King Theodore's Corsica

[Carp]

Unanswered Questions

Emperor Pyotr III of Russia​

Taken together, the War of the Austrian Succession and the Four Years’ War put to rest most of the troublesome dynastic and political questions which had troubled continental Europe in the early 18th century. The matter of the Habsburg succession in Italy, the cause of intermittent wars for half a century, was settled with treaties in 1748 and 1752 recognizing a partition that was further solidified by marriages between the Habsburgs and the Spanish Bourbons. The question of whether Austria would persevere in its dominion of Germany was also decisively answered; the attempts of Bavaria and Prussia to steal the patrimony of Empress Maria Theresa had ended in failure. Even the ancient feud between France and Austria had been set aside, and though their mutual alliance was looking rather shaky by the 1760s neither side had any interest in a resumption of old hostilities.

British statesmen felt a great deal of unease as they surveyed this European landscape. They had won vast colonial conquests at the expense of France in the recent war, but the death of “Friedrich der Kühne” had also left them without a powerful continental ally. Dividing Bourbon resources between the colonies and the continent had thus far been the cornerstone of British wartime strategy, but without a capable European partner this would be impossible. Some still hoped to resurrect the “old system” of the Anglo-Habsburg alliance, imagining that warmer relations with Austria would be a silver lining upon the otherwise dark cloud of Prussia’s demise. While the tone of the London-Vienna relationship did improve after 1760, however, Maria Theresa had no reason to break with France. By the mid-1760s, events had convinced her the greatest threat to her empire was not France or even Brandenburg, but Russia.

In just a few decades, the Russian Empire had evolved from a diplomatic afterthought to a serious European power. Russian might had been demonstrated for all to see on the battlefields of Pomerania, and after the Russo-Polish treaty of 1761 the empire’s borders were closer to central Europe than ever before. Russia’s power and proximity were made even more unnerving by the fact that this new power was in the hands of Emperor Pyotr III, a belligerent and ambitious monarch who displayed an uncannily Friedrich-like contempt for political conventions.

As the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, Pyotr laid claim to lands in Schleswig which had been lost to the Gottorp house in 1721. Negotiations over the Gottorp claims had been ongoing since the 1740s, but the solution proposed by the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway - a territorial swap of the Gottorp lands in Holstein with the Danish-owned German counties of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst - was unsatisfactory to Pyotr.[1] In 1761 the existing Russo-Danish treaty expired, leaving Pyotr free to break the stalemate by force. Such a course of action was opposed by many of his advisors and senior officials, who were not only afraid that the war would be impolitic but warned that Russia’s navy was unready for the contest. The emperor, however, was undeterred.

King Frederik V of Denmark was alarmed to find himself utterly alone against this menace. Austria, England, and France had all guaranteed Denmark’s possession of Schleswig as recently as 1758, but it soon became clear that not one of them was willing to directly oppose Pyotr’s designs. Yet Pyotr, too, was isolated. His attempts to entice Sweden into war with the prospect of conquering Norway ran aground on the anti-Russian policy of the ruling “Hats” party and the ineptitude of Russian envoys; the best he could do was ensure Sweden’s neutrality. Brandenburg was somewhat more receptive, as Prince-Regent Heinrich eagerly sought an alliance with Russia to guard against Austria. Heinrich, however, understood that the electorate was in no state to launch an offensive war after its recent defeat, and could promise the emperor only free passage and some logistical support.

Several attempts were made by other powers to defuse the growing tension - including an offer of mediation made by King Theodore of Corsica - but once Russian troops entered Brandenburg in 1763, King Frederik decided he could afford to wait no longer. Marshal Claude Louis, Comte de Saint-Germain, an experienced French general in Danish service, was determined to take the offensive. The fleet sailed forth to Bornholm, while Saint-Germain extorted a forced loan from Lübeck and then occupied western Mecklenburg. Pyotr had not intended to launch the war this early, but these provocative actions were too good of a casus belli to resist. In August, Russia declared war on Denmark, and Emperor Pyotr personally led his army into Mecklenburg.

The Comte de Saint-Germain, field marshal and supreme commander of Danish forces during the Schleswig War

​

Saint-Germain was trying to make the best of a bad situation. Although he had worked hard to overhaul the Danish army, that army had not seen a battle since the Great Northern War, and Saint-Germain possessed only 28,000 soldiers against nearly 40,000 Russians. To maximize his chances, Saint-Germain took a position near Wismar where both his flanks were anchored on bodies of water, preventing the Russians from encircling him or bringing their full force to bear. With supreme confidence in his troops, Pyotr obligingly ordered a frontal assault. The Russians proved their worth, and in the end the Danish army was forced to retreat. The Russian victory at the Battle of Wismar, however, was dearly bought. Multiple assaults had been necessary to exhaust the Danish defenders, and in the end the Russians suffered nearly five thousand dead and wounded compared to three thousand Danish casualties.

A more decisive engagement came eight days later at the Battle of Rostock. The Danish fleet under Admiral Gaspard Frédéric de Fontenay intercepted a Russian naval convoy and dealt a shattering defeat to a Russian squadron.[2] This defeat effectively knocked Pyotr’s navy out of the war, as Russian warships no longer risked leaving port. This left the Danes free to enforce a tight blockade, which cut off all maritime supply to the imperial army. Pyotr described Rostock as more of an annoyance than a catastrophe, but as the Russians advanced it soon became clear that supplying their forces in Danish territory by long overland routes was beyond the capacity of the empire’s logistics. The emperor’s army slowed to a crawl so as to not outpace its supplies, which gave Saint-Germain strategic freedom. Moreover, without sea transport any attack against the Danish isles was impossible, and even taking fortresses on the mainland was made vastly more difficult because of the glacial pace of Russian siege trains and the inability of the Russians to prevent the Danes from supplying these fortresses by sea. Although the Russians were able to advance into Holstein and seize most of Schleswig, the Russian supply situation was so bad that Pyotr was forced to relinquish his conquests and retreat back to Lübeck with the coming of winter. Humiliatingly, Kiel - the capital of the Gottorp duchy - was seized by the Danes.

The emperor was considering his next move from his winter cantonment when word arrived that King Augustus III of Poland had died, kicking off the next contest for the Polish throne. Pyotr immediately left the army and made for Saint Petersburg to coordinate his response, but shortly after his arrival he was very nearly abducted in an attempted coup by the partisans of his wife, Empress Ekaterina. Such was the seriousness of this affair that Pyotr was briefly forced to flee the capital and orders were sent to recall the army from Lübeck, but long before these orders arrived the capital was secured and the conspirators were seized by loyalist forces under Field Marshal Burkhard Münnich.

