Britain’s European Island-Empire, 1793–1815

Abstract

This chapter explores the creation and maintenance of Britain’s European island empire during the wars against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France. It traces the initial establishment of island bases in the Mediterranean, North and Baltic Seas, outlining their importance to British trade and strategy. It explains how and why British war aims came to rely on these imperial possessions. Across the Mediterranean, the war came to be defined by the extension of island empires. British victory in 1814 owed much to these islands, lynchpins of its wider European strategy. In northern waters, the island of Heligoland acted as a rendezvous point for trade with the continent, and was a key site from which Napoleon’s ‘Continental System’ could be undermined. Britain’s European island empire proved itself to be a crucial part of Britain’s wider imperial network, and its significance would continue into the nineteenth century and the era of Pax Britannica.