Adriatic campaign of 1807–1814
The Royal Navy decided to prevent these troop convoys from reaching Illyria and sought to break French hegemony in the region, resulting in a six-year naval campaign.[2] On mainland Europe, the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte as the ruler of the new French Empire resulted in a new conflict, the War of the Third Coalition in 1805, which ended disastrously for the Austrian and Russian allied armies at the Battle of Austerlitz.French military concerns were also directed further north at this time, resulting in the War of the Fourth Coalition during 1806 and 1807 that saw Napoleon's armies overrun Prussia and force the Russians to sign the Treaty of Tilsit on 7 July 1807.[8] This effectively turned the Adriatic into a sheltered French sea from which they could be free to despatch raiders against British convoys, colonies and Royal Navy blockade squadrons, which had controlled the Mediterranean since the Battle of Trafalgar two years earlier.[9] To facilitate this, the French Navy placed significant orders at the Venetian naval yards, intending to build forces in the region with locally produced and crewed vessels.[14] This expedition, led at sea by Brigadier-General John Oswald from HMS Warrior succeeded in landing on the island of Cefalonia on 1 October and forcing the Neapolitan garrison to surrender within hours.[20] Within days the neighbouring islands of Zante and Ithaca had also surrendered and the detached frigate HMS Spartan under Jahleel Brenton effected a successful invasion of Cerigo shortly afterwards.[25] Troop withdrawals late in 1809 delayed any further invasions until March 1810, when Collingwood's temporary successor Thomas Byam Martin detached a squadron of the Mediterranean Fleet for an operation against Santa Maura.[32] In early October, having failed to draw Dubourdieu into battle the previous month, Hoste resupplied at Lissa and returned to the blockade of Ancona, now accompanied by HMS Cerberus.[34] To defend against a repeat of this raid and to guard against intervention by the French ship of the line Rivoli, which was completing at Venice, the British Mediterranean Fleet sent the third-rate HMS Montagu to Lissa.Early in the morning on 12 March, the French were spotted by British observers on Lissa and Hoste brought his squadron, including the recently returned Cerberus and Active, to meet Dubourdieu off the island's northern coast.[39] The victory at the Battle of Lissa confirmed British dominance in the region for the next three years, the French unable to replace the losses in ships and experienced officers inflicted at the action.[44] A day later, the action of 29 November 1811 foiled the most significant French attempt to bring more forces to the Adriatic in 1811 when a British squadron under Captain Murray Maxwell in Alceste chased and engaged two frigates and an armed store ship.[50] The freedom with which British cruisers could operate within the Adriatic attracted reinforcements from the Mediterranean Fleet, such as HMS Eagle which arrived off Ancona in September and blockaded the city, chasing and destroying whole coastal convoys unopposed.[53] This force had wide-ranging orders to seize or destroy all French islands, forts and outposts, disrupt coastal trade wherever possible and assist the allied armies of the Sixth Coalition.Under Fremantle's orders the islands or coastal towns of Lagosta, Curzola, Carlopago, Cherso, Dignano, Giuppana and others were systematically invaded, to be either held by British forces or have their shore facilities slighted to prevent their use by the French.Hoste in Bacchante returned to Apulia and attacked a string of ports, castles and anchorages, while Captain George Cadogan in HMS Havannah effectively halted the movement of supplies along the northern Italian coast in support of the approaching Austrian armies.[62] British historian James Henderson has linked the action of November 1811 to this strategic problem, suggesting that the loss of the convoy and its 200 cannon may have been a factor in Napoleon's decision to change the emphasis of his planned campaign of 1812 from the Balkans to Russia.[55] In the final months of the war, the ability of the Royal Navy to strike at any point on the coast without opposition undermined the entire defensive structure of the French forces in the region and eased the capture of several heavily defended port cities by the advancing Austrian armies.
Napoleonic WarsPierre Julien GilbertAdriatic SeaMediterraneanUnited KingdomAustriaMontenegroGreek irregularsFranceNaplesRagusaJohn OswaldThomas FremantleWilliam HosteMurray MaxwellPetar IBernard DubourdieuFrançois MontfordJean-Baptiste BarréJoseph MontrichardSanta Maura29 November 1811PiranoCattaroTimeline of the Adriatic campaignThird CoalitionAnglo-Spanish WarRusso-Persian WarFranco-Swedish WarFourth CoalitionRusso-Turkish WarFirst Serbian UprisingEnglish WarsGunboat WarDano-Swedish WarFinnish WarAnglo-Turkish WarPeninsular WarAnglo-Russian WarFifth CoalitionAustro-Polish WarAnglo-Swedish WarWar of 1812French invasion of RussiaSixth CoalitionSwedish-Norwegian WarSeventh CoalitionNeapolitan WarWaterloo campaignMinor campaigns of 1815Linois's expeditionCaribbean campaignTroude's expeditionRoquebert's expeditionAllemand's expeditionL'Hermite's expeditionCape TownLamellerie's expeditionSenyavin's expedition1st JavaRiver PlateSpice IslandsMauritius campaign2nd JavaBanda Orientaltheatre of warBritishRoyal NavyAustrian NavyFirst French EmpireKingdom of ItalyIllyrian ProvincesKingdom of NaplesNapoleon ITreaty of PressburgWar of the Third CoalitionFrench NavyVeniceTreaty of TilsitSeptinsular RepublicOttoman EmpireBattle of LissaLa Grande ArméeTriesteTreaty of Campo FormioFrench Revolutionary WarWar of the First CoalitiondemiseRepublic of VeniceFrench RepublicAustrian EmpireIonian IslandsFrench outpostsRussianOttoman Empiresfour-month siegeRussian NavyNapoleon BonaparteFrench EmpireBattle of AusterlitzDalmatiaStraits of OtrantoWar of the Fourth CoalitionPrussiaback into French handsRussian war with the OttomansBattle of Trafalgarfourth rateHMS GlattonPort St. GeorgeGanteaumefrigateHMS UnitePatrick Campbellwar with the Ottoman EmpireHMS AmphionHMS Belle PouleJames BrisbaneValonaDanaéToulonHMS TopazeCuthbert CollingwoodHMS WarriorCefaloniaIthaca