Anglo-Corsican Kingdom

Regno di Corsica (Italian) Regnu di Corsica (Corsican) Anglo-Corsican Kingdom 1794–1796
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Motto : "Amici e non di ventura" ( Italian for "friends and not by chance")
Constitution	The second Corsican constitution (1794)
Official language	Italian Corsican
Capital	Corte (summer 1794 - early 1795) Bastia (early 1795 - October 1796)
Form of government	kingdom
Form of government	Constitutional Monarchy (de jure) British Protectorate (de facto)
Head of state	King George III of the United Kingdom Viceroy Gilbert Elliot
Head of government	President of the Council of State Carlo Andrea Pozzo di Borgo
currency	Soldo
founding	June 17, 1794
resolution	October 19, 1796
National anthem	Dio vi Salvi Regina
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The Anglo-Corsican Kingdom was a dependent protectorate of the Kingdom of Great Britain , which existed on the island of Corsica from 1794 to 1796 during the First Coalition War .

background

During the French Revolution , Corsica had been part of France for two decades. The Corsican leader Pasquale Paoli , exiled under the monarchy, became something of an idol of freedom and democracy. In 1789 he was invited to Paris by the National Assembly, where he was hailed as a hero before the Assembly. He was then sent back to Corsica with the rank of lieutenant general.

However, Paoli eventually split off from the revolutionary movement, as he on the question of the execution of Louis XVI. was at odds with her. Accused of treason by the French National Assembly, he convened the Consulta in Corte in 1793. He himself was president of this council. The formal secession of Corsica from France was proclaimed. He asked for the protection of the British government, which was at war with revolutionary France, and proposed that the Kingdom of Ireland be chosen as the model for an autonomous kingdom under the British monarchy. It was an opportunity for Britain to secure a Mediterranean base.

In 1794, Britain sent a fleet to Corsica under Admiral Samuel Hood . For a short time Corsica came formally under the rule of King George III. .

The constitution was democratic, with a viceroy ( Sir Gilbert Elliot ) who represented the king, an elected unicameral parliament, and a council which was the executive body of the kingdom, with Carlo Andrea Pozzo di Borgo as procureur-general-Syndic (chief the civilian government) and later President of the State Council, at the top, as a state religion was Catholicism fixed.

However, the relationship between Paoli's government and the British was never clearly defined, which led to numerous questions and conflicts of authority. In particular, tensions arose from the conflict between Sir Gilbert's loyalty to the British monarchy and Paoli's republican leanings and a desire to defend Corsican autonomy. There was also a marked division between Corte , the traditional capital and an inland stronghold, and Bastia on the coast, where Sir Gilbert moved the capital in early 1795 and which was the center of the French and Corsican royalists.

When Spain left the anti-French coalition in the Peace of Basel in 1795 , the British considered their position in the Mediterranean to be precarious and withdrew their forces from the island by October. The British government asked Paoli to resign. In the absence of alternatives, he was forced to accompany the British on their retreat from the island. On October 19, 1796, the French conquered Bastia and Corsica became a French department.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Peter Adam Thrasher: Pasquale Paoli: An Enlightened Hero 1725-1807 . Archon Books, Hamden, CT 1970, ISBN 0-208-01031-9 , pp. 291-326.
2. ↑ Desmond Gregory: The Ungovernable Rock: A History of the Anglo-Corsican Kingdom and Its Role in Britain's Mediterranean Strategy During the Revolutionary War, 1793-1797 . Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, London 1985, ISBN 0-8386-3225-4 , p. 171.