Adriatic campaign of 1807–14

Adriatic campaign
Part of the Napoleonic Wars
La Pomone contre les frégates HMS Alceste et Active Pierre Julien Gilbert
Date 1807–1814 Location Adriatic Sea in the Mediterranean Sea Result British victory
Belligerents
United Kingdom  Austria (1813–1814) Irregular Greek forces Montenegro	French Empire  Italy Kingdom of Naples
Commanders and leaders
Thomas Fremantle William Hoste John Oswald Murray Maxwell Petar I Petrović-Njegoš	Bernard Dubourdieu

The Adriatic campaign was a minor theatre of war during the Napoleonic Wars in which a succession of small British Royal Navy squadrons and independent cruisers harried the combined naval forces of the First French Empire, the Kingdom of Italy, the Illyrian Provinces and the Kingdom of Naples between 1807 and 1814 in the Adriatic Sea. Italy, Naples and Illyria were all controlled either directly or via proxy by the French Emperor Napoleon I, who had seized them at the Treaty of Pressburg in the aftermath of the War of the Third Coalition.

Control of the Adriatic brought numerous advantages to the French Navy, allowing rapid transit of troops from Italy to the Balkans and Austria for campaigning in the east and giving France possession of numerous shipbuilding facilities, particularly the large naval yards of Venice. From 1807, when the Treaty of Tilsit precipitated a Russian withdrawal from the Septinsular Republic, the French Navy held naval supremacy in the region. The Treaty of Tilsit also contained a secret clause that guaranteed French assistance in any war fought between the Russians and the Ottoman Empire. To fulfil this clause, Napoleon would have to secure his supply lines to the east by developing the French armies in Illyria. This required control of the Adriatic against increasingly aggressive British raiders. The Royal Navy determined to stop these troop convoys from reaching Illyria and sought to break French hegemony in the region, resulting in a six-year naval campaign.

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Wikipedia