_2.jpg)
Your ad here
A highly sought-after haven
Toulon is an illustration of the timeless tension between openness and self-preservation. Ports are normally both a haven of protection, and a place of exchange with the outside world. None of that in Toulon. Its docks were built as a stronghold, a facility created for times of war. Its contact with the outside world takes place on quite a different plane. Toulon's history is linked to the history of world diplomacy.
Whether you sailed in via the Embiez islands or the Îles d'Or, you will have noticed cracks high up in the rocks, mini fortresses, turrets and gun carriages camouflaged in the cliffs. 
You will have seen steel-plated doors and staircases sculpted into the rocks, and maybe imagined tunnels and passages behind them. Did your mind start to picture a top-secret Dr No type at the base of Cap Sicié?
The Bay of Toulon, extending inland as it does, provides an excellent haven against wind and waves - but also against enemy forces. From the 3rd century AD, the Romans posted their fighting fleet in this harbour.
The same geographical features mean, however, that if the mouth of the bay is shut, a devastating attack can be made from the hills. Strategists will tell you that a basin is held via its edges.
The history of Toulon bears this out - its greatest strength is also its biggest weakness. French military leader Vauban visited the city in 1678, and established fortifications around the naval facilities. He was very pleased with the work, describing it as, "the masterpiece amongst royal projects, and the most beautiful naval construction in all Europe." Vauban died in 1707, year of the 'siege of Toulon'.
In the summer of that year, a coalition of Austrian, Savoyard and English forces overcame the defence system by blockading the mouth of the bay, and further occupying dominant positions around the city with 40,000 infantrymen and a powerful artillery. The heroic resistance of the Toulon population got them through this trial. The invaders turned back but the fortifications and a large part of the city had been destroyed.
Toulon was rebuilt, with new walls around the city, and the whole cycle started over again. Toulon continued to be coveted, chiefly by the English, who aspired to establish another Gibraltar. It's very understandable. Toulon is located in a key position on the main Spain-Italy trading route. Unlike Carcassonne, however, which plays a similar role at the foot of the Pyrenees.
Toulon has no citadel. It has a shipyard, built alongside a naval dockyard, which has built, harboured, trained and sent out the French fighting fleet into a whole range of combat situations since the end of the 16th century. Whoever could take Toulon would not only get their hands on a key geographical outpost, but also on the leading production facility for the French naval industry.
For this very reason, in the early days of the 1707 siege, Navy Commander de Langeron decided to scuttle his own fleet - twenty three Royal vessels. "We sunk what the enemy wanted to reduce to ashes," he is quoted as saying. Historians now feel that this was a tactical error, as the army went on to demonstrate its ability to defend the city.
Another siege took place in 1793. Following the revolution, Toulon was being poorly run by the Jacobins, and fell into the hands of counter-revolutionaries, who brought in 1,500 Spaniards, Sardinians, Neapolitans and… (horror) Englishmen to occupy the city. When Napoleon Bonaparte, leading the artillery, still at this stage a supporter of the Revolution, took the city back into French hands, the enemy coalition burned nine warships and three frigates. A fire raged through the dockyards, but was finally controlled through the efforts of the city folk and convicts from the local gaol.
In November 1942, with the French armies defeated, the country occupied and nothing standing between the Germans and the French fleet of warships, the whole fleet was scuttled. It proved to be the right choice, because as the German tanks took up position around the port in an inferno of explosions and flames, 3 battleships, 7 cruisers, 15 destroyers, 13 torpedo boats, 6 dispatch boats, 9 patrol boats and minesweepers, 19 harbour craft, 1 training ship, 28 tugs and 4 hoisting docks were sunk - a total of 235,000 tonnes of heavy equipment.
It is said of Toulon that it has never been taken, though often destroyed. The city was also marked by further violent episodes in its history, the galley ships, the colonial era, explosions in the torpedo factory - and the deadliest enemy of all - the plague, against which all the defences of stone proved ineffective.
Christophe Naigeon
