King Theodore's Corsica
- Thread starter Carp
- Start date
If it wasn't for the unprepared militia routing from a line battle with French regulars, this could have been fought to an inconclusive draw, it looks like. If after the militia were routed, Fabiani hadn't withdrawn, he might have had Montrosier's infantry in San Antonio's flank and the hussars ready to run down any fleeing troops, which would have been enough of a catastrophe to decide the war. This was a worse defeat than that suffered the previous day, but the Corsicans do still have manpower and materiel left.
Having to destroy those guns though - that might have been a loss on par with losing the wealthiest province. They are not out, but they are on the ropes.
Having to destroy those guns though - that might have been a loss on par with losing the wealthiest province. They are not out, but they are on the ropes.
The loss of Balagna and Isola Rossa is a very heavy blow, but realistically what else could be expected?
The Royalist Corsicans at least preserved the bulk of their fighting forces and avoided utter destruction. More than that, I think that most casualties fell on the worst trained and equipped troops, so it was not a death blow to the army.
The Royalist Corsicans at least preserved the bulk of their fighting forces and avoided utter destruction. More than that, I think that most casualties fell on the worst trained and equipped troops, so it was not a death blow to the army.
A little island like Corsica producing a military genius? Seems unlikely...
The thing about the guns is that they were all-important during the first phase of Theodore's reign but have now become completely useless. Heavy guns would have made all the difference in 1736-7, when the Corsicans' greatest need was to take Genoese citadels. By the time the syndicate gave them the guns they needed, however, the French had arrived, and the nature of the war is now completely different: the rebels have no use for 12/24 pounder siege guns when they're on the defensive and on the verge of taking to the mountains to fight a guerrilla war. (In fact it probably wasn't even necessary to destroy them, as the French could not have gotten much use out of them anyway; they're not even using their 8-pounder field guns.) Just their luck that they get what they've wanted for years at exactly the moment when it stops being useful.
Of course, after the French withdrawal such weapons would presumably become useful again, but the Corsicans don't know about the emperor's death in advance.
EDIT: All that said, once the WoAS rolls around the rebels' need for artillery will be somewhat obviated by the likelihood of the presence of the British navy. IOTL, a British squadron dropped 4,000 shot and 400 shell on Bastia in a single day, compelling its surrender by naval gunfire alone. Certain citadels like Calvi and Ajaccio are a little more risky to attack by water, but if the British are committed they can always row the naval guns ashore and employ them on land (as they did during the Siege of Calvi during the Napoleonic Wars). If the Corsicans lose all their siege artillery, however, they will be completely dependent on British initiative, and since the admirals in question basically thought of Corsica as an annoying sideshow that's probably not the best position to be in.
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Villemur's March
Villemur's March
The Genoese fortress of Aleria, a.k.a. "Fort Matra"
The French spring campaign opened with a fantastic success at the Battle of the Balagna, in which French regulars swept away the Corsican militia and sent the largest army the rebels had ever fielded running for the hills. The consequences of this defeat were extensive. Most of the province fell to the French immediately thereafter, or at least was no longer available for royalist exploitation, and Isola Rossa was abandoned without a fight, closing the rebels' most active smuggling port. More than a thousand rebel soldiers were killed, wounded, or absent, many having deserted the fleeing army. In the Balagna, where support for the rebellion was always lower than the interior, many residents proclaimed their loyalty to France (and, somewhat less enthusiastically, to Genoa). Lieutenant-General Louis de Frétat, Marquis de Boissieux was pleased, for he remained convinced that winning the good will of the Corsican people was essential to the suppression of the rebellion. In this he was opposed to Commissioner-General Giovanni-Battista de Mari, who demanded the destruction of fields, orchards, and houses of those Balagnese who were suspected of siding with the rebels. While Boissieux probably curbed the worst of Mari's intended retribution, he relied on the Genoese to garrison much of the Balagna and it was difficult to keep Mari's soldiers from quietly enacting revenge under the commissioner's likely orders.
Although for the most part the Genoese had avoided sending Corsican regular battalions to the island, since 1730 the Genoese had relied heavily on Corsican filogenovesi militiamen to fight the native insurgency. Although not extraordinary troops, they were necessary to support the undermanned and overstretched Genoese Army. Since the Genoese had a harder time finding men than muskets, there was no reason not to hand out arms to loyalist militiamen as long as they could be generally counted on not to defect to the rebels (an increasingly common occurrence after the fall of the Nebbio). The policy of the French, however, was to disarm the Corsicans regardless of their professed loyalty, which was obviously incompatible with raising local auxiliary troops. This reflected a French suspicion of the Corsicans generally, which Boissieux shared; while the Genoese had a long history on Corsica and some ideas as to which communities (and even which families) could be trusted, the French saw only undifferentiated boarskin-shod rustics who could very plausibly vanish into the night with their Genoese-provided musket and join the rebellion. The French government, aware of Corsican martial reputation, apparently liked the idea of recruiting Corsicans into the French army either as part of the Régiment Royal-Italien or perhaps a régiment étranger of their own,[A] but this was something to be executed once the pacification was complete or very nearly so, and there was no intention that such locally-raised forces would be used to fight on Corsica itself.
