Siege of San Fiorenzo 1794
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 7 February 1794 – 20 February 1794 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1794 | Wikidata P580 (start time) |
| Era | Early modern (1500–1799) | derived from year |
| Location | France | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Invasion of Corsica | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | Corsicans, French First Republic, Kingdom of Great Britain | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 42.6819, 9.3021 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The siege of San Fiorenzo (also known as the siege of Saint-Florent ) was a British and Corsican military operation conducted during 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. Over two weeks the main defences of the town were defeated by a series of artillery operations which drove the French out of their defences one by one and destroyed the French shipping in the harbour.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Siege of San Fiorenzo (revision 1370744988), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
Nearby battles
- Siege of Bastia 1794 · 12 km
- Battle of Borgo 1768 · 18 km
- Battle of Ponte Novu 1769 · 22 km
- Siege of Calvi 1794 · 46 km
- Battle of Pianosa 1519 · 58 km
- Aleria standoff 1975 · 63 km
Other battles of the Invasion of Corsica
- Siege of Bastia 1794
- Siege of Calvi 1794
All 3 battles of the Invasion of Corsica →
Browse more: battles in France · Europe · Early modern battles