The Ionian Islands or “French departments of Greece” between June 1797 and March 1799
Revue « Historia » n°925, janvier 2024
By the Treaty of Campoformio (October 17, 1797), France acquired the formerly Venetian islands of the Lonian Sea, strategic bases which will help France to participate in the sharing, which is believed to be imminent, of the spoils of the Ottoman Empire: north to south, Corfu, Paxos, Lefkada, Ithaca, Kefalonia, Zante, plus Cythera to the south of the Peloponnese, and the numerous islets that separate them. Added to this are the Venetian establishments on the coast of Epirus: Párga, Arta, Préveza and Bouthrote.
It was Bonaparte himself who, by a letter to the Directory of 25 Brumaire Year VI (November 15, 1797), provided for the organization of these new French departments of Greece, three in number: Corcyra (with the capital of city of Corfu), Ithaca (with Argostóli as its capital) and Aegean Sea (with Zante, its capital, Cythera – the medieval Cerigo – and the quasi-desert archipelago of Strophades).
The French established a foothold in Kefalonia on June 28 and in Corfu on the 29th. The jurist Pierre–Jacques Bonhomme de Comeyras was responsible for administering the three departments from Corfu, as commissioner of the Directory. Provisional municipalities, with local notables known to be Francophiles, were set up as well as a departmental direction called the “Central”, not to mention, in parallel, a military administration, trying above all to control the French troops so that they did not does not behave like an army of occupation.
But, as part of the War of the Second Coalition, an offensive by the Russian fleet, acting on behalf of the Ottomans, took place from October 12, 1798 (battle of Nicopolis and capture of Préveza). Then followed, in order, the captures of Cythera, Zante, Ithaca, Kefalonia and Lefkada until November 27. Besieged Corfu resisted from November 18, 1798 to March 3, 1799.
In March 1800, the archipelago became the Republic of the Seven Islands, under the nominal authority of the Porte but under that, in reality, of Russian forces.