Treaty of Fontainebleau (1807)
On October 27, 1807 joined France and Spain in secret the Treaty of Fontainebleau . In him they agreed the conquest and division of Portugal . In order for the French troops to reach Portugal by land, Spain allowed the French to march through Spanish territory.
background
Portugal's most important trading partner was Great Britain. Because of this, Portugal could not and did not want to join Napoleon's continental blockade, which was supposed to keep British goods away from French-controlled continental Europe. Portugal was a gateway for British goods and smuggling . Napoleon wanted to plug this hole in the continental barrier with the conquest of Portugal. On July 28, 1807, Napoleon issued an ultimatum to Prince Regent John of Portugal to ban all British ships from the ports of Portugal and declare war on the United Kingdom . The Prince Regent refused because Portugal was dependent on grain imports on British ships and feared famine in the event of a continental blockade , and because there were fears on the Portuguese side that the Portuguese colonial empire would be lost in a war with the ocean-ruling Great Britain. As a result, the Treaty of Fontainebleau was concluded between Napoleonic France and Spain.
The aspired partition of Portugal
According to the contract, Portugal should be divided into three parts.
- The province of Entre-Douro-e-Minho with the capital Porto was to become the Kingdom of Northern Luzitania ( Reino Lusitânia Setentrional ) and fall to the King of Etruria .
- The Alentejo and the Algarve were to become the Principality of Algarve ( Principado dos Algarves ) and go to the Spanish statesman Godoy . This was the Treaty of Fontainebleau with Napoleon threaded.
- The rest of Portugal should be decided upon when peace was restored.
consequences
Portugal
The conquest of Portugal took place without great resistance. On November 30, 1807, the French General Junot and his troops marched into Lisbon . Portugal remained occupied by the French until the summer of 1808. On August 21, 1808, a British-Portuguese army under Wellington defeated the French army under Junot at the Battle of Vimeiro . Subsequently, in the Cintra Convention, the withdrawal of the French was agreed.
Spain
Napoleon used the rights of march granted in the Treaty of Fontainebleau to send many more troops to Spain than provided for in the treaty. With these he brought parts of Spain under his control, seized the Spanish ruling family, forced them to renounce the throne and installed his brother Joseph Bonaparte as King of Spain. This triggered the Spanish War of Independence , which would bind a large number of his troops on the Iberian Peninsula and ultimately make a significant contribution to his overthrow.
literature
- José Maria Queipo de Llano Ruiz de Saravia Toreno (conde de): Historia del levantamiento, guerra y revolución de España . tape 1 . Paris 1838, p. 427 ff . (Spanish, books.google.pt - contract text).
Web links
- Napoléon et le Portugal , Conference at the Institut Napoléon on April 6, 2002 (French)
Individual evidence
- ^ Napoléon et le Portugal. April 6, 2002, accessed on October 27, 2017 (French, conference at the Institut Napoléon of the Sorbonne).