Maria Theresa fully supported the candidacy of Augustus’s son Friedrich Christian, but Pyotr was less than enthusiastic. The election of a third consecutive Wettin smelled a great deal like a hereditary monarchy, which - if realized - might curtail Russia’s influence in Polish affairs. Fighting Friedrich’s election would have been a difficult task in any circumstance; he had the backing of Austria, as well as support from Polish magnates who had benefited from his father’s acquisition of Ducal Prussia. It was made much harder, however, by Pyotr’s decision to support his ally Prince Heinrich of Brandenburg as an alternative candidate.

Prince Heinrich did have some Polish support, but the problems posed by his candidacy were numerous. He was a Protestant, and although he professed a willingness to convert for the crown, his religion coupled with Pyotr’s open support for religious liberty and the rights of Polish “dissenters” alienated many staunch Catholics. Russian support for his candidacy came as a rude shock to the powerful Czartoryskis, who had cozied up to Pyotr expecting that he would support a “Piast” (that is, a native Polish prince) from their own clan. In Vienna, the empress considered the idea of a Hohenzollern Poland so deeply objectionable to her interests that she committed herself totally to the Wettin election even if it meant a confrontation with Russia.

Shaken by the recent coup and urged by his loyal councillors to abandon the Danish war, Pyotr consented to a British offer to host negotiations at Lüneburg. The Danes seemed to have the upper hand, but the Danish foreign minister Count Johann von Bernstorff knew that his position was not as strong as it seemed. Russia was far more capable of replacing its losses than Denmark, and Danish finances could not bear the strain of an extended war. Seeking to gain an advantage for his state while still giving Pyotr a face-saving exit, Bernstorff suggested concluding a treaty on the basis of earlier negotiations - to wit, the exchange of Holstein-Gottorp for Oldenburg and Delmenhorst. Pyotr, however, still considered the Oldenburg counties to be a poor trade for his ancestral duchy, and secretly hoped that come spring another battlefield victory would force the Danes to accept the status quo ante bellum.

The Russian army, however, was ill-prepared for offensive action. The supply situation had not improved, and the leadership had suffered from a post-coup purge of a number of senior officers deemed to be unreliable. Command had been given to General George Browne - a cousin of the more famous Austrian Field Marshal Maximilian Ulysses Browne - who was himself an opponent of the Schleswig War. Browne dutifully began the march, but Saint-Germain was also on the offensive. The French general had been obsessively training and reorganizing his army all winter, and had now been reinforced by soldiers from Hesse-Kassel obtained with subsidies from France. Browne, expecting the usual defensive and delaying tactics which Saint-Germain had employed in 1763, was surprised to find himself facing an aggressive Danish army with more or less equal numbers to his own.

In early May, Browne and Saint-Germain finally came to grips with one another at the Battle of Ascheberg. Tactically, the battle was a draw; both armies withdrew after heavy fighting, with the Danes taking somewhat more casualties than the Russians. Strategically, however, Ascheberg was the nail in the coffin of the Russian war effort. The Danes had proven that they would not be easily swept aside, and the Russians were facing critical shortages of ammunition, fodder, and other essentials, as well as widespread illness. Browne broke off the advance, concluding that no further progress was possible without substantial resupply and reinforcement. However good his reasons may have been, they did not appease the emperor, who remembered Browne's earlier "defeatism" and suspected the general of having deliberately sabotaged the war effort. Browne was recalled, stripped of his rank, and banished from Russia, but it was too late for a shakeup in command to change the course of the war.

Facing a military quagmire and mounting expenditures, uncertain of the loyalty of his own army, and further embarrassed by a Danish squadron which was raiding the Livonian coast with impunity, Pyotr finally yielded. Although he considered Bernstorff’s deal disadvantageous, the fact that it was a trade rather than a one-sided cession obscured the fact of Russian defeat. For a few further modifications to the proposal - most notably, a Danish guarantee of the Gottorp-Eutin possession of Lübeck and a pledge from Emperor Franz Stefan to elevate Oldenburg and Delmenhorst to ducal status - the Russian envoys signed the Treaty of Lüneburg in June of 1764.[3][A]

The Russian emperor fared no better in the Polish matter. Pyotr was simply not in a position to risk an open conflict with Austria over the Polish succession, while Maria Theresa was ready to go to the mat to avoid a Hohenzollern Poland. Prince Heinrich ultimately withdrew his candidacy to spare Pyotr the embarrassment of abandoning him, and the emperor gave his grudging support for Friedrich Christian’s election. All in all, it was a rough introduction to international politics for the young tsar. He had underestimated both his foreign and domestic opponents, and had been punished for it. Yet Pyotr still had his crown, and while chastened, he was far from vanquished.

Friedrich Christian, King of Poland and Prussia, Grand Duke of Lithuania, Elector of Saxony​

For Britain, like Russia, the events of 1763-64 represented a serious setback to their foreign policy. Although as mentioned some British statesmen still hoped the “Diplomatic Revolution” might be reversed, more practical minds had already come to the conclusion that Britain’s best hope for a continental ally was Russia. It was the desire to maintain Russia’s friendship - as well as their access to Russian timber and naval stores - that had caused Britain to remain neutral in the Schleswig War despite their dynastic connections to the Danes. This careful neutrality, however, had won them no friends. It had alienated King Frederik, who resented the “cowardice” of the British, and it had ruined their chances for an alliance with the Russian emperor.

Emperor Pyotr suspected from the outset of his reign that a formal alliance with Britain would be inadvisable, and the events of 1763-64 confirmed his suspicions. The British were entirely capable of turning the Schleswig War in his favor, but chose to remain on the sidelines. Pyotr sought British diplomatic and monetary assistance for Prince Heinrich’s election, but Britain declared that Poland was none of their concern. After Lüneburg, when Pyotr suggested that Britain could help him pay down his war debts, London loftily replied that it was not their policy to subsidize allies in peacetime. It seemed to Pyotr that the British were less interested in gaining an ally than in gaining a pawn: They expected him to exert himself mightily in their interest, even to the point of fighting a war against the Bourbons, but were unwilling to exert themselves in the slightest to further his interests. After 1764 Pyotr extracted what he could from Britain, signing a commercial treaty and procuring their help with rebuilding his navy, but when discussions turned to an actual alliance he remained slippery and noncommittal.

British anxiety over their isolation was heightened by the fact that, for them, the Four Years’ War had never really ended. The European war was over, but the native peoples whose land had been traded away at Paris did not consider themselves bound by a treaty they had no say in. Native tribes in the Ohio Valley who had enjoyed cordial relations with the French rose up against the British in 1761, resulting in a brutal frontier war that lasted for another four years. Britain’s attempts to shore up their defenses and revenues in the Americas only made their colonial subjects resentful, a development which the French observed with keen interest. On the other side of the world, the East India Company was mired in wars with local Indian rulers throughout the decade, some of them directly backed by French money, arms, and soldiers.