The enormity of the recent defeat was not lost on King Theodore, who put on a brave face but confided to his chancellor Sebastiano Costa that it might be necessary to prepare a ship for Livorno or Naples in case Maréchal de Camp Rousset moved upon the Nebbio, as once the coast was lost it would be nearly impossible to escape the island or the Genoese executioners. Very soon, however, Boissieux started undermining his own victory. Believing that the Battle of the Balagna had taken the wind out of the sails of the rebels and confident that his reputation among his superiors had been restored, he renewed diplomatic contacts with his foes. There was not much progress to be made on that front; the basic terms, as laid out at Fontainebleau, had not changed. While extending the olive branch, however, he wished to demonstrate good will by sheathing the sword, and instead of pressing on eastwards Rousset's brigade halted and busied itself with disarming the rebels and maintaining the security of the Balagna. There were, of course, logistical preparations to make—the Nebbio could not be reached save through the rough terrain of the Agriate, a place as poor for supply lines as it was ideal for the maquisards—but with Captain General Simone Fabiani's force greatly diminished and in disarray the rebels could not have offered much of a fight. His pause gave the royalists precious time to recover from the shock of their recent defeat and to try and organize some resistance.
On the eastern shore, Brigadier Jean-Baptiste François, Marquis de Villemur was advancing northwards from Porto Vecchio with a force nearly as large as Rousset's, consisting of five infantry battalions and a squadron of hussars under Lieutenant-Colonel Chevalier Zsigmond David. His achievements thus far were less impressive than Rousset's, but for good reason; he had much more ground to cover, and his opponents were less willing to offer open battle than Fabiani and the Balagnese. His primary antagonists in the south were the two brothers Milanino and Carlo Lusinchi, who commanded the militia of Zicavo.[1] The Zicavesi were fanatical royalists, and like the Niolesi, their northern counterparts, they were far more adept at irregular warfare than the continental style. The Zicavesi had been active in Fiumorbo for some time before the French arrival, and used the coastally-adjacent province as a base from which to harass Villemur's progress. They were not so bold—or suicidal—as to confront him directly, but they were active adversaries nonetheless.
Fiumorbo is unique in that it is the only district on the eastern coast between Porto Vecchio and Bastia without a coastal plain. The region's mountains march right up to the sea. This compelled Villemur to take narrow tracks through the mountains and divide his troops into multiple columns, lest his army turn into a miles-long line filing down a single mule track. The Lusinchi brothers contested every village with his battalions; local militia took shots at his advance guard and then retired, or waited until a column had nearly passed them and then surprised the rearguard. Zsigmond David's hussars were invaluable troops for fending off such attacks, but his single squadron of around a hundred cavalrymen could not be everywhere. Soon the Corsicans began choosing particularly steep and well-wooded hillsides to stage their attacks, compelling the hussars to dismount or break off their pursuit.
There was particularly hard fighting at the village of Conca. The Corsicans could not prevent the French from occupying the village, but as soon as Villemur continued northwards the Zicavesi stormed back in and meted out justice to any "traitors to the nation" who were alleged to have provided the French with food or information. Fear of reprisals made the local population reluctant to cooperate with Villemur's men. Villemur could be threatening too—he was not so hesitant to destroy property as Boissieux, and ordered that the houses of suspected rebels be razed—but since the active fighters he was contending with were mostly Zicavesi, they had no houses in Fiumorbo to destroy and could not be coerced in that manner. Villemur found his attempts to disarm and pacify the thinly-populated region accomplished little except to slowly attrit his battalions by incessant skirmishes, and was conscious of his larger goal to reach Bastia and conquer the eastern coast along the way.
His columns converged at the coastal village of Solenzara on the 27th, at the southern end of the eastern coastal plain. After a day of rest there, he resumed the march northwards. It was nearly 60 miles to Bastia as the crow flies, and clearly there was no chance of keeping a supply line through Fiumorbo open without heavy French occupation. That did not bother Villemur much; he determined that he could receive sufficient supplies by sea from the Franco-Genoese naval forces, and any deficit could be met by forage. The army encamped at Ghisonaccia on the coastal plain on the 29th and reached Aleria on the 31st.
The fortress of Aleria, situated on a low hill overlooking the lagoons, had been one of the first targets of the Corsican rebellion. In 1729, revolting Corsicans had stormed the fort, massacred the Genoese garrison, and seized the contents of the armory. It had remained vacant until the arrival of Theodore in 1736, who gave it to the powerful Matra clan. Their patriarch Saviero Matra had been the first to host the new king, and for his support he was granted the rank of marquis, the position of hofmarschall, and the governorship of the pieve of Serra as his reward. Matra, however, did not offer resistance to Villemur; he capitulated immediately, handing over the fortress without a fight and offering Villemur his full cooperation. In his defense, the fortress of Aleria had but a few dozen men as its garrison, for up to now it had not been a strategically important post. Furthermore, Matra had no military experience or rank,[2] and Serra's militia numbered fewer than 150 men. It should also be remembered that Matra's son, Alerio Francesco Matra, was one of the Corsican hostages who had volunteered to go into French custody and was presently imprisoned in the Chateau d'If; the marquis probably did not want to put him in further danger. With Matra's acquiescence, Villemur disarmed the small garrison and took possession of the fortress.
