Anglo-korsisches Königreich
Vorlage:Infobox Former Country After the French revolution, Corsican leader Pasquale Paoli, who had been exiled under the monarchy, became something of an idol of liberty and democracy. In 1789 he was invited to Paris by the National Constituent Assembly and was celebrated as a hero in front of the assembly. He was afterwards sent back to Corsica having been given the rank of lieutenant-general.
Eventually however Paoli split from the French Revolution over the issue of the execution of the king and threw in his lot with the royalist party. Accused of treason by the French National Convention, he summoned a consulta (assembly) at Corte in 1793, with himself as president and formally seceded from France. He requested the protection of the the British government, then at war with revolutionary France, and suggested the Kingdom of Ireland as a model for an autonomous kingdom under the British monarch. In 1794 Britain sent a fleet under Admiral Samuel Hood. For a short time, Corsica was added to the dominions of King George III, chiefly by the exertions of Hood's fleet, and Paoli's cooperation.
Sir Gilbert Elliot represented the king's government as viceroy. Carlo Andrea Pozzo di Borgo was procureur-general-syndic (chief of the civil government) and later president of the council of state.
The relationship between Paoli's government and the British was never clearly defined, however, resulting in numerous questions of authority. Tensions arose from the conflict between Sir Gilbert's loyalty to the British monarchy and Paoli's republican leanings and desire to defend Corsican autonomy. There was also a pronounced division between Corte, the traditional capital and inland stronghold, and Bastia on the coast, where Sir Gilbert moved the capital in early 1795, and which was the center for French and Corsican royalists.[1] At last the crown invited Paoli to resign and return to exile in Britain with a pension, which, having no other options, he did in 1796. On October 19, 1796, the French reconquered Bastia, the British withdrew, and Corsica became a French département.[2]
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- ↑ Peter Adam Thrasher: Pasquale Paoli: An Enlightened Hero 1725-1807. Archon Books, Hamden, CT 1970, ISBN 0-208-01031-9, S. pp 291–326.
- ↑ 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 0838632254, S. p 171.