Despite this proxy fighting it was Carlos III of Spain, not Louis XV, who was most enthusiastic about the prospect of another war with Britain. As the Four Years’ War had unfolded, Carlos - then King of Naples - had been alarmed by British successes in the Americas and dismayed by the failure of his pacific half-brother, Ferdinand VI, to assist his French ally. In the wake of France’s defeat and his own accession to the Spanish throne, Carlos was convinced that Britain represented a mortal threat to his global empire, to say nothing of their continued occupation of rightful Spanish land (that is, Gibraltar and Minorca). The king, however, understood very well that fighting Britain alone was an impossible task. Without France, there could be no Spanish victory.

Louis was not quite as eager as his cousin. The disastrous Treaty of Paris had stirred a desire for revanche among many French statesmen, but Louis himself professed to be quite sick of war. French diplomatic policy in the 1760s seemed more effective: France had arguably saved Denmark twice over, first by diplomatic maneuvering in Stockholm that helped prevent a Russo-Swedish alliance, and second by extending subsidies and loans which allowed Frederik to pay his armies in the 1764 campaign. Between the Danish victory and the Wettin election, French diplomatic policy on the continent - which was essentially an anti-Russian policy - was looking very robust indeed.

Even if another war with Britain had been the king’s dearest aim, however, Louis’s ministers knew that the time was not yet ripe. The kingdom’s finances were strained, and it would take years of work before the French navy was prepared to confront Britain again. Initial estimates of the time it would take to build a competitive fleet proved far too rosy, and the ministry was continually pushing back its timeline for a possible war. Until then, the French government urged the Spanish to avoid any confrontation with Britain that might spark a war before the Bourbon allies were capable of winning it. Thus, despite considerable certainty on both sides that a new Anglo-Bourbon war was both inevitable and imminent, a tenuous peace lingered through the remainder of the decade.

Peace on Europe’s eastern front also proved worryingly fragile. Far from solving the “Polish Question,” the election of King Friedrich opened new conflicts. His election had been secured in part by the political defection of the Familia, which had become gravely disillusioned with Pyotr on account of his support for toleration and his backing of a Hohenzollern over a Czartoryski candidate. Finding that the Saxon elector was in favor of many of the centralizing reforms they wished to advance, the Familia had given him their support. A few preliminary measures had been passed in the Convocation Sejm of 1764, but the more radical projects - an overhaul of the state’s finances, the establishment of the Sejm as a permanent body, the expansion of the army, and the abolition of the liberum veto - were put off until the Sejm of 1766.

This project was opposed by the Russians and Prussians, who had no interest in seeing Poland regain its political cohesion or military power. To this end, Emperor Pyotr - already famous for establishing religious tolerance in Russia - dispatched agents among the Protestant and Orthodox communities spreading dire warnings that Czartoryski “reform” was nothing less than a plan for the introduction of Catholic despotism. Armed clashes broke out between the supporters of Friedrich and the Familia on one side, and confederations formed by Dissenters and Catholic republicans on the other. Pyotr threatened Russian intervention to defend noble liberties and religious equality. With the Saxon army and finances still in a shambles, Friedrich called upon Maria Theresa for support, while the Ottoman Sultan Mustafa III warned that a Russian incursion into Poland would be an unacceptable provocation.

It was only a lack of will that prevented the crisis of 1766-67 from escalating into a full-blown war. Maria Theresa had been ready to take up arms for the Wettin succession in 1764, but fighting a war to avoid a Hohenzollern Poland was very different from fighting a war for the sake of Polish political reforms. Despite his bluster, Pyotr did not feel confident in taking on both Austria and the Ottomans, particularly given that his sole ally Friedrich Wilhelm IV, Elector of Brandenburg, was signalling that his state was still unready for such a confrontation. King Friedrich supported reform in theory, but he was not so dedicated to the project that he was willing to risk anarchy and war, particularly given the lamentable state of Saxony and the obvious reluctance of the Austrian empress to fight on his behalf. In the end the Russian-backed push for religious equality was defeated, but Friedrich retreated from far-reaching political reforms and the Familia was forced to greatly scale back its ambitions. Such concessions defused the immediate crisis, but - as with the Anglo-Bourbon conflict - it seemed to many that a war for Poland’s future had only been deferred, not avoided.[B]

Map of Europe in 1765 (Click to Expand)​

Footnotes
[1] These talks were broken off during the Four Years’ War, when the Danes had rather unwisely attempted to intimidate the Russians by suggesting that if the swap was not made, they might throw in their lot with Prussia. The Russians saw this for the empty bluff that it was.
[2] Despite his name Admiral de Fontenay was a native-born Dane, the son of a French Huguenot nobleman who had immigrated to Denmark after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
[3] Gottorp-Eutin was a cadet branch of the Gottorp line. The Princes of Eutin served as the secular rulers of the Prince-Bishopric of Lübeck, which was adjacent to (but not the same as) the Free City of Lübeck. Prince Friedrich August of Gottorp-Eutin served as an advisor to Emperor Pyotr, and from 1764 he was also the regent of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst in Pyotr’s absence.

Timeline Notes
[A] I was surprised to learn that the Treaty of Tsarskoye Selo, in which Catherine II exchanged Holstein-Gottorp for Oldenburg and Delmenhorst, was not the invention of Danish or Russian diplomats in the 1760s but originated from a Danish proposal which had already been on the table as far back as 1745, when Peter (then merely Duke of Holstein-Gottorp) reached majority. We know that Peter at least entertained the idea; the suggestion that Oldenburg and Delmenhorst ought to be elevated to duchies, which became part of the Tsarskoye Selo agreement, appears to have originated with Peter’s concern that trading a duchy for two counties would be accepting a diminution in his status. Ultimately Peter deemed the swap unsatisfactory and felt justified in breaking off talks entirely after the Danes threatened to join Prussia during the Seven Years’ War. It seemed to me that Peter might agree to the swap ITTL when faced with a worse alternative - to wit, losing territory to Denmark without compensation - and thus the Russian defeat in the Schleswig War leads to what is essentially an earlier Tsarskoye Selo, albeit in the context of enmity rather than an alliance. Whether Peter will honor the cession of his ancestral duchy remains to be seen.
[B] I hesitated for a long time on this update because posting it fills me with dread; 18th century Polish and Russian politics is very far outside my usual wheelhouse. I can only hope I didn't make too many glaring mistakes. As far as the general course of eastern politics, although a general "Polish War" is potentially foreshadowed in this update, it seemed unlikely to me that it would happen just yet. The Schleswig War has taught Peter a lesson about the perils of overconfidence, and nobody else is really excited to go to war for the sake of Polish reform. IOTL tensions over Poland's internal politics led to the partition and eventual dissolution of the state, but in my opinion the events of the TL thus far have made that series of events very unlikely. Austria is not particularly hungry for new territory, an intact Saxon Poland serves them well as a buffer against Russia, and Vienna's policy is anchored on the principle of preventing any Hohenzollern expansion to keep Brandenburg from recovering its status as a peer competitor. Austria's strength and Brandenburg's weakness relative to OTL suggest that even a Russo-Brandenburg alliance will not be able to force Austria into accepting a partition of Poland - at least, not without a fight.

