Siege and Battle of Toulon

After his victory at Turin, Prince Eugene launches a bold offensive against Toulon, France's principal naval arsenal in the Mediterranean. He coordinates his land forces with the Anglo-Dutch fleet. The Count of Toulouse orders partial scuttling of the fleet to prevent its capture. Marshal de Tessé organizes a fierce defense on the heights of the city and the redoubts of the hinterland. Superiority of the defensive terrain and sickness in Imperial ranks force Eugene to lift the siege.

The fall of Toulon would have offered the coalition a war port in France itself, a major symbolic and logistical blow. France mobilizes all its local and regional forces to avert this catastrophe.

Defense in depth, use of terrain (Mont Faron, rear redoubts), well-positioned coastal artillery. The partial scuttling of French ships prevented their capture. Eugene failed to coordinate a complete encirclement. The attack began on 29 July; the Imperials seized the Sainte-Catherine heights on 30 July, but Tessé's and La Marine's regiments recaptured these crucial positions on 14 and 15 August, then Fort Sainte-Catherine.

Toulon was saved and the French fleet preserved despite the scuttling. Provence remained beyond enemy reach. French morale recovered and Italy was secured to the west. The attempt to take Toulon cost Eugene of Savoy about 10,000 men; on orders from Versailles, the squadron was sunk upright on the harbor bottom to block the port rather than burned, and most ships were later refloated after the siege. Admiral Shovell's fleet would be lost in the Scilly naval disaster.