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By Root 2756 0

had established a major naval base) to stay put, and in effect trying to entice Napoleon into an attack on the Ottomans with promises of Albania and Greece. Partitioning the Ottoman Empire was still not to Napoleon’s taste, but at this point he seems to have decided that partition was inevitable, and that his goal should be to turn it to his advantage. In so far as this was concerned, there were two obvious objectives, the first being to embroil Austria with Russia and the second to challenge Russian foot-dragging in respect of opening hostilities against Britain. In consequence, the emperor brought in the Austrians and secretly offered them a broad swathe of territory stretching right across the Balkans from Bosnia to Bulgaria (a move that would also have the happy effect of limiting Russia’s territorial gains to Moldavia and Wallachia and allowing Napoleon to claim Silesia as compensation), while at the same time proposing to Alexander that 50,000 French, Austrian and Russian troops should advance on Constantinople from their respective bases in Dalmatia, Croatia and the Danubian provinces with a view to partitioning the Ottoman Empire and then marching on India. Whether this last idea was intended as a serious suggestion is a moot point - what Napoleon was really thinking of was almost certainly a scenario that would see him regain Egypt with the aid of Russian naval power - but in the end this mattered very little: Russia would be at war with Britain, and Alexander left not only with almost nothing, but also very much dancing to Napoleon’s tune.

It is in this context, then, that the decision to overthrow the Bourbons must be seen. With a major war brewing in the eastern Mediterranean, Spain had suddenly become not just more important as a naval partner, but also a vital strategic base: if Napoleon was to seize the North African littoral, for example, it was Spain’s ports that were best placed to launch such a campaign. That the Ottoman Empire had become the centre of the emperor’s attention is further suggested by events in Italy. At the beginning of 1808 elaborate preparations were in train for an invasion of Sicily, but these were now suddenly cancelled in favour of a naval expedition to reinforce the garrison that had held out in Corfu throughout the years of hostility with Russia. If the Ottoman Empire was to be partitioned, Corfu was an obvious forward base from which to make a dash at Egypt and forestall any moves that Britain might make; important though it was, Sicily could wait. Then in March came the decision to strengthen the empire’s grip on central Italy by annexing Tuscany - the erstwhile Kingdom of Etruria - Parma, Lucca, Guastalla, Piacenza and Piombino to France (as ruler of Lucca and Piombino, Elise Bonaparte was compensated with what amounted to the vice-royalty of the four new departments made up from the new annexations), the aim being to give the emperor complete control of the roads leading to the vital ports of Taranto and Brindisi. As to what all this was for, from 12 April a series of orders directed Napoleon’s Minister of Marine, Admiral Decrès, to concentrate the Toulon fleet at Taranto with the aim of transporting 30,000 men to a destination that was first Tunis or Algiers and later Egypt.

To be still more explicit, the city that mattered most in the deliberations of the powers in 1808 was not Madrid but Constantinople. No sooner had Napoleon’s letter of 2 February arrived in St Petersburg than a vigorous debate began as to exactly how the Ottoman Empire in Europe was to be partitioned. With Alexander, Rumiantsev and the French ambassador Caulaincourt as the main protagonists in the drama, a series of secret meetings saw France and Russia battle it out in a determined effort to secure victory for their different solutions. To complicate matters, Russia was already engaged in a campaign that it could at least argue was being waged on Napoleon’s behalf. This affair was the Russo-Swedish War of 1808-9 . Given that it reveals the difficulties the Portland administration was labouring under