 

[Carp]

The Eye of the Storm

The warship Grønland undergoes careening prior to being sent out on mission to the Mediterranean​

In the wake of the Treaty of Paris, Great Britain seemed naturally poised to usurp France’s position as the preeminent foreign power in Corsica. The British Navy had established clear superiority in the Mediterranean and had driven French forces from the island, demonstrating its utility to the Corsicans as a shield against future French aggression. Yet despite their military leverage - and, as we will see, informal influence - the British did not dominate the postwar kingdom in the way that the French had during the decennio francese.

Although it was not always cordial, France’s relationship with Corsica in the 1750s had been substantive. French advisors were present at court, French engineers and surveyors mapped the country and designed roads, and the French government had very consciously attempted to intensify commercial ties with Corsica and bring the island into France’s economic orbit. The British government, in contrast, had very little interest in “developing” Corsica or linking its economy with their own. Their objectives were narrowly strategic - to keep Bourbon troops off the island and to keep Corsican ports open to British warships and privateers in case of war. This strategic focus was exemplified by the fact that, throughout the 1760s, the position of British envoy to Corsica was held not by a resident diplomat, but by the commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean fleet, an admiral with his headquarters at Gibraltar.[1]

Britain’s only real hold on Corsica’s economy was their possession of Tabarka, which was the center of an important coral fishery. Originally the British had envisioned Corsican coral fishermen as mere placeholders until the British could learn to operate the concession themselves, but this plan was never seriously pursued. The Barbary Company balked at the time and resources which would be required to import, settle, and train an English workforce. Easier and more immediate profits could be had by the export of Tunisian goods - grain, leather, hides, wax, and oil - while the Corsicans were left to work the concession in exchange for fees paid to the Company. Yet while British traders and Corsican fishermen lived and worked alongside each other on Tabarka, it was not really a source of diplomatic or cultural contact; the Company was quite content to leave the “Tabarchini” to their own devices.

Rather remarkably, the men most responsible for the maintenance of good relations between the British and Corsican governments were neither British consuls, nor Company factors, nor the absent admiral-minister, but Jacobite exiles. Theodore had deep roots in the international Jacobite community and had maintained ties with them throughout his reign. In the 1760s the Trabants recruited many Scottish and Irish exiles (or sons of those exiles), who were an important vector for the transmission of foreign fashions and ideas to the Corsican nobility. Admittedly Corsican service offered no opportunity for military glory, but it was an attractive vocation for a variety of ex-Jacobites of no great station or renown, particularly Catholics.

By the 1760s political Jacobitism was no longer seen as a serious threat by the British government, and for most of “Theodore’s Jacobites” cultural ties were stronger than old political allegiances. British consuls reported that Theodore’s “Scots” guardsmen were exceedingly useful for gaining audiences with the king and introductions to Corsican ministers. Sir David Murray, the Scottish bodyguard and close confidant of Prince Federico, was the perfect example of this “post-45” reconciliation: Despite having been convicted of treason, stripped of his titles, and sentenced to death for his participation in the 1745 uprising (which was subsequently commuted to exile), he was friendly with various Anglophile politicians, declared his lifelong distrust of the French for their “betrayal” of Prince Charlie, and reportedly toasted the British victory at Concador.[2]

Britain’s hands-off approach left room for other powers, including one relative newcomer to Mediterranean politics. From around 1750 the presence of Danish merchant ships in the Mediterranean began to steadily increase, with a particular surge during the Four Years’ War when Denmark enjoyed the status of a neutral carrier. In the 1760s, the possibility of Corsica as a source for cheap agricultural goods and a naval base for anti-piracy operations began to come to the attention of Danish statesmen. Helpfully, relations between the monarchs of Denmark and Corsica were already established; King Frederik V had sent a wedding gift to Theodore upon hearing of his marriage to Frederik’s distant cousin Eleanora of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Wiesenburg, and the two kings (who shared several “enlightened” interests) had been in occasional correspondence ever since.

The first arrival of the Danes in Corsica occurred in 1761 when the warship Grønland sailed into the Bay of Ajaccio. This 50-gun ship of the line was on a special mission - the conveyance of the Danish Arabia Expedition, an ambitious scientific mission to Arabia, Persia, and India supported by Frederik’s government. Although most of the expedition’s members would die in the East, the survivors would eventually return to Denmark in 1767 with samples of “oriental” plants and seeds, Hebrew and Arabic manuscripts, new maps of the Levant and the Red Sea, and even copies of ancient inscriptions which would lead to the first translations of Old Persian cuneiform. For the expedition members Corsica was merely a short layover on their way to Alexandria, but Theodore hastened to Ajaccio to meet them. The diaries of the expedition members record the king hosting them for dinner at the Palazzo Agostiniano, offering his opinions on philology, and regaling them with the tale of his capture and ransom by Algerian pirates.

An engraving of headgear seen in Cairo by Georg Wilhelm Baurenfeind, a member of the Danish Arabia Expedition​

The establishment of formal relations was delayed by the outbreak of the Schleswig War, but in 1765 the Danes appointed a consul in Corsica. The port favored most by Danish ships at this time was Calvi, where wine, lemons, raisins, almonds, and other produce of the Balagna could be obtained at reasonable prices only a short distance from Marseilles (a common stop). Ajaccio was also occasionally visited, primarily to purchase coral beads for export to the Gold Coast.[3] The heyday of Dano-Corsican cooperation would come later, when the kingdoms became wartime allies and the production of Corsican tobacco and brandy made the island a more attractive trade partner, but the groundwork was laid in these early years.

Franco-Corsican relations, in contrast, remained chilly. King Louis XV never trusted or respected Theodore, the man who had allied himself with Britain and humiliated French armies. On a more fundamental level, Louis had never reconciled himself to the idea of this upjumped adventurer being recognized as a fellow monarch. Even as his servant Chauvelin was negotiating Corsican independence in 1749, Louis grumbled that the notion of a free Corsica would be far more agreeable if “le baron couronné” was not leading it. The events of the Four Years’ War convinced Louis that he had been right all along. Convinced that Concador was the fruit of Theodore’s treachery, Louis ended all diplomatic relations with Corsica beyond the consular level and dissolved the Régiment Royal-Corse, whose soldiers were folded into the Régiment Royal-Italien. Previous trade privileges were withdrawn, although Franco-Corsican trade during the 1760s was not significant aside from the export of low-grade Corsican oil to the soap factories of Marseilles.