Aleria was a useful position to hold, as it overlooked the Tavignano estuary and the Alerian lagoons, favored spots for smugglers to load and unload small craft. It also held potential as a staging point for campaigns into the Castagniccia, the inland heart of the rebellion, and its position on a low hill overlooking the broad coastal plain made it difficult for the rebels to approach. Yet there was a reason that the nearby countryside was so thinly populated: the lagoons and marshes which surrounded the fortress were plagued by malaria during the summer and the month of June had just arrived.
Villemur encamped at Aleria for four nights, during which time he sent two "flying columns" consisting of an infantry battalion and a company of hussars to reconnoiter the area and confiscate weapons in Serra pieve. Matra's cooperation meant that there was little resistance, and the small provincial militia was disbanded. One of these columns had ranged as far north as Linguizzetta, which was only five miles from Theodore's original capital of Cervione and his coronation site at Alesani, and found no evidence of rebel activity there. On the 4th of June, Villemur ordered his brigade to strike camp and proceed northwards.
Theodore and his commanders had been made aware of Villemur's progress north by the Lusinchi brothers. Summoning his war council (of which Fabiani was vice-president), Theodore cast about for a strategy. Fabiani opined that facing Villemur on the coastal plain would probably end no better than the engagement with Rousset in the Balagna. All agreed, however, that if Rousset resumed his offensive eastwards while Villemur approached Bastia, the Nebbio would be as good as lost and the rebellion put in serious danger of collapse. If the French were to be defeated, it would have to be piecemeal, which meant confronting Villemur before he could move far enough north to coordinate his attack with Rousset. Lieutenant-General Count Andrea Ceccaldi volunteered to lead a force against him.
Although Fabiani was the highest-ranking general in the kingdom, Ceccaldi was by 1739 arguably its most successful. Alongside Marquis Luigi Giafferi, now Theodore's prime minister, Ceccaldi had led the rebels at the First Battle of Calenzana, an engagement in 1732 in which the Corsican rebels had surprised and crushingly defeated a battalion of the imperial army. More recently, he had been the victor of the Battle of Rutali in which the Genoese expeditionary force under Colonel Marchelli had been routed, and was the highest ranking officer (under Theodore himself) at the Siege of San Fiorenzo. To fight, however, he needed an army, and that did not presently exist. Theodore would not assign him his regulars, who he believed were needed to guard against Rousset's expected advance, nor could the local militia be spared. On very short notice, Ceccaldi raised around 300 men from the pieves of Casinca and Casaconi, his home turf, but as Villemur had nearly ten times as many this was not terrifically inspiring. Nevertheless, it was with these few hundred men that Ceccaldi began his march south, determined to at least delay the French.
Ceccaldi, however, was not alone, for Matra was not quite as much of a turncoat as it seemed. Although he willingly collaborated with the French and did nothing to directly undermine them, he discreetly sent a message to his son-in-law, Count Gianpetro Gaffori, then at Corti, explaining the situation.[B] Gaffori, up to this point, had not been much of a military man. Theodore had made him his secretary of state and subsequently the president of the mint; in the latter capacity he had overseen the striking of Theodore's crude issue of barely-silver coinage in 1736. He was a colonel of the Corti militia, but this position was owed mainly to the fact that his father Filippo Antonio Gaffori was the podesta of the town, and thus far his duties as colonel seem to have been more administrative than operational. Nevertheless, upon receiving his father-in-law's letter Gaffori decided on his own initiative to gather local forces and lead them against the French. He mustered around 400 men in Talcini and Vallerustie and marched on Alesani.
Meanwhile, Ceccaldi had made a detour inland into Rostino to find more troops. Several hundred were mustered, in large parts through the efforts of the young Captain Clemente Paoli, who joined the campaign personally. Ceccaldi remained in the valley for several days trying to raise as large a force as he could. On the 5th of June, however, he received word that Gaffori was at Alesani with more men, and decided to join him there. On the 7th, the rebel forces rendezvoused at the very chapel in which Theodore had been crowned with a laurel wreath. That same day, Villemur led two battalions and the hussars to Cervioni, just four miles from the royalist encampment.
Positions on Corsica around the start of June 1739
Green: Royalist controlled
Red: Genoese controlled
Blue: French or Franco-Genoese occupation
White: Neutral or unknown
Footnotes
[1] The Lusinchi brothers were hardly just backwoods rabblerousers. Their family was a prominent military dynasty in the mercenary service of Venice, and both Carlo and Milanino had served as officers in the Venetian army (as Captain and Major, respectively). It is possible that as soldiers or junior officers they saw battle against the Turks in the Second Morean War. Their father had also been a Venetian officer, and served as a lieutenant-general of the rebel movement until he was assassinated by men in the pay of Genoa in 1731. Their commanding officer in the Venetian army and fellow Corsican, Anton-Frencesco Giappiconi, had been Theodore's minister of war and was also slain by the bullet of a Genoese assassin. Theodore had little reason to doubt their loyalty to the nationalist cause.
[2] While hofmarschall ("Court Marshal") sounds military enough, it was an administrative post. In Germany, a hofmarschall oversaw the provisioning and maintenance of the royal court and household, but since Matra remained in Serra through most of Theodore's reign it was clearly an honorary position.
