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Toulon

Prefecture and city in France

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Images, de haut en bas et de gauche à droite : Opéra de Toulon de Baptiste Rossi ; Stade Mayol de Johnjohn83var ; Baou des 4 Oures de Lubranomaxime ; Place de la Liberté de Pinpin ; Plage du Mourillon
Johnjohn83var · CC BY-SA 3.0

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Toulon had a population of 179,116 people (2023), making it France's 12th-largest city, and third most populous French city on the Mediterranean, after Marseille and Nice. It is the centre of a metropolitan area with 591,135 inhabitants (2023), the fourteenth largest in France by population.

Toulon is an important centre for naval construction, fishing, winemaking, and the manufacture of aeronautical equipment, armaments, maps, paper, tobacco, printing, shoes, and electronic equipment.

The military port of Toulon is the major naval centre on France's Mediterranean coast, home of the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle and her battle group. The French Mediterranean Fleet is based in Toulon. The 1793 siege took place during the Federalist revolts.

History

Prehistory to the Roman era

Archaeological excavations, such as those at the Cosquer Cave near Marseille, show that the coast of Provence was inhabited since at least the Paleolithic era. Greek colonists came from Phocaea, Asia Minor, in about the 7th century BC and established trading depots along the coast, including one, called Olbia, at Saint-Pierre de l'Almanarre south of Hyères, to the east of Toulon. The Ligurians settled in the area beginning in the 4th century BC.

In the 2nd century BC, the residents of Massalia (present-day Marseille) called upon the Romans to help them pacify the region. The Romans defeated the Ligurians and began to start their own colonies along the coast. A Roman settlement was founded at the present location of Toulon, with the name Telo Martius – Telo, either for the local god of springs Telo or from the Latin tol, the base of the hill – and Martius, for the god of war. Telo Martius became one of the two principal Roman dye manufacturing centres, producing the purple colour used in imperial robes, made from the local sea snail called murex, and from the acorns of the oak trees. Toulon harbour became a shelter for trading ships, and the name of the town gradually changed from Telo to Tholon, Tolon, and Toulon.

Arrival of Christianity and the Counts of Provence

Toulon was Christianized in the 5th century, and the first cathedral built. Honoratus and Gratianus of Toulon (Gratien), according to the Gallia Christiana, were the first bishops of Toulon, but Louis Duchesne gives Augustalis as the first historical bishop. He assisted at councils in 441 and 442 and signed in 449 and 450 the letters addressed to Pope Leo I from the province of Arles.

A Saint Cyprian, disciple and biographer of St. Cæsarius of Arles, is also mentioned as a Bishop of Toulon. His episcopate, begun in 524, had not come to an end in 541; he converted to Catholicism two Visigothic chiefs, Mandrier and Flavian, who became anchorites and martyrs on the peninsula of Mandrier. As barbarians invaded the region and Roman power crumbled, the town was frequently attacked by pirates and the Saracens.

Royal port (15th–18th centuries)

In 1486, Provence became part of France. Soon afterwards, in 1494, Charles VIII of France, with the intention of making France a sea power on the Mediterranean, and to support his military campaign in Italy, began constructing a military port at the harbor of Toulon. His Italian campaign failed, and in 1497, the rulers of Genoa, who controlled commerce on that part of the Mediterranean, blockaded the new port.

In 1524, as part of his longtime battle against Emperor Charles V and the Holy Roman Empire, King François I of France completed a powerful new fort, the Tour Royale, Toulon, at the entrance of the harbour. However, a few months later the commander of the new fort sold it to the commander of an Army of the Holy Roman Empire, and Toulon surrendered.

In 1543, Francis I found a surprising new ally in his battle against the Holy Roman Empire. He invited the fleet of Ottoman Admiral Barbarossa to Toulon as part of the Franco-Ottoman alliance. The residents were forced to leave (except for the heads of household), and the Ottoman sailors occupied the town for the winter. See Ottoman occupation of Toulon.

In 1646, a fleet was gathered in Toulon for the major Battle of Orbetello, also known as the Battle of Isola del Giglio, commanded by France's first Grand Admiral, the young Grand Admiral Marquis of Brézé, Jean Armand de Maillé-Bréze of 36 galleons, 20 galleys, and a large complement of minor vessels. This fleet carried aboard an army of 8,000 infantry and 800 cavalry and its baggage under Thomas of Savoy, shortly before a general in Spanish service.

King Louis XIV was determined to make France a major sea power. In 1660, his Minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert ordered Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban to build a new arsenal and to fortify the town. In 1707, during the War of the Spanish Succession, Toulon successfully resisted a siege by the Imperial Army led by Duke Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia of Savoy and Prince Eugene. However, in 1720, the city was ravaged by the black plague, coming from Marseille. 13,000 people, or half the population, died.

In 1790, following the French Revolution, Toulon became the administrative centre of the département of the Var. However, in 1793, the Jacobin administration of the city was swept from power, allowing Girondins and royalists to take their place; the city then rose up against the central administration of the First Republic and joined the Federalist revolts. The new Federalist administration surrendered the city and its fleet to the British. French Republican forces then undertook the siege of Toulon, forcing the British to withdraw, taking a number of ships with them and destroying the rest of them. Napoleon Bonaparte served as an artillery captain during the event. To punish Toulon for its rebellion, the town lost its status as department capital and was briefly renamed Port-la-Montagne, after The Mountain faction.

19th century

During the Napoleonic Wars, from 1803 until 1805 a British fleet led by Admiral Horatio Nelson blockaded Toulon.

In 1820, the statue which became known as the Venus de Milo was discovered on the Greek island of Milo and seen by a French naval officer, Emile Voutier. He persuaded the French Ambassador to Turkey to buy it, and brought it to Toulon on his ship, the Estafette. From Toulon it was taken to the Louvre.

In 1849, Louis-Napoleon named Georges Eugène Haussmann as the new Prefect of the Var department. He served there only one year, but he laid out the current street plan for the city center, as he would later do for the city of Paris.

In the 1890s, there were the Kronstadt-Toulon naval visits. were reciprocal diplomatic visits carried out by the French and Russian navies in the lead up to the Franco-Russian Alliance (1894–1917).

20th century

In August 1935, a year before the reign of the Popular Front, violent uprisings of the workers of the Toulon shipyards opposed the policy of austerity. This resulted in a large number of deaths and injuries; a state of emergency was imposed.

During World War II, after the Allied landings in North Africa (Operation Torch) the German Army occupied southern France (Case Anton), leading French naval officers to scuttle the French Fleet based at Toulon on 27 November 1942. The city was bombed by the Allies in November of the following year, with much of the port destroyed and five hundred residents killed.

The Hôtel de Ville, centre of the administration of the city, was completed in 1970.

In 1979, the University of Toulon opened. Toulon was one of four French cities where the extreme-right Front National won the local elections in 1995. The Front National was voted out of power in 2001.

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