The irony of the gigliati’s Francophilia was thus that theirs was an unrequited love. Any attempt to reconcile the two countries, whether initiated by the Corsican nobility or the French ministry, inevitably met the insurmountable obstacle of Louis’s personal loathing of Theodore. Because this was not readily apparent, however - Louis was both too courteous and too proud to openly declare his enmity for a man he considered far below his dignity - hopes for a reconciliation persisted. Over the course of the 1760s, however, those advocating a more pro-Bourbon, anti-English foreign policy began to shift their gaze from Paris to Madrid. Unlike his French cousin, King Carlos III was very happy to cultivate relations with Corsican elites.

Spain and Corsica did not have official relations during the 1750s, a consequence of the disinterest of King Fernando VI and the historical friendship between Spain and Genoa. In 1760, however, Fernando was succeeded by his half-brother Carlos III, who had a significant personal history with the Corsicans. Prior to Theodore’s arrival, the infante Carlos (at that time Duke of Parma and considered to be the likely heir to Tuscany) was the only man the naziunali had seriously considered as a potential king, and a delegation had traveled to Madrid to make this proposition to his father Felipe V. It was not to be; Felipe thought it impolitic to support rebels against the Republic, and at that moment Carlos was busy preparing an invasion of the much grander Kingdom of Naples.

Having gained this throne, Carlos adopted a friendly policy towards the Corsican rebels. Naples and Porto Longone (a Spanish possession in Elba) were key hubs for Corsican smuggling during the Revolution, and Neapolitan officials turned a blind eye to expatriate activities. Carlos employed Corsican exiles in his army, giving many of them valuable military training, and his government had even offered a bounty for deserters suborned from the Genoese forces in Corsica.[4] It was no wonder that many statesmen saw the hidden hand of Naples (and by extension, Spain) behind the rebels’ exploits and suspected that the whole Theodoran project was part of a Bourbon plot to win more territory for Carlos (or obtain a kingdom for his brother Felipe, subsequently Duke of Parma).

Now ruling Spain and its vast empire, Carlos was no longer interested in acquiring Corsica for himself - if indeed he ever had been - but he was very interested in checking the ascendancy of Britain both in the Americas and in his own Mediterranean backyard. Carlos was convinced that another Anglo-Bourbon war was inevitable and that the Mediterranean would be a crucial theater in that war. He yearned to regain the rightful Spanish territories of Minorca and Gibraltar, but it would be unfortunate if the British were to lose these posts only to replace them with a Corsican protectorate. The British occupation of Ajaccio had been a wakeup call; next time they might not leave, particularly if the Corsicans invited them to stay.

French land surveys during the 1750s also suggested that a Spanish-aligned Corsica could be of direct value to the Bourbon naval war effort beyond merely denying naval bases to the British. Corsica’s conifer forests were a largely untapped resource, particularly its stands of tall Corsican Pine (well-suited for masts and spars) and Maritime Pine (a good source of pitch and resin). Corsican forestry was of little concern to Britain, which had ample supplies of timber and naval stores from the Baltic, but the Bourbons had more use for it. The French had made some attempts to build roads accessing these mountainside forests, but difficult terrain, disputes over land rights, and a troublesome labor force had limited their progress.

Formal diplomatic relations between Spain and Corsica were opened in 1761 with the appointment of a Spanish resident minister. Theodore reciprocated by appointing Count Cosimo da Gentile as his ambassador to Madrid. The Spanish considered this selection very suitable indeed, as Cosimo was both a nobleman of venerable lineage and a veteran of Carlos’s Neapolitan army.[5] Although his embassy was shockingly poorly-funded compared to most foreign delegations to the King of Spain, Don Cosimo got along reasonably well at the Spanish court and fully supported Carlos’s agenda to strengthen Hispano-Corsican ties. Back in Corsica, the Spanish diplomatic effort was considerably aided by the Hispanophile secretary of commerce and the navy, Don Santo Antonmattei, who had spent his career in Spanish service and had been ennobled by Fernando VI.

Bernardo de Iriarte, envoy of Spain from 1765, left numerous letters which offer a foreigner’s perspective on Corsican politics of the time. He arrived at a delicate period - the middle years of the decade saw the break with Rome, the enactment of the Grida Paolina, the death of the queen, Theodore’s “retirement” to Ajaccio, and a hardening of the lines between gigliati and asfodelati at court. Prior to his appointment Spanish diplomacy had focused on the gigliati, who were already inclined to favor the Bourbons and seemed likely to gain prominence upon the succession of the Prince of Capraia. Nevertheless, Iriarte worried that being too “partisan” could backfire. After all, it was impossible to know how long Theodore might live, or whether another Anglo-Bourbon war might break out while he was still alive and the Frediani-Paoli ministry was still in power. Bernardo also confessed his frustration with the fractiousness of the so-called gigliati, who although often described as one faction were riven by clan rivalries and mutual jealousy.

Bernardo de Iriarte, former Spanish envoy to Corsica, depicted in the 1790s​

Thus, while continuing to encourage a Hispanophile party among the nobility, Iriarte also engaged the asfodelati in his attempt to ensure Corsica’s studious neutrality in any future war. The case he made was that the British had selfish strategic interests which were incompatible with an independent Corsica, and they would forcibly occupy Ajaccio (or some other vital port) again if it suited those interests. Although the asfodelati tended towards Anglophilia, they were also nationalists, and these arguments carried some weight with those who worried that too close of an attachment to Britain would jeopardize Corsican liberty.

Helpfully, Iriarte’s push for Corsican neutrality was more or less in line with Theodore’s own foreign policy ideals. Theodore had certainly allied himself with foreign powers during his quest for Corsican independence, but his allegiances were rather fluid: At various points in his revolutionary career, he claimed to be (and sometimes acted as) an earnest friend and loyal servant of Britain, France, Sardinia, Spain, Austria, the Jacobites, and even the Pope. His vision for post-revolutionary Corsica, however, had always been one of perfect openness, welcoming merchants and immigrants alike without discirimination or favoritism. Free trade and amicable relations, in his view, would secure the state and ensure its prosperity better than a dependent alliance with a great power ever could.

This rather optimistic policy had come under criticism during the second French intervention, and the army reform movement in 1766 - which Theodore had agreed to somewhat reluctantly - had been an indication of dissatisfaction with the king’s pacific vision. Corsica remained aloof from formal commitments to the European powers, but dissenting views had now come into the open. It was in this time of uncertainty, as domestic political factions bickered and international tensions continued to escalate, that grave news shook the kingdom.