Timeline Notes
[A] IOTL, this was actually realized. After Maillebois (Boissieux's replacement) completed the conquest of the island, there were many Corsicans interested in French service. Most of these were former rebels who were likely to be severely punished or even executed under a restored Genoese administration; the family names of Costa, d'Ornano, and Orticoni are among those which appear on the initial list of recruits. The result was the Régiment Royal-Corse, which fought in the War of Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War. In that latter conflict, the unit was briefly dissolved and turned into a subsidiary battalion of the Régiment Royal-Italien, but it was reconstituted as its own regiment two years later. When France invaded Corsica in 1768, the regiment successfully petitioned the king to be excused from having to fight their own countrymen. The regiment was reorganized after the conquest and finally disbanded in 1788, with its troops moved chiefly into new light infantry formations.
[B] IOTL, Gaffori is best known as the leader of the Corsican rebellion until his assassination in 1753, but his wife Faustina Matra is a local heroine in her own right. According to legend, when Corti came under attack while her husband was away, the militia defending it wanted to surrender. They were dissuaded from doing so by Faustina, who held a lit match over a barrel of gunpowder and promised to kill herself and take all of them with her if they gave up. The defenders held out until relief came.
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Villemur has made good time on his trek northwards so far. No amount of harassment will destroy his forces if he can be resupplied by boat. The Corsicans have no army with the numbers and discipline to face him in the field.
Is there still a valley he'd have to pass through that one might bring an avalanche or somesuch onto?
Is there still a valley he'd have to pass through that one might bring an avalanche or somesuch onto?
I am hoping to all the gods in all the heveans we get to see a reinactment of TeutoburgForest where the Corsicans(Germans) give it to the French(Romans) because of good old Matra(Arminius) !!!!
Well it looks like this is the pivotal battle of the war coming up. Villemur is stuck between a rock and a hard place but as we know anything could happen especially when you pit militia against professional soldiers. If the Corsicans win this then they have a good chance of holding on until the WoAS draws the remaining French away. If not then I would expect Theodore to begin making preparations for a one way boat ride off of Corsica.
He can be resupplied by boat, in a theoretical sense, but the French only have around half a dozen or so warships in the theater; supply runs have to be made by the Genoese, who by mutual accords are saddled with paying for and supplying the French army. As we've seen, Genoese logistic support is... well, not great, and that was when they were only expected to supply the Genoese army, which in its entirety is less than 6,000 men. Now they've been asked to supply another 9,000+ men on top of that, and all of them on Corsica, whose infrastructure is so bad it's practically fourth world. If they're already having trouble keeping up with Montmorency's single battalion (plus some auxiliaries) on Capo Corso, Villemur is going to be something of a challenge. I suspect there is much weeping and gnashing of teeth going on at the War Office in Genoa at this moment.
An intriguing thought, but I think Matra would make a rather unlikely Arminius...
A lot of the old Corsican “nobility” was fairly lukewarm about the revolution. Some noblemen like Luca d’Ornano were early supporters, but Saviero Matra wasn’t one of them. Until Theodore’s arrival, the Matra clan didn’t really participate in the rebellion, and maintained a nominal loyalty to the Genoese until 1735, when Saviero decided to sit down with Sebastiano Costa for a chat. It wasn’t that Matra or his fellow nobility liked the Genoese, exactly; in fact it was Genoese policy to try and keep the Corsican nobility poor (well, relative to Genoese nobility, at least) to prevent them from growing too strong in Corsica. Men like Matra, however, saw the initial revolt as little more than a lower class tax protest with no relevance to his family. People who rebelled because of a hearth tax were people with nothing to lose, but Matra had quite a bit to lose - not just money and property, but the high social status of his family. It’s no coincidence that elites like Giafferi and d’Ornano were part of Campredon’s pro-French party in 1735; they were noblemen, and they rather liked the idea of being French noblemen, particularly if the alternative was revolutionary chaos. Matra, as far as I know, wasn't one of Campredon's conspirators, but that may be because he already had another idea in mind; his conversations with Costa in early 1735, and the fact that he was among the first people to welcome Theodore, suggest that the knew of Costa's plot to crown a German baron some time in advance.
Enter Theodore. Theodore’s handing out of countships and marquisates left and right seems a bit farcical, but even such honorary titles pulled from thin air meant something to men like Matra. By making Saviero Matra a marquis, Theodore was clearly communicating that he recognized the old Corsican nobility and would ensure that their place in society would be formalized and protected under his rule. (Theodore even gave Saviero a castle - the Genoese fortress of Aleria - which IOTL is still known as “Fort Matra.”) It was this commitment to the aristocracy, not a sudden swell of patriotism, which brought the Matra clan under the rebel flag. Saviero had little ideological commitment to Corsican nationalism and was not terribly threatened by Genoese taxation, but he was willing to support a king who would preserve his clan’s social status, reward him with high honors, and give him the respect the Genoese never had. For years, Saviero had resisted siding with the rebels, but even his patience was gradually worn down by years of Genoese incompetence and brutality, and the arrival of Theodore - whom Saviero sees as a stabilizing, conservative, and pro-aristocratic influence on the rebel movement - made a change of allegiance palatable.
