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The Continental Blockade (French: Blocus continental), or Continental System, was a large-scale embargo by French emperor Napoleon I against the British Empire from 21 November 1806 until 11 April 1814, during the Napoleonic Wars.
The Milan Decree was issued on 17 December 1807 by Napoleon I of France to enforce the 1806 Berlin Decree, which had initiated the Continental System, the basis for his plan to defeat the British by waging economic warfare. The Milan Decree stated that no country in Europe was to trade with the United Kingdom. [1]
Portrait of Prince Metternich by Thomas Lawrence. Prince Metternich, Austrian chancellor and foreign minister, as well as an influential leader in the Concert of Europe. The Concert of Europe describes the geopolitical order in Europe from 1814 to 1914, during which the great powers tended to act in concert to avoid wars and revolutions and generally maintain the territorial and political ...
The First French Empire [4] [a] or French Empire (French: Empire français; Latin: Imperium Francicum), also known as Napoleonic France, was the empire ruled by Napoleon Bonaparte, who established French hegemony over much of continental Europe at the beginning of the 19th century.
Britain's first response to Napoleon's Continental System was to launch a major naval attack against Denmark. Although ostensibly neutral, Denmark was under heavy French and Russian pressure to pledge its fleet to Napoleon. London could not take the chance of ignoring the Danish threat.
At the Congress of Erfurt (September–October 1808) Napoleon and Alexander agreed that Russia should force Sweden to join the Continental System, which led to the Finnish War of 1808–1809 (meaning Sweden played no role in the next coalition against Napoleon) and to the division of Sweden into two parts separated by the Gulf of Bothnia.
However, it was Napoleon's invasion of Russia in the same year, again in part to enforce his continental system, that proved to be the turning point of the war. He was never able to recover militarily from that defeat. The economic warfare ended with Napoleon's final defeat in 1815.
July 7: Joseph crowned King of Spain after Portugal revolts against the Continental System/blockade Napoleon had put in place. Napoleon collected five armies to advance into Portugal and 'bullied' the Spanish royal family into resigning; Peninsular War; July 16–19: Battle of Bailén; 1809. April 19: Battle of Raszyn