The French Attack on Neutrality, 1794–1796

Meeks, Joshua

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-44078-1_6

The French Attack on Neutrality, 1794–1796

Joshua Meeks⁵

Chapter
First Online: 02 February 2017

Part of the book series: War, Culture and Society, 1750-1850 ((WCS))

Abstract

This chapter provides a French counterpoint to the British attempts to forge alliances from their position on Corsica between 1794 and 1796. The French during this same period attempt to paint the British not as paragons of Old Regime stability, but as a predatory empire intent on gaining control over the Italian states and Spain by pitting these powers against the benevolent French. In addition to this rhetorical strategy, the French also experience military success, often because of the failures of the British diplomatic strategy. The main focal points of this chapter are the war in Piedmont–Sardinia in 1794, the Tuscan return to neutrality in 1794–1795, and the Spanish turn to neutrality in 1795.

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Notes

1.
This transition is noted in Paul Schroeder’s The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).
2.
The reactions by the Italian states is noted in various works, such as John Davis’s Naples and Napoleon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); Michael Broers, Napoleonic Imperialism and the Savoyard Monarchy 1773–1821: State Building in Piedmont (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1997); Greg Hanlon, Early Modern Italy, 1550–1800: Three Seasons in European History (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000); Richard Long, “The Relations of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany with Revolutionary France, 1790–1799,” Florida State University Dissertation, 1972. For Corsica, see J.M.P. McErlean, Napoleon and Pozzo Di Borgo in Corsica and After, 1764–1821: Not Quite a Vendetta (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1996); Antoine Casanova, Peuple Corse, Révolutions et Nation Française (Paris: Editions Sociales, 1979); and Antoine Casanova, La Révolution Française en Corse (1789–1800) (Toulouse: Privat, 1989).
3.
The best work regarding this is that of Virginie Martin, “In Search of the ‘Glorious Peace’? Republican Diplomats at War, 1792–1799,” in Republics at War, 1776–1840: Revolutions, Conflicts, and Geopolitics in Europe and the Atlantic World, ed. Pierre Serna (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).
4.
Martin Boycott Brown, The Road to Rivoli: Napoleon’s First Campaign (New York: Sterling Publishing, 2001), Ch. 3.
5.
Quoted in Bergadini, R., Vittorio Amadeo III (1726–1796). (Turin, 1939), 249–50.
6.
Quoted in Bergadini, R., Vittorio Amadeo III (1726–1796) (Turin, 1939).
7.
See Brown, The Road to Rivoli, especially Chap. 4.
8.
See Michael Broers, Napoleonic Imperialism and the Savoyard Monarchy 1773–1821: State Building in Piedmont (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1997).
9.
Archives Nationales de France (hereafter cited as AN) AFIII/87 “Memoire sur la Conduit de la Toscane avec le Republique de France (n.d., likely 1795).
10.
Ministre Affaire Etrangers (hereafter MAE), CP 146, Cacault to Deforgues, 20 February 1794, Corsini to Cacault, 26 February 1794.
11.
MAE CP 146, Corsini to Cacault, 26 February 1794.
12.
MAE Mémoires et documents, XII, Italie: Dépêches et Mémoires, 1794–1809, “Observations sur la Neutralité des Puissances d’Italie, 1794.”
13.
AN AFIII/87, Mémoire sur la Conduit de la Toscane avec le République de France, 21 April 1794.
14.
British National Archives (hereafter BNA) FO 20/2, FO 79/10 and HO 528/15.
15.
BNA FO 79/10, Serristori to Wyndham, 26 April 1794.
16.
AN, AFIII/87, Cacault to the Committee of Public Safety, 23 November 1794).
17.
BNA FO 79/11, Wyndham to Grenville, 27 June 1794.
18.
Antonio Zobi, Storia Civile Della Toscana (Florence, 1850) III, 128–130; Conti, La Toscana e la Rivoluzione francese, 277–278.
19.
MAE CP 146, Pluviose III, “Notes sur la Toscane.”
20.
AN, AFIII/87, Cacault to the Committee of Public Safety, 23 November 1794.
21.
Ibid., 6 Dec. 1794.
22.
Nuti, ed., “Toscana e Francia,” Caletti to Corsini, 30 August 1794, 296.
23.
Ibid., Corsini to Carletti, 26 August, 1794; ibid., Carletti to Corsini, 21 August 1794.
24.
BNA, FO 79/11 Wyndham to Frenville, 25 Sept., 1794; ibid., Serristori to Wyndham, 22 Sept. 1794. and 22 Sept. 1794; ibid., Hood to Ferdinand III, 17 Sept. 1794; ibid., Elliot to Wyndham, 27 Sept.1794 and 3 Oct.1794; ibid., Grenville to Wyndham, Nov. 1794, and Brame to Wyndham, 16 Dec. 1794.