The bottom line is that Saviero is a pragmatist. Above all, he wants to preserve the status and power of his clan. He would rather see Theodore claim victory than the Genoese, but right now the French seem to be winning, and Saviero isn’t going to bet his clan’s survival on a loser. Collaboration, for him, is an eminently sensible policy: if the French end up winning and the Genoese resume control, his collaboration will hopefully bring him leniency, and if Theodore turns this thing around and gains an upset victory, Saviero will very plausibly claim he was forced into cooperation by the overwhelming power of Villemur’s army or was blackmailed into doing so because of his son’s captivity. For him, the ideal strategy is one in which he can’t lose no matter what happens. Sending a letter to Gaffori entails no risk to his clan, so he’ll do that; notably, he didn't actually call on Gaffori to go to war, he merely informed him of the situation, and it may be that the intended subtext was “dear son-in-law, don’t go down with the ship; our first priority is survival.” In contrast, trying to re-enact Teutoburg Forest as Arminius would be insanely risky - it would be betting everything, his clan’s whole future, on the success of the rebel militia in a single battle, and if the ambush went pear-shaped he and his family would be completely screwed. Saviero Matra doesn’t play that game.
Fortunately for Theodore, Gaffori’s patriotism is deeper than his father-in-law’s. According to legend, when Gaffori was besieging Genoese-held Corti IOTL, the Genoese defenders captured his young son and suspended him in front of the walls to dissuade Gaffori from bombarding them. Gaffori ordered his gunners to open fire anyway. (Gaffori captured the town, and his son was miraculously unharmed.) Despite his close relationship with the Matra clan and his own elite background, Gianpietro Gaffori is a man who actually believes in the cause and is willing to take risks for it.
(That, at least, is my interpretation of Matra as a character; it's based off what I've been able to glean from sources, but obviously I don't know the historical Saviero's inner narrative.)
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Yeah, I think people are somewhat overestimating the extent of France's victories here. They look good, and they doubtfully will help in the months again, but so far, I see nothing that bad luck and poor leadership can't reverse.
Wow thank you for your answer; albeit I would say my hopes were exactly hopes but now I see Matra as who he was and for you to have that in depth knowledge about him shows the level of detail that this timeline creates as a standard(a very high standard)
The Battle of Alesani
The Battle of Alesani
Soldiers of the La Sarre regiment c. 1750
King Theodore had not just chosen Cervioni as his capital upon his arrival in 1736 because of its proximity to his landing site north of Aleria. It was the largest town on the eastern plain (technically on the hillside rising above the plain) between Porto Vecchio and Bastia,[A] it was the seat of the Diocese of Aleria, and it served as the gateway to the Castagniccia, the most populated region of the Corsican highland and home to many rebel leaders and soldiers. Boissieux anticipated that its capture would be a psychological blow to the Corsicans—even if the king did not actually reside there anymore—but it also appeared to be a valuable strategic point, a perfect bridgehead from which to launch attacks into the heartland of the rebellion.
It was also almost totally undefended, although amusingly it did have artillery. A few years earlier, Chancellor Sebastiano Costa had selected two of the "small pieces" which Theodore had initially brought to Corsica and were not particularly useful as siege guns to sit on either side of the entrance to Theodore's "palace," actually the former residence of the bishop, so as to give the place a more imposing feel. As these were not actually intended for use, however, there was no powder or shot for them. The local militia of Campoloro, Cervioni's pieve, numbered about 200 men under Colonel Francesco Gio Suzzoni, but they had not seen significant action since 1737 and had made no preparations for the defense of the village. When French forces approached, most of the local militiamen took to the hills or stashed their weapons under their floorboards to avoid confiscation.
Brigadier Jean-Baptiste François, Marquis de Villemur had encamped his army near the mouth of the Alesani river on the night of June 6th, and on the following morning he led three battalions of infantry and a hussar squadron towards the village of San Andrea di Cotone about a mile south of Cervione. Meeting only the most fleeting resistance, he left one battalion there and personally led the other two (plus the hussars) to Cervioni itself. The town capitulated without a fight, and Theodore's "capital" fell into the hands of the French. The town was searched for munitions, although except for Costa's display cannons not much was found, as the militia had hidden or escaped with most of the local weaponry. The town was then plundered of its food stores, which were invaluable to Villemur.
After breaking his supply lines in Fiumorbo, Villemur had counted on maritime supply to keep his army marching, but Genoese support had been spotty at best. The primitive Genoese logistical system was already severely strained by the upkeep of nearly ten thousand Frenchmen, a significantly larger force than the entire Genoese army, and the Genoese navy already had its hands full supplying the French in the Balagna as well as the troops of Brigadier Anne de Montmorency-Luxembourg, Comte de Montmorency, whose progress down the rugged Capo Corso was positively glacial compared to Villemur's swift advance northwards. Moreover, the Corsicans were actively interfering with supply attempts, as armed feluccas and other ships crewed by royalist privateers operating from Bastia and the lagoons of the eastern coast menaced Genoese shipping. The ramshackle "Corsican navy" - really just fishermen and smugglers with muskets—was no match for an actual warship, but they could certainly snap up a Genoese barque laden with stores. That required the Genoese to protect their shipments with galleys or armed feluccas of their own, but organizing such convoys only added to the time, cost, and inconvenience of supplying Villemur's column, particularly since he seldom stayed in one place for long.
