Sardinian cattle at the Bay of Vado driven through Genoese territory, which had spared Mathews earlier that summer, was no longer possible. Rowley opined to his allies and diplomatic contacts that he would soon be compelled to withdraw from Italy if supplies could not soon be obtained, at the very least long enough to fetch the victuallers from Portugal, and in that time the French and Spanish would enjoy nearly free reign in the Mediterranean.

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Admiral William Rowley

On top of this wide array of tasks pulling him in all directions, Rowley had to deal with the incoherence and incompetence of Britain’s fleet command structure. Although decisions on ships, personnel, victualling, and so on were made by the Board of Admiralty, Rowley - and Mathews before him - did not receive their orders there. Their instructions came directly from the Secretary of State for the Southern Department Thomas Pelham-Holles, Duke of Newcastle. Along with his brother Prime Minister Henry Pelham, he held great power over British policy.[1] He was, however, not a seaman, nor indeed a military man of any kind. His dictates to the fleet were based substantially on the reports he received from British diplomats on the ground, in particular Horace Mann in Florence and Arthur Villettes in Turin, and these orders were quite incredibly not shared with the Admiralty. The result of this was that Britain’s diplomatic corps was effectively in command of the Mediterranean squadron, yet the choice of how many ships and resources ought to be devoted to the squadron was made by the Admiralty with no knowledge of what their admiral was actually supposed to do with those ships save that imparted by letters from the admiral himself.

The peculiarities of this structure worked to Theodore’s advantage, as it was to Newcastle himself that all the king’s communiques eventually passed, or at least those which Mann and Villettes considered worthy of transmission (and once they had added their own annotations). Although Villettes was more sanguine in his assessment of Theodore than Mann, both took an interest in developments in Corsica and considered the support of the “malcontents” to be advantageous to Britain. In the first place, with Villefranche lost the fleet was short on victualling bases, and while Corsica was not exactly the granary of Europe it could help ease Rowley’s concerns about provisions. The ejection of the Genoese from Corsica would also deny them the use of their ports there as waystations to smuggle goods into Genoa for the use of the Gallispan army. Although nobody placed enormous value on the regiment which Theodore was supposedly raising, the king had made it clear that Corsican recruits would be made available for the continental war only when the Genoese threat to Corsica had been eliminated. Perhaps the most important reason to support the rebellion, however, was to put pressure on the Genoese to withdraw their support for the Bourbons, which would cut off the Gallispan offensive at the knees. Although some British statesmen had genuine affection for the Corsican cause, if abandoning the malcontents was the price for securing Genoa’s withdrawal, they were willing to pay it.

The Republic, however, was moving in the opposite direction. On August 20th, the Geneose delegates signed the Treaty of Aranjuez, a defensive alliance between the Bourbon monarchies and the Republic of Genoa.[A] By this treaty, the Republic pledged 10,000 soldiers as auxiliaries to the allied cause as well as a train of siege artillery (much of which was in fact already in use at Ceva), and to support the allied war effort generally. In return, the Bourbon powers pledged to support the maintenance of these forces with a subsidy (provided by Spain), to guarantee and protect Genoese territory, to send an expeditionary force to defend Corsica from the Worms allies and the “malcontents” serving their interests, and to acquire certain territories for the Republic which at a minimum would include the Sardinian exclave of Oneglia and the Tuscan exclave of the Lunigiana.

Clearly the primary factor which led the Republic to this extremity was the odious Finale clause of the Treaty of Worms, which made the prospect of a Bourbon defeat in Italy unbearable to the Genoese. Had Carlo Emanuele III been satisfied merely with the cession of Austrian territories as the price for his allegiance, it is likely that Genoa, whatever her worries on Corsica, would have remained aloof from the greater war. Bourbon diplomatic pressure, great as it was, would not have made a difference without this threat to Genoese sovereignty. Yet the influence of Corsica is not to be ignored in the calculations of the Genoese statesmen and negotiators. The Bourbon powers promised an expeditionary force to defend the island, which the Republic badly needed given the rebel army perched over Bastia, but the French negotiators also made it clear that future assistance with the “Corsican matter” would be contingent on Genoa’s present loyalty. If the Genoese failed to back the Bourbons in a timely fashion and the French failed as a result, it seemed probably that not only would the Republic lose Finale to Sardinia, but they would probably lose Corsica as well, as without French troops the reconquest of the island from the malcontents seemed quite impossible.