25.
AN, AFIII/87, Villars to the Committee of Public Safety, 8 Dec. 1794; ibid, Corsini to Goupy, 9 Dec. 1794; ibid, Cacault to the Committee of Public Safety, 9 Dec. 1794; ibid, Bertellet to Cacaut, 8 Dec. 1794; ibid, Cacault to the Committee of Public Safety, 3 Dec. 1794 and 6 Jan. 1795. Corsini to Cacault, 6 Jan. 1795. MAE, CP 146bis, Commissioner of Exterior Relations to the Committee of Public Safety, 23 March 1795.
26.
AN, AFIII/87, “Convention,” 9 February 1795, ratified 13 February 1795; ibid., Ferdinand to the National Convention, 2 March 1795. Gazzetta Universal, No. 18, 3 March 1795.
27.
MAE CP 146bis, “Proces-verbal de la Convention national, 28 Ventose III”; ibid, Commissioner of Exterior Relations to the Committee of Public Safety, 27 Ventose III.
28.
Richard Long, “The Relations of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany with Revolutionary France, 1790–1799,” 135, fn 44. Also, see Wyndham to Grenville, 3 March 1795, concerning concern over grain prices, and ANF, AFIII, 87, Cacault to the Committee of Public Safety, 10 March 1795 and Miot to the Committee of Public Safety, 21 Priarial III, 9 June 1795. By Miot’s letter in June, so much grain had been imported that the Tuscan warehouses were completely full and overflow was being sent to Pisa.
29.
NA FO 79/12, Serristori, to Wyndham, 28 February 1795 and Wyndham to Grenville, 3 March 1795; ibid, Hotham to Wyndham, 2 March 1795.
30.
AN, AF/III 87, Miot to the Committee of Public Safety, 3, 9 June 1795.
31.
On Miot, see Andre-Francois Miot comte de Melito, Memoirs of Count Miot de Meliton, Minister, Ambassador, Councillor of State and Member of the Insittutde of France between the Years of 1788 and 1815, ed. General Fleischmann, trans. by John Lillie and Mrs. Cashel Hoey (New York, 1881).
32.
Richard Long, “The Relations of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany with Revolutionary France, 1790–1799,” 144, fn 3.
33.
MAE CP 146bis, Miot to Serristori, 30 May 1795. AN AF/III, 87, Miot to the Committee of Public Safety, 2 June 1795.
34.
AN AF/III 87; MAE CP 146–146bis.
35.
AN AF/II/88, Committee of Public Safety to Miot, 26 Sept. 1795.
36.
BNA WO 1/687, Goodall to Hotham, 24 Feb. 1795.
37.
HMC Dropmore, 3:124–128; RMM ELL/125, Drake to Elliot, 11 Sept. 1795; FO 28/13, Drake to Grenville, 2 November 1795.
38.
Martin, The Road to Rivoli, 105.
39.
Pedro Rujula, “International War, National War, Civil War: Spain and Counter Revolution (1793–1840)” in Republics at War, 1776–1840: Revolutions, Conflicts, and Geopolitics in Europe and the Atlantic World, ed. Pierre Serna (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); Douglas Hilt, The Troubled Trinity: Godoy and the Spanish Monarchs (Birmingham: University of Alabama Press, 1987).
40.
Quoted in Hilt, Troubled Trinity, 45.
41.
This particular joke had relevance, given the tumultuous but consistent relationship between Prime Minister Godoy and the Spanish queen, Maria Luisa.
42.
Barbara Stein and Stanley Stein, Edge of Crisis: War and Trade in the Spanish Atlantic, 1789–1808 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). As the title indicates, however, the Mediterranean side of the equation is almost entirely ignored. Archivally there are repeated references to the Pact Famille in MAE CP 37, 639–641.
43.
Hilt, Troubled Trinity, 44.
44.
Ibid.
45.
BNA ADM 1/394, Nelson to Hotham, n. d.
46.
BNA FO 7/45, Morton Eden to Grenville.
47.
BNA FO 20/9, Elliot to Jervis, 25 April 1796.
48.
J.G.A. Fabry, Histoire de l’Armee d’Italie (1796–1797) (Paris, 1900–1901), II, 39.
49.
Martin. The Road to Rivoli, 100–112.
50.
R. Cleyet Michaud. “Un diplomate de la Revolution: Francois Cacault et ses Plans de Conquete de Italie (1793–1796)” Revue d’Historique Diplomatique, 86 (1972), 315.

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Northwest University, Kirkland, WA, USA
Joshua Meeks

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Meeks, J. (2017). The French Attack on Neutrality, 1794–1796. In: France, Britain, and the Struggle for the Revolutionary Western Mediterranean. War, Culture and Society, 1750-1850. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44078-1_6

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44078-1_6
Published: 02 February 2017
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-44077-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-44078-1
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