Villemur enjoyed a luncheon with his officers at Theodore's table, apparently even breaking open a bottle of Theodore's treasured Rhenish wine which had been left in the cellar. One of Villemur's officers proposed that they torch the place afterwards, but the brigadier declined, and for good reason—the "palace" was the bishop's residence, and the absent bishop of Aleria was none other than Camillo de Mari, a close relation of the Genoese Commissioner-General Giovanni-Battista de Mari.
The town was secured, but soon Villemur's attention was diverted by the sound of gunfire from the south. Taking a few companies of infantry and the hussars to investigate, Villemur found his battalion at San Andrea under attack by rebel militia. The French garrison had the matter well in hand; the militia were not much more than an annoyance. There were, however, a fair number of them—one or two hundred, Villemur guessed—and they retired up the valley when pursued. Villemur ordered Colonel Charles-Claude-Joachim d’Audibert, Comte de Lussan, to take his regiment of La Sarre and a company of hussars to scout up the valley.
In that direction lay the forces of Lieutenant-General Count Andrea Ceccaldi and Count Gianpetro Gaffori, who had recently rendezvoused at the Convent of Alesani. Between them they had around 900 men. The skirmishers at San Andrea had in fact been their own scouting party, led by Captain Clemente Paoli, who had been specifically instructed not to get into any serious firefight with the French. Paoli now sent back a messenger reporting that there were at least a thousand Frenchmen there (somewhat of an overstatement; there were probably no more than 700) including cavalry, and that they were advancing up the valley. Ceccaldi did not like his chances much, but it was good terrain; the valley was heavily wooded and traversable only by narrow paths along steep slopes.
That afternoon, Lussan reached the small village of Ortale. After searching the village for arms, he reportedly found an old monk who informed him that the rebels had a stash of munitions at the convent just across the valley, only a mile away. Lussan descended into the valley floor, but cautiously, assigning the hussars to scout ahead. They encountered a few dozen militiamen and quickly dispersed them, but as they pushed ahead in pursuit the woods around Lussan's main column erupted in gunfire. The hussars, occupied in front, had not adequately screened his flanks, and he had marched straight into an ambush by Gaffori's highlanders. The hussars, meanwhile, had reached the outskirts of the village of Piazzali only a quarter mile away, and the fifty horsemen found themselves confronted by a force of nearly 300 waiting militia. The company captain - evidently the third most senior hussar officer - was mortally wounded in the opening volley, and the horsemen turned and fled. Lussan's infantry, meanwhile, were evidently made of sterner stuff; Lussan quickly organized them into lines facing outwards and the French blasted off volleys into the woods. With the rebel militia taking cover behind trees, however, it was easier for the Corsicans to hit the tightly-packed rows of white-coated Frenchmen than it was for the French soldiers to hit their targets, and being surrounded with no clear idea of how many men he faced, Lussan could not simply order an advance to flush them out with bayonets. Once the hussars appeared at his front, riding hastily in retreat, Lussan decided the best course of action was to withdraw. The French made a fighting retreat through the woods to Ortale, foiling the Corsicans' attempt to cut them off, and once he had made a defensible perimeter at the village the rebels broke off the attack. The old monk, he noted, was long gone. Ceccaldi had not destroyed Lussan's battalion as he had hoped, but he had exacted serious casualties, with nearly a hundred Frenchmen dead or wounded at slight cost to his own force. As Lussan withdrew downriver, the Corsicans returned and kept up the pressure until he finally neared San Andrea.
Upon his return, Villemur's officers clamored for revenge. Villemur was no fool; he knew perfectly well that his army was at a disadvantage in the narrow, forested valleys of the Castagniccia, and he had no information as to the size of the enemy force, which was at least considerable enough to ambush and defeat a battalion. Villemur had confidence in the superior training of his troops and considered it unlikely that the Corsicans had as many men under arms as him, but there was no guarantee that the Corsican force would stand and fight, and a venture inland would draw him away from the coast and delay his progress north. Nevertheless, he did not want to leave a major enemy force to its own devices, and he must have been acutely conscious of Rousset's overwhelming victory in the north. It would no doubt reflect poorly on him by comparison if he were to allow Lussan's ambush to go unpunished and decline battle altogether against what was qualitatively and quantitatively an inferior foe. Villemur was an intelligent and effective officer, but he also had a concern for honor and glory common among the noblesse d'épée who led the armies of France, to say nothing of a concern for his own reputation and career. At length, he decided that a punitive expedition was in order, but as it was late in the day the plan would not be executed until the morning of the 8th.
The Valley of Alesani
On the 8th of June, Villemur led four battalions up the valley, with the fifth remaining behind at Cervioni along with the wounded from earlier fighting. With nearly 2,000 men advancing in two columns on either side of the river, Villemur presented a difficult target for an ambush. Still significantly outnumbered, Ceccaldi withdrew up the valley as the French advanced. Villemur faced only feeble resistance; a company of militia attempted to oppose his advance at Perelli and broke immediately once the French opened fire.