The Treaty of Aranjuez, like many treaties of the war, was a secret treaty that wasn’t. Its existence was assumed as soon as Genoese forces began joining their Gallispan allies in the invasion of Piedmont, and the details of the treaty's articles were certainly known to London, Turin, and Vienna within a few weeks. Yet the Genoese had not expected much secrecy and were not counting upon it, and the fall of the fortress of Ceva to the Gallispan army five days after the treaty’s signature, on August 25th, instilled further confidence in the Senate that they had made the right choice. They waited only a few weeks longer to declare war on the Kingdom of Sardinia.

It was without knowledge of these developments that Theodore, on September 3rd, reluctantly ordered for the siege of Bastia to begin. The performance of his troops at Furiani had not inspired him, and he still preferred to wait for the British, but he had begun to fear that his command of the rebels would start to slip away if he did not press the attack and achieve a victory. After a series of skirmishes on the 7th and 8th, the Corsican army and militia forces surrounded the capital by land. It was to be a test of the ability of the Corsicans in a type of battle they were quite unused to, against an enemy that was weakened and demoralized yet still had powerful advantages in defending a cannon-armed citadel. What Theodore did not know, but would soon discover, was that the diplomatic situation had already shifted in his favor, and the open support he had long craved would not be delayed much longer.[B]


Footnotes
[1] Confusingly, although the ministry at this time is generally known as the “Carteret Ministry” until Carteret’s fall from power in November 1744, Carteret is not generally considered to have been a Prime Minister of Great Britain. Carteret’s actual post was that of Secretary of State for the Northern Department, and his hold on Britain’s overall foreign policy during his tenure was secured by the favor of the king, whose powers in the foreign sphere were much greater than at home. The position of First Lord of the Treasury in the Carteret Ministry, and thus Prime Minister, was initially held by the Earl of Wilmington, and from August 1743 by Henry Pelham.

Timeline Notes
[A] About 8-9 months before the OTL Treaty of Aranjuez. The TTL terms of this treaty are almost the same; the only difference is the explicit promise of a Corsican expeditionary force, which was not offered IOTL. Nevertheless, French forces landed on Corsica in 1747 to oppose Sardinian intervention there.
[B] A somewhat small but necessary update that sets up the big events to follow. The Siege of Bastia begins next, to be followed by a return to Italy. As hinted in this update, the Worms Allies aren't doing so hot right now, but the fortunes of war are fickle...
 
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Corsica acting as a victualing base for the RN will probably be more significant strategically than sending a regiment to the continent. Can they feasibly cart enough food and water to Isola Rossa or Ajaccio to support allied naval forces? The infrastructure is not there, but if someone has a brilliant plan, maybe?
 
Corsica acting as a victualing base for the RN will probably be more significant strategically than sending a regiment to the continent. Can they feasibly cart enough food and water to Isola Rossa or Ajaccio to support allied naval forces? The infrastructure is not there, but if someone has a brilliant plan, maybe?

Well the British can take Bastia fairly easily and that should serve as a decent base.

We know the British intervened in Corsica under far less auspicious circumstances so we should see them doing something useful here. And Theodore gets to be the broken clock that's sometimes right in that he's been saying that foreign aid will come for years and years and years now and now it's finally coming...
 
Corsica acting as a victualing base for the RN will probably be more significant strategically than sending a regiment to the continent. Can they feasibly cart enough food and water to Isola Rossa or Ajaccio to support allied naval forces? The infrastructure is not there, but if someone has a brilliant plan, maybe?

Fortuitously, September-October is the time of year when the pastoralists of the mountains take their herds and flocks down to the coastal plains to graze over the winter. You don't have to cart the food if it moves itself.

Corsica in its present state may not be able to sustain the whole Mediterranean squadron and its thousands of sailors, but as an additional source of provisions along with those purchased at neutral/friendly ports (Livorno, Civitavecchia) and supplied by the victuallers out of England (if they ever escape from Portugal) it does have some value to the RN.
 
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