page_title: Siege of San Fiorenzo
section_title: Linzee's attack
hierarchical_section_title: Siege of San Fiorenzo / Linzee's attack
caption_attribution_description: English: The Tour de Mortella is a Genoese tower on the west coast of the French island of Corsica. It is located near the Punta Mortella (Myrtle Point) in the commune of Saint-Florent. The tower served as an inspiration for the numerous Martello towers built by the British in the first half of the 19th century. The artist 'DCF' has not been identified. He was probably an army officer of the British force under General David Dundas that captured the tower in February 1794.
context_page_description: The Siege of San Fiorenzo was a British military operation, supported by Corsican partisans early in the French Revolutionary Wars against the French-held town of San Fiorenzo on the Mediterranean island of Corsica. The Corsican people had risen up against the French Republican garrison in 1793 after an attempt to arrest the Corsican leader Pasquale Paoli during the Reign of Terror. The French had then been driven into three fortified towns on the northern coast; San Fiorenzo, Calvi, and Bastia and Paoli appealed to the British Royal Navy's Mediterranean Fleet, commanded by Lord Hood, for assistance against the French garrison.
  In the autumn of 1793 Hood was distracted by the Siege of Toulon, but did send a squadron with orders to attack San Fiorenzo. The attack achieved initial success but was driven off by the fortifications at the Torra di Fornali. After the fall of Toulon in December 1793, Hood turned his main attention to Corsica and ordered a joint operation against the town, attacking from the sea and with amphibious landings.
context_section_description: In response to Paoli's continuing appeals for support, Hood detached a naval squadron in late September, comprising the ships of the line HMS Alcide, HMS Courageux and HMS Ardent and the frigates HMS Nemesis and HMS Lowestoft under the command of Commodore Robert Linzee. This force was under orders to take letters signed by Hood to the garrisons of the French-held towns offering terms of surrender similar to those offered at Toulon. If these were ineffective, Linzee was to blockade the ports and, if practicable, to attack and capture them.
  The letters were ignored, and Linzee's forces were too few and inadequately equipped to effectively blockade the rocky inlets of the Corsican coast from which smugglers routinely sailed to Italy. Linzee therefore determined to attack San Fiorenzo, on the northwestern coast of Corsica at the southern end of Cap Corse. San Fiorenzo was strategically important for its large sheltered bay, defended by fortifications at Torra di Mortella and Torra di Fornali. On 19 September Linzee sent Nemesis and Lowestoft to attack Torra di Mortella, which was abandoned by its garrison undamaged after three broadsides from Lowestoft. British sailors landed and entered the tower, but returned to their ships the next day. Linzee then waited a week before attacking Torra di Fornali, a much stronger position protected by coastal batteries.
  On 1 October at 03:30, Linzee sent Ardent, Alcide and Courageux to bombard Fornali. The ships came under heavy fire not only from the tower and batteries, but also from additional artillery in the town of San Fiorenzo itself, including heated shot. These red hot cannonballs started fires on board the attacking ships, and at 08:15 the squadron retreated out of the bay with all three ships damaged, 19 sailors killed and 35 wounded. The effect on Torra di Fornali was negligible. Linzee claimed that he had been given inaccurate information on the strength of the fortifications by Corsican informants and that he had only ordered the attack on the understanding that it would be supported by an attack from the land by the Corsican irregular forces which never materialised. Hood later accused Paoli of "a composition of art and deceit" in relation to this operation.
  The British force withdrew, and in late October a French frigate squadron was sent to San Fiorenzo with reinforcements, escaping an attack by the British ship of the line HMS Agamemnon under Captain Horatio Nelson off Sardinia at the Action of 22 October 1793. From this force the French frigates Minerve and Fortunée anchored in the bay under the shelter of the batteries. During this landing the disarmed Torra di Mortella was abandoned by its Corsican garrison and recaptured by the French.
caption: Sketch of the "Mortella Tower". "C.F.D., 1794, NMM
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2004:11:17 11:32:01", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3764", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "790", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1280"}