Continental System
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The Continental System was the foreign policy of Napoleon I of France in his struggle against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland during the Napoleonic Wars. It was inaugurated on November 21, 1806 and lasted until 1814.
History
The United Kingdom was an important force in encouraging and financing resistance to Napoleonic France. Napoleon lacked the resources to attempt an invasion of the United Kingdom or to defeat the Royal Navy at sea. His one attempt to do so ended with defeat at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Napoleon resorted instead to economic warfare. As a result of the Industrial Revolution, Great Britain was emerging as Europe's manufacturing centre, and Napoleon believed it would be vulnerable to embargo on trade with the European nations under his control, causing inflation, unemployment, and great debt.
The Continental System was such an embargo. In November 1806, having recently conquered or allied with every major power on the European continent, Napoleon issued the Berlin Decree forbidding his allies and conquests from trading with the British. In 1807 he tightened his grip and, in an effort to destroy the commerce of the United Kingdom, issued the Milan Decree.
Ultimately the embargo failed. Its effect on the United Kingdom and on British trade is uncertain, but thought to be much less harmful than on the continental European states - although food imports in Britain dropped, and the price of staple foods rose. The continental European states needed the British goods, and Napoleon had put in place internal tariffs, all favoring France and hurting the other nations. The embargo encouraged British merchants to aggressively seek out new markets and to engage in smuggling with continental Europe. Napoleon's exclusively land-based customs enforcers could not stop British smugglers, especially as these operated with the connivance of Napoleon's chosen rulers of Spain, Westphalia and other German states, who faced severe shortages of goods from the French colonies. The British, by Orders in Council (1807), prohibited her trade partners from trading with France. In response to this prohibition, compounded by the Chesapeake Incident, the United States Congress passed the Embargo Act of 1807. This embargo contributed to the general ill will between the two countries (Britain and the USA) and, together with the issue of the impressment of foreign seamen, eventually led to armed conflict between the United States and the United Kingdom in the War of 1812.
The embargo also had an effect on France itself. Shipbuilding, and its trades such as rope-making declined, as did many other industries that relied on overseas markets, e.g. the linen industries. With little exports and so a loss of profits, many industries were closed down.
Portugal openly refused to join the Continental System. After the Treaty of Tilsit of July 1807, Napoleon attempted to capture the Portuguese Fleet and the House of Braganza, to occupy the Portuguese ports and to expel the British from Portuguese soil, and failed. King John VI of Portugal took his fleet and fled to Brazil with a Royal Navy escort. The Portuguese population rose in revolt against the French invaders, the British Army under Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington intervened and the Peninsular War began in 1808. Napoleon also forced the Spanish royal family to resign their throne to Napoleon's brother, Joesph.
Sweden, Britain's ally in the Third Coalition refused to comply with French demands and was invaded by Russia in February 1808.
In fact, the Continental System caused more collateral damage to the nations of the "Grand Empire" than it did to the United Kingdom. Russia in particular chafed under the embargo and, in 1812, reopened trade with the United Kingdom.
See also
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