The valley of Alesani was (and today remains) a classically Corsican landscape, a well-forested valley hemmed in by the mountains. While there were few fields and no large towns, the valley was nevertheless home to several thousand people, spread in dozens of small villages throughout the landscape like an archipelago in a sea of green. The secret to their survival was the forest itself, a dense woodland of cork and chestnut. The chestnut was the bread of the highland Corsicans; it was not for no reason that the region was known as Castagniccia.[B] Alesani—not only a valley, but its own small pieve—had long been a rebel stronghold, but it had not been a theater of war since the initial outbreak of the rebellion.
Now Villemur went to work. Having easily conquered the valley, his men began looting it. Admittedly the locals had little in the way of valuables, but the soldiers ransacked houses looking for munitions and raided village granaries. The chestnuts of Alesani, after all, could feed soldiers as well as they could feed peasants, and Villemur needed any supplies he could forage. Villemur's actions went beyond expediency, however; he ordered the villages of Ortali and Piazzali to be burned to the ground as retribution for Lussan's ambush. Most outrageously to the Corsicans, he commanded his soldiers to start cutting down chestnut trees, directly threatening their livelihood. It had been the Genoese themselves who, in the 16th century, had attempted to improve the food production of the island by forcing its residents to plant chestnut trees, but now the easy availability of the chestnut in the mountainous interior had caused the Genoese to consider it the "food of the rebellion," used to sustain revolutionaries and bandits in their mountain fortresses, and Villemur shared their conviction that striking at this food supply was good anti-guerrilla policy.
Ceccaldi, then on the other side of the Col d'Arcarotta in the vale of Orezza, found Villemur's actions to be a good recruiting tool. Corsica was not a large island, nor the Castagniccia a wide country, and news traveled fast. Before the day was over, there were already armed men from Moriani and Orezza streaming into his camp, both militiamen and irregular volunteers. Some, he later wrote to Costa, were just there on the chance of getting free gunpowder and shot for their old snaphaunces, but many came armed to the teeth, asking where the Frenchmen were and when they would have the opportunity to kill them. Still, Ceccaldi held back, and Villemur was allowed to occupy the valley without opposition.
For the French, it was an unsettling night. Bonfires glimmered on the mountains on all sides of the valley, and the night was pierced by the eerie trumpeting of conch horns. Late that night, companies of militia picked their way around the valley's edge, guided by local villagers. Come dawn, firefights began erupting all over the valley. Although nominally in command, Ceccaldi's role was probably minimal; he could not have had any meaningful command and control over company-sized bands of Corsicans creeping into the valley in the morning's twilight. The attack was left to the initiative of individual captains and colonels, who were instructed to hit hard where they could and retreat into the woods if opposed. He could do little else; the militia was chafing for action, and he may have decided that if he kept trying to hold them back he would lose control of the "army" entirely. Although probably apocryphal, the situation was well captured by a tale often told after the battle: when asked by one of his captains what the plan of operations was, Ceccaldi responded with "why, if you see a Frenchman, shoot him!"
The action of June 9th is not particularly well documented, but French reports are sufficient to give us the gist of it. Spread throughout the valley, quartered in villages or bivouacked in the open, the French soldiers found themselves under attack by Corsican militia emerging from the trees and seeming to come from all directions. Villemur had anticipated a morning attack and instructed his captains accordingly, but the French were caught off-guard by the degree to which the Corsicans were able, with the help of local guides, to infiltrate the valley and strike at villages and encampments well behind the expected "front" near the Col d'Arcarotta. The fighting was fierce, and the "savagery" of the Corsicans was noted by the French: a company of Villemur's own Bassigny Regiment was surrounded and annihilated near the village of Milaria, with the Corsicans allegedly falling upon the wounded with their knives and massacring them all. After this confused battle was well under way, Ceccaldi and Gaffori crested the col with about 800 men and attacked French-held villages in the north of the valley.
The day's fighting was tactically inconclusive. The French fell back from the northern valley and a number of outlying villages in an effort to regroup and face Ceccaldi. Once he felt he no longer had the advantage of French disorder, however, Ceccaldi withdrew, leaving only local militia to continue desultory skirmishing. Villemur made the decision to withdraw from Alesani entirely, although not before burning several more villages and executing a number of locals who were suspected of assisting the rebels. In the end, both sides claimed victory; Ceccaldi announced that the French had been driven out of Alesani, while Villemur recorded that the main Corsican attack against him had failed and his incursion into Alesani had met its two major objectives; to wit, to punishing the locals for their support of the rebels and foraging supplies for his army. Those objectives, however, had been dearly bought. Combined with Lussan's ambush the previous day, Villemur recorded 413 casualties (dead, wounded, and incapacitated from all causes), more than 14% of the nominal strength of his initial force.[1] Particularly worrying were the losses among the Esterhazy Hussars, his sole cavalry squadron, which suffered such losses among both men and beasts that Lieutenant-Colonel Zsigmond David reported that he could field no more than 40 horsemen. Villemur's claim to have "punished" the people of Alesani rang a bit hollow after such losses and his precipitous evacuation from the valley.