On April 13th of the year 1770, King Theodore collapsed at his writing desk. He was found by a servant and brought to bed, where his personal doctor Emanuele Calvo attended to him. Although the king regained consciousness, he complained of weakness, numbness and a pain in his chest. Calvo gave him laudanum for the pain, but over the next few days the king grew weaker and his breathing more labored, and he drifted in and out of consciousness. On the 16th, Theodore von Neuhoff, King of Corsica, died in his bed at the Augustinian Palace in Ajaccio. It was exactly one day after the 34th anniversary of his election as king. He was 76 years old.[6]


Footnotes
[1] From 1761, the Mediterranean C-in-C was also simultaneously Britain’s minister to Genoa. Up to that point Britain had maintained no official diplomatic representation in Genoa (other than consuls) since 1722, when they had withdrawn their envoy in protest of the favor which the Republic showed to the “Old Pretender” James Francis Stuart.
[2] David Murray, the 4th Baronet Stanhope, was the nephew of Sir John Murray of Broughton, who had served as Prince Charles Stuart’s secretary of state during the ‘45. During the uprising, David served as a captain of “Scotch Hussars” and became one of Prince Charlie’s aides-de-camp. He was only around eighteen years old at the time, which may explain why he was granted clemency and merely exiled rather than executed. David had initially followed the prince to Paris and Rome, but grew disillusioned with Charlie and the Stuart “court” and offered his services to Theodore in 1752. He became good friends with Don Federico and accompanied him as a bodyguard during his 1753-54 sojourn to the continent. After Don Federico became crown prince, Murray parlayed this relationship into social prominence and married into the noble Caraffa family of Bastia. His descendants, bearing the Italianized surname of Marri, are still extant today.
[3] One of the ironies of Theodore’s reign was that despite his radical and vocal denunciation of slavery in all its forms, the industry that Theodore arguably worked the hardest to cultivate - Corsican coral fishing - was inextricably connected to the slave trade. Coral beads were just as valued in West Africa as they were in India, and a significant portion of the coral which was hauled ashore and polished in Ajaccio ended up in the hands of slavers who bartered Corsican beads for African lives. It seems impossible that Theodore was unaware of this, but if he harbored any regrets over his country’s participation (however indirect) in this “abominable trade” he made no mention of them.
[4] The Neapolitan army paid a bounty of two sequins for every Genoese deserter who enlisted, or three sequins if the deserter arrived with his musket. In their reports, Neapolitan agents boasted of recruiting by the dozens and bleeding Genoese garrisons dry. The Spanish and French were just as brazen: It was common knowledge that the French vice-consul’s house in Calvi served primarily as a deserter recruitment office, while the Spanish warship San Isodoro moored in the port of Ajaccio happily enlisted any Genoese soldier who came aboard (that is, until it blew up). It has been argued that for much of the revolutionary period, Corsica's primary “export” was in fact Genoese deserters. This brisk trade in soldiers did incalculable damage to Genoese attempts to regain control of their colony.
[5] The da Gentile clan was a Capo Corso family of Medieval vintage which held a number of fiefs on the peninsula. Traditionally the family was closely tied to the Genoese, but in 1732 both Cosimo and his father Virgilio were arrested by the Genoese commissioner for suspected disloyalty and imprisoned on the mainland. They managed to escape from captivity two years later, fleeing first to Tuscany and then to Naples, where they offered their services to the newly-crowned King Carlos. Carlos recognized the family’s nobility and eventually created Virgilio a count. In 1743, Cosimo - then a lieutenant in the Neapolitan army - resigned his commission in order to return to Corsica and join Theodore and the naziunali. On the basis of his foreign military experience he was commissioned as a captain in the Second Royalist Army and served in the expeditionary force sent to the continent. Theodore made him a count and awarded him with the Order of the Redemption. After being made an ambassador Cosimo was given a pension by the Spanish crown, which was badly needed given the shoestring budget he received from his own government.
[6] Theodore’s last words were recorded as “Ne t'inquiète pas. Je suis bien préparé” (“Don’t worry. I am well-prepared”).

 

[Carp]

Re Liberatore

Bust of King Theodore I in Cervioni​

Chosen by Cyrne, God the choice approved,
Trusting the mighty conflict to his sword,
Which Europe rose to watch, and watching stands.
By that sword's flash, even fate itself is moved;
Thankless Liguria has its stroke deplored,
While Cyrne takes her sceptre from his hands.

- English poetic translation of a Corsican paean to Theodore, c. 1749

Legally, the succession to the Corsican throne was not in doubt. The 1736 Constitution had given Theodore the power to name his successor in the absence of an heir of his body, and he had done that unequivocally in the Royal Testament of 1761. As a practical matter, however, Corsica had never before experienced a royal succession. The Prince of Capraia - now King Federico I - was keenly aware of the delicacy and importance of this transition. Theodore was not just a king; he was a founder, a liberator, and a revered hero to the Corsican people. Properly honoring the first King of Corsica was a crucial step towards ensuring the people’s acceptance of Federico as his late cousin’s rightful successor.[1]

Theodore had never expressed much of an interest in planning for his own death, but he had at least selected the site of his ultimate repose. His body was to be interred in the crypt of the Cathedral of Saint Erasmus in Cervioni, the king’s first capital, where his wife Eleanora was already interred. Sant'Erasmo was Corsica’s newest and most striking cathedral, designed in a modern baroque style and completed only in the 1750s.[2] As taking the body overland across the Corsican mountains was neither dignified nor very practical, it would be borne instead by the warship Capraia, which at that time was fortuitously stationed in Ajaccio.

Federico was quite prepared to move Theodore's body immediately, but met with the strident opposition of the long-serving luogotenente of Ajaccio province, Marquis Luca d’Ornano. Evidently the marquis was unhappy with the unceremonious exit of the king from Ajaccio, arguing that it was both against Corsican custom and a slight against the people of the Dila who, if they could not host the king’s funeral, at least ought to be able to have his wake. This was also, of course, a golden opportunity for d'Ornano to demonstrate his position and influence and associate himself one last time with the Theodoran legend. Not wanting to alienate one of the most powerful nobles in the Dila as the first act of his reign, Federico relented and permitted Don Luca to supervise a more formal departure.

On the morning after the king’s death, the king’s body was laid in state in the front hall of the Augustinian Palace upon a tola, or funeral table, draped with black cloth and covered in flowers.[3] As soon as the scene was set, the hall was opened to the public. They came in droves, all dressed in black, to see the body of the king. The English consul described the behavior of the Corsican women with incredulity, draped in black veils and crying out with “wild lamentations” while scratching their faces and tearing at their hair. Federico too was rather disturbed by the “theatrics,” particularly at the manner in which the wailing women would loudly implore Theodore’s body to awake from slumber and stand up. On the following day a general feast was provided for the mourners, paid for by d’Ornano himself. Only then did Don Luca allow the king’s body to be taken to the ship, escorted in procession by the black-coated Noble Guard.

The Capraia, which had been decorated for the occasion with black cloth, stopped briefly at Calvi and Bastia before proceeding down the eastern coast to Campoloro. There were no “viewings” at these cities as there had been at Ajaccio, but residents crowded to the harbor to view (and, in the case of some of the women, wail at) the black-shrouded ship. Escorted by the two state galiots, the frigate reached Cervioni on the 23rd. The body, now in a wooden coffin, was laid atop of a catafalque in the nave of the Cathedral of Sant’Erasmo. This wooden platform was eight feet tall but without ostentation, entirely covered by black cloth and surrounded by tall candles in silver candlesticks which had been borrowed from the churches of Bastia and local parishes all over the Castagniccia.

As by now word of the king’s death had traveled across the island, the attendance was much greater at Cervioni than at Ajaccio. The Sardinian envoy compared it to a mass pilgrimage, and reported that there was not a nobleman in the kingdom who failed to show himself at Cervioni, together with their wives in voluminous black veils. Although there was certainly weeping, the crowd here was generally more sedate than at the viewing in Ajaccio. Providing for all these visitors proved to be a huge logistical challenge for the government, as the bakers, shopkeepers, and inkeeps of Cervioni - a town of fewer than a thousand people - could hardly accommodate such a host on their own. Even the navy’s warships were pressed into service to bring bread, cheese, fish, oil, and wine from Bastia.

King Federico declared a year of national mourning,[4] but he had no intention of waiting that long to formalize his succession. It was determined that the coronation would be held on the 6th of May, the fourth Sunday of Eastertide (as it happened, Theodore had died the day after Easter Sunday), and would closely follow the example of Theodore’s own coronation. The day began with High Mass, which lasted several hours. This was followed by the coronation feast, with vast amounts of food and wine and innumerable toasts to kings both old and new. There was music, poetry, public speaking, and plenty of celebratory gunfire.

Federico, seated upon Theodore’s throne-armchair of chestnut and velvet atop a stage in front of the Convent of Alesani decorated with flower garlands, was now presented with the Constitution. Its articles were read aloud to the crowd, and the new king swore to uphold them. He then received the pledges of loyalty from the nobility, the lead clergy, the members of the dieta, and the whole assembled crowd. The king then went into the convent chapel for the actual coronation, with the Bishop of Aleria presiding. Like Theodore, he was crowned with a laurel wreath, although Federico added his own element to the ceremony by then crowning his wife with a wreath of her own. They emerged from the chapel to the cheering of the crowd and a peal of musketry and cannon.

Federico had tried very hard to emulate the coronation of 1736, an event which he had not personally witnessed. The differences were largely ones of degree. The attendance was probably much greater; the high estimates exceeded 10,000 participants, a massive number given the island’s population. This time, there were troops of uniformed soldiers and a battery of cannon. The king’s stage was larger and grander, although it was still merely a framework of timber covered by cloth and flowers. Unlike the purely Corsican affair of 1736, in 1770 there were foreign dignitaries present - most notably Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, a younger brother of King George III of Britain.[5] In general, the preparations were more thorough and the resources expended were greater, though by the standards of continental coronations it was still a very inexpensive and remarkably informal affair.

The Convent of Alesani, coronation site of Corsican kings
​

Though he had only been in the grave a few weeks, the late Theodore was already passing from mortal into myth. The dignitaries toasted “il re liberatore,” the Liberator-King, a title which on Corsica was quickly becoming interchangeable with his name. A few months later, the consulta generale voted to award Theodore with the posthumous title of Pater Patriae, “father of the nation,” which the Roman Senate had once granted to victorious emperors.

The apotheosis of Theodore was guaranteed by Corsica’s own national insecurity. Despite the preceding decade of relative peace, many wondered whether Corsica, as an independent state, would survive its founder. In European eyes, Theodore was Corsica; he was certainly better known and considerably more interesting than his island, a weak and backwards country born from a peasant rebellion whose population could fit within a suburb of London. Many Corsicans believed, not without reason, that the king’s personal gifts had been essential to the realization of their liberty. Would his less distinguished relations and the new generation of Corsican leaders be able to keep what he had won, or would the powers of Europe now awaken from their Theodoran reverie and enchain Corsica once more?

It was thus in the interests of nearly all Corsicans to hold on to and magnify the Theodoran myth. For his Neuhoff successors, Theodore’s popular election and heroic deeds justified their own rule and obscured the fact that they themselves never deigned to submit to an electorate. The nobility, who owed their titles to Theodore’s grace, had every reason to praise the king and boast of their own historical association with the Pater Patriae, even if the support they had offered him in life had been less than exemplary. Corsican intellectuals and statesmen polished his reputation to a sterling shine to erase the stain of Theodore’s rather sordid past and make the case for Corsica’s rightful place among the European family of crowns and nations. To the peasantry, Theodore was both the kindly father and the avenger of oppression, whose name might be invoked as a rallying cry against rapacious landlords just as easily as it had been deployed against callous Genoese officials.

For obvious reasons, European Jews were the first and most loyal foreign admirers of the “German Cyrus.” The occasion of his death is sometimes used to mark the beginning of the nascent Haskalah, or “Jewish Enlightenment,” as several Jewish intellectuals and writers used the opportunity of eulogizing Theodore to explore the notion of a more secular and worldly Jewish culture, anchored in reason rather than superstition, which could leave its segregated existence and engage with Christian societies. The apparent success of the Jews of Ajaccio was a powerful argument in favor of those reformists who argued that the adoption of local dress and language, coupled with an earnest loyalty to the state, would lead to prosperity without compromising Jewish identity - as well as an argument that could be made to kings and ministers considering whether to ease age-old restrictions on Jewish communities. Wherever the cause of Jewish emancipation advanced, there were those who credited the wise and righteous King Theodore with leading the way.

Theodore’s reputation as a political symbol was slower to develop. There were a few early enthusiasts like Filippo Mazzei who saw Theodoran monarchy as a praiseworthy political development, but at the time “Enlightened Despotism” was still the darling of continental philosophes. Corsica’s peculiar system of popular elections and raucous consulte seemed more like a quaint leftover of rude antiquity rather than a harbinger of things to come. The hour of constitutional liberalism would come, however, and its exponents - particularly in Italy - would rediscover Theodore and deploy his legend to their own rhetorical ends. He was reinvented in the 19th century as a king with the soul of a republican, whose state demonstrated the potential for the harmonious coexistence of monarchy, constitutionalism, and popular representation. Italian nationalists, in contrast, would be less interested in the German Theodore than in his Corsican-born grand-nephew Theodore II, the very image of a "people's monarch" in his own time.

