It was clever of Bernard Ireland to find a major engagement of the Napoleonic Wars in which the British were involved but which has hitherto been largely ignored. The conflict at Toulon was a campaign rather than a single battle, lasting for five months of 1793, beginning as a British success and ending as a French victory. It can be particularly remembered for seeing Captain Napoleone Buonaparte's promotion to brigadier-general, so furthering his progress to coronation as the Emperor Napoleon.

The campaign began with Toulon declaring for King Louis XVII, thereby sealing the fate of the child sickening in a Paris prison after his father's death by guillotine. The citizens, by no means unanimously, invited Admiral Lord Hood and his Mediterranean fleet to enter the great naval base, take over