The French expedition to Sardinia was a short military campaign fought in 1793 in the Mediterranean Sea in the first year of the War of the First Coalition, during the French Revolutionary Wars. The operation was the first offensive by the new French Republic in the Mediterranean during the conflict, and was directed at the island of Sardinia, part of the Kingdom of Sardinia. Sardinia was neutral at the time, but immediately joined the anti-French coalition. The operation was a failure, with attacks directed at Cagliari in the south and La Maddalena in the north both ending in defeat.
The operation was launched by the French Mediterranean Fleet, led by Contre-amiral Laurent Truguet, under instructions from the National Convention. The government had issued orders to invade Sardinia, strategically important to the Mediterranean, which they believed would bring an easy victory. Delays in assembling the invasion force gave the Sardinians sufficient time to raise an army, and when the French fleet arrived off the capital Cagliari, the Sardinians were ready. The first attack was dispersed by a gale, but the second went ahead on 22 January 1793. French troops subsequently landed on 11 February but were driven off in fighting at Quartu Sant'Elena.
A subsequent attack on the island of La Maddalena off the northern coast of Sardinia also failed, partly due to sabotage by Corsican troops; it is most notable as the first military service of the Lieutenant Colonel Napoleon Bonaparte, later Emperor of France. On 25 May a Spanish fleet recaptured the small islands of San Pietro and Sant'Antioco, the last of the French garrisons on Sardinia. The legacies of the campaign included a series of popular revolts in Sardinia against the Savoyard rulers, a temporary breakaway of Corsica from France, and a rebellion at the French naval base of Toulon leading to the capture and near destruction of the entire French Mediterranean Fleet by a British Royal Navy fleet.
Background
The French Revolutionary Wars began in April 1792 when the French declared war against the Austrian Empire, allied to the Kingdom of Prussia. Although the Kingdom of Sardinia, split between Savoy and Piedmont in the continent and the large Mediterranean island of Sardinia, was not part of this coalition, it was identified as a primary target of French military operations. The island of Sardinia was agriculturally rich and strategically important in the Mediterranean, and it was felt in France that its capture would intimidate the mainland part of the Kingdom and the other nations of the Italian peninsula, and spread republicanism beyond the borders of France. Moreover, a successful attack on the island was thought to be easily achievable, and orders were given for an expeditionary force to assemble at Toulon, the principal French Mediterranean naval base.
Command of this operation was given to Contre-amiral Laurent Truguet, commander of the Mediterranean fleet, who had difficulty raising the necessary troops. France in general and the French navy in particular were undergoing severe social and political upheaval, and it was not until December that a sufficient expeditionary force had been prepared. Truguet and the Mediterranean fleet then sailed with a French army, carried on transports, arriving off the capital of Sardinia, Cagliari on the southern coast, on 21 December 1792.
On Sardinia warnings of the impending French attack had arrived months earlier, although the political authority based with King Victor Amadeus III in Turin made little effort to reinforce the island, believing that to do so might be seen by the French as a provocation. The island's inhabitants however were devout Catholics, and the persecution of Catholic clergy in the aftermath of the French Revolution incited considerable opposition among the Sardinian people; the local government, the Stamenti, were able to raise more than 4,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry, although the garrison was very short of artillery.
Storm and siege
As the French fleet of 36 vessels entered the Golfo di Cagliari, a severe storm struck, driving Truguet's ships off-shore. A number of troop transports were lost and the rest of the fleet was driven to Palmas on the southwestern coast of the island. There Truguet landed troops on the islands of San Pietro and Sant'Antioco, both of which were taken without fighting. He also landed parties on the Sardinian mainland, although they were driven off by Sardinian irregular forces sniping from the hillsides. The Sardinians attributed the storm to St Thomas the Apostle, on whose feast day it occurred.