Time, distance, and archival sources have permitted modern historians to piece together a more nuanced view of Theodore the man, rather than the symbol. Certainly he was a person of unusual resourcefulness and persistence who was seemingly always able to recover from a setback. His personal charisma must have been tremendous; there is no other way to explain his extraordinary ability to charm almost everyone he met, from Amsterdam aldermen and English aristocrats to the unlettered farmer-militiamen of Corsica. That Corsica not only won its freedom but did not immediately devolve into civil war upon gaining it is, in no small part, a testament to his ability to win Corsica’s biggest and most contumacious personalities to his side. Nevertheless, it must be conceded that Theodore's victory was not his alone; without support from the British, Dutch, Sardinians, and other interested powers it is easy to imagine his improbable rise becoming a quixotic failure.

Theodore’s reputation as a military commander is more ambiguous. The king led surprisingly few actual engagements, often delegating offensives to his generals; when he was present he frequently acted in a supervisory role, soliciting plans from his war councils and approving the consensus opinion. His leadership at San Pellegrino and Ponte Nuovo, his two famous victories against the French, was creditable. Yet it is worth considering that in each case, Theodore’s main contribution does not seem to have been devising a tactical plan or even directing battlefield maneuvers, but deciding where to fight and convincing the fractious Corsican captains and colonels to follow him there. Theodore did produce the occasional clever stratagem, but he demonstrated more affinity for strategy than tactics, and - as at the Siege of Calvi, where he visited his troops under the shadow of the Genoese batteries - understood that he contributed more by his presence and the example of his personal courage than any attempt at tactical insight.

The part of Theodore’s legacy that has been subjected to the most criticism in modern times is not his career as a revolutionary leader, but as a king. Theodore’s political instincts were generally good, but they seem to have gradually failed him in his old age. His dispute with Rome was a self-inflicted wound; the Church posed no great threat to Theodore’s rule, and the king’s heavy-handed response to mild provocations caused the collapse of Gaffori’s government and exacerbated political and cultural tensions. His later reign, particularly after the death of his wife and his split with Rome, was characterized by a sort of political paralysis. The king’s own grandiose plans for projects and works seldom left the page, and the Frediani ministry was undermined by the king’s flagging interest in public affairs and hobbled by a lack of resources.

The poverty of the government was indicative of one of Theodore’s more glaring deficiencies: his neglect and mismanagement of the public coffers. The king failed (or feared) to use his political clout to implement necessary taxes. The provincial luogotenenti he had created as vessels of royal power were too often self-interested and corrupt, failing to collect taxes effectively and siphoning from what revenues they did collect to build their own private fiefdoms. The deficit was covered by his personal wealth - which, by the time of his death, was all but exhausted - or by borrowing, to the extent that Federico was shocked to find the state he had inherited was already a considerable debtor with few assets or improvements to show for it. The Theodore who lost all his savings (and his wife’s jewelry) to John Law’s Mississippi fiasco and spent years fleeing from country to country with creditors barking at his heels was the same Theodore who ruled Corsica, and it showed.

Historians still debate whether Theodore’s later reign, particularly the last decade, is better characterized as a golden age of tranquility or a period of stagnation and political aimlessness. Certainly Federico was inclined towards the latter opinion, and by the time of his coronation at Alesani he was already brimming with plans to reform and “rationalize” the Corsican state. Before he was a prince, Federico had been a Prussian officer, and he expected discipline and hard work from his ministers and subjects alike. He aspired to lift Corsica from its backwardness through Cameralist theories of government and political economy implemented by a hands-on monarch and a competent, professional administration. Whether the Corsicans would take to his Teutonic methods, of course, was another matter entirely.


Footnotes
[1] Theodore’s status as the “first King of Corsica'' is debatable. Pope Boniface VIII had first created the title of Rex Sardiniae et Corsicae for Jaime II of Aragon in 1297, but although Sardinia became an Aragonese possession neither Jaime nor his successors managed to realize their claim over Corsica. Alfonso V was the only Aragonese king to actually set foot upon the island: He landed in 1420, unsuccessfully besieged Bonifacio, and departed in the following year. Thereafter the Aragonese claim was purely notional, although the Spanish monarchs continued to include “King of Corsica” in their long list of real and honorary titles. The Doges of Genoa revived the title of Rex Corsicae in 1637 as a means to elevate themselves to royal rank, and continued to use it until they were compelled to renounce the title in the 1749 Treaty of Monaco. It was Theodore’s opinion that the Papal grant to Aragon had been legitimate, but that the kings of Aragon had never “consummated” their investiture by actual possession; while the Genoese had never held a legitimate right to the crown, as the doge had assumed the title for himself without receiving it from either the Pope or the Corsican people. Officially, then, the Corsican position was that while the “Kingdom of Corsica” had indeed existed from 1297, the throne had remained vacant for the next 439 years until the coronation of Theodore I.
[2] The Cathedral of Saint Erasmus had been completely rebuilt starting in 1714, but at the time of Thedore’s arrival in 1736 it was still incomplete. Construction proceeded only intermittently during the Revolution, and it was not finished until 1753.
[3] Virtually all of the “black superfine cloth” used throughout the funeral proceedings was donated by the Jewish community of Ajaccio, who included a number of tailors and cloth merchants among their members. This was only the largest of a number of monetary and in-kind donations made by the community for the purpose of Theodore’s burial. This was probably inspired at least in part by the hope that such a display might make a favorable impression upon King Federico, whose position on religious tolerance was as yet untested, but the Jews of Corsica also shared an undeniable feeling of respect for the late king and a desire to honor and commemorate him.
[4] The English consul sardonically observed that a year of mourning would be “of no great inconvenience” to the Corsicans, as they habitually wore black already.
[5] Prince Henry had been traveling in Tuscany when news of Theodore’s death arrived, and he decided of his own initiative to travel to Corsica to see the coronation of the new “Laurel King.” This was not an official state visit; the prince merely attended as a private citizen, albeit a very distinguished one.

 

[Carp]

The House of Neuhoff

Castle Rhade in Westphalia​

Whatever else might be said about King Theodore’s grandfather Dietrich Stephan von Neuhoff zu Pungelscheid, he certainly fulfilled his duty to continue the family line. The senior line of the family, that of von und zu Neuhoff, had died off in the male line in 1701, but Dietrich's nine surviving children - including six sons - seemed to guarantee