Although the rebel force in the mountains had obviously not been destroyed, Villemur still had an appointment to make, and decided there was little more he could accomplish in Campoloro. The French remained two more nights at Cervioni, and finally struck camp to resume their northwards march on the 11th. By then, however, Villemur's army was starting to suffer casualties from an enemy that was more elusive but just as deadly as the Corsicans. An increasing number of his soldiers were starting to come down with aches and fevers, common symptoms of malaria, the scourge of Corsica's eastern plain and the reason why Aleria had declined from a Roman city to a sodden ruin.[C]
Ceccaldi had also suffered losses, both from battle and desertion, as many of the soldier-for-a-day irregulars considered the day's work a resounding victory and promptly went home. By the next morning, however, he still counted at least a thousand men in his ersatz army, and morale was high. There was talk of pressing on to Cervioni and attacking the French there, but Ceccaldi felt this was unlikely to succeed, and he was concerned that Villemur would evade him and turn northwards. Instead, Ceccaldi led the army back through Orezza and down the valley of the Fiumalto towards San Pellegrino. He and Villemur would meet again very soon.
Footnotes
[1] Villemur claimed that more than 800 Corsicans were killed. Costa claimed only 200, but Costa was nowhere near the fighting at the time and was prone to exaggeration for the purpose of propaganda; he also claimed the French casualties were "at least six hundred." Ceccaldi appears to have made no official count. Since the royalist forces were in large part irregulars, it may be that an accurate count was impossible. Alternately, perhaps the Corsican casualties really were high, and Ceccaldi purposefully made no count as to allow Costa and other royalist spokesmen to give favorable figures.
Timeline Notes
[A] "Large," of course, is a relative term. I don't have population figures for most Corsican settlements in the 18th century, but in 1800 Cervioni had only a thousand residents.
[B] "Chestnut" is castagna in Italian (and castagnu in Corsican). It was estimated c. 1770, following the French conquest of Corsica, that 70% of all trees in the Castagniccia region were chestnuts.
[C] The absolute minimum incubation period for the types of malaria found on Corsica is about a week, with most cases beginning to show symptoms between 9 and 18 days after infection. Villemur's first night of camping on the coastal plain was the 29th of May, and his army was based among the lagoons of Aleria between the 31st of May and the 4th of June. It seems reasonable that by the 11th, cases would have started appearing, and it's only going to get worse from here.
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Loved this scene, with the ominous fires and horn-calls as well as the almost perfect ambush the day before.
Losses among the hussars are very good news also because they will make it easier for the corsicams to perform tactical retreats without getting sabered down.
I wonder whether we will see a proper "Dien Bien Phu" against Villemur's force (btw the fellow has my sympathies: he seems competent and is stuck in a difficult situation, with few chances of the proper glory he could get on a continental battlefield).
Losses among the hussars are very good news also because they will make it easier for the corsicams to perform tactical retreats without getting sabered down.
I wonder whether we will see a proper "Dien Bien Phu" against Villemur's force (btw the fellow has my sympathies: he seems competent and is stuck in a difficult situation, with few chances of the proper glory he could get on a continental battlefield).
Cheering for the French here is like cheering for the Empire in Star Wars. Long live King Theodore! Long live the Kingdom of Corsica!
Malaria is going to thoroughly ravage the French army in the coming days and it is going to be made a lot worse by their poor supply situation. When Ceccaldi and Villemur meet again, the odds may not favor the French anymore.
Md139115
Banned
I am starting to suspect that the independent Corsica is going to be a very interesting state. Consider:
1. Corsica has a reputation for producing excellent soldiers already, and there are many experienced individuals in the Corsican uprising.
2. This uprising has now managed to involve not only a sub-section of the male population between 18-35, but nearly the entire people of Corsica.
3. Corsica is an impoverished, mountainous island, where the people are poor, but hardy.
4. At this time, liberty is in vogue, but democracy is not. The ideal Ancient Greek state to many enlightened figures is not Athens, but Sparta.
Based on this, I forsee a Corsica that is a "Switzerland of the Mediterranean." Not for its banks or skiing, but for its heavily-armed populace and superb mercenary armies.
Alternatively, Theodore may go all out and bring Lycurgus's dream back into being (with a few modifications to allow for some industry and luxury).
1. Corsica has a reputation for producing excellent soldiers already, and there are many experienced individuals in the Corsican uprising.
2. This uprising has now managed to involve not only a sub-section of the male population between 18-35, but nearly the entire people of Corsica.
3. Corsica is an impoverished, mountainous island, where the people are poor, but hardy.
4. At this time, liberty is in vogue, but democracy is not. The ideal Ancient Greek state to many enlightened figures is not Athens, but Sparta.
Based on this, I forsee a Corsica that is a "Switzerland of the Mediterranean." Not for its banks or skiing, but for its heavily-armed populace and superb mercenary armies.
Alternatively, Theodore may go all out and bring Lycurgus's dream back into being (with a few modifications to allow for some industry and luxury).
Cheering for the French here is like cheering for the Empire in Star Wars. Long live King Theodore! Long live the Kingdom of Corsica!
SO was I the only one that thought Palpatine was the good guy?
It's too late, mercenary armies as a important factor in Europe had one leg in the grave at this point, so unless Theodore goes full Hessian and raise a massive army stay he rent out to different wars, the tradional mercenary Company was pretty much dead. Instead people was recruited French Foreign Legion style to national armies