Continental System Proclaimed
Unable to invade Britain after Trafalgar, Napoleon issued the Berlin Decree on 21 November 1806, declaring the British Isles in a state of blockade and forbidding all trade with them throughout French-controlled Europe. Britain retaliated with Orders in Council, requiring neutral ships trading with France to call at British ports first. France escalated with the Milan Decrees, declaring any ship complying with British orders liable to seizure. The Continental System was strategically correct in concept — Britain's industrial economy depended on export markets, and cutting it off from the Continent could in theory have produced economic collapse — but fatally flawed in execution. Smuggling was endemic and profitable across every European coastline; coffee, sugar, and colonial goods remained available at inflated prices through Heligoland and Hamburg. The system hurt British exports, but British merchants found alternative markets in South America and the East. It hurt France's Continental allies far more: Portugal's trade with Britain was so central to its economy that forcing compliance triggered the Peninsular War. Russia's withdrawal from the system in 1810 was the pretext for the 1812 invasion. The blockade that was meant to strangle Britain became a solvent of the Napoleonic alliance system.
- Year: 1806 CE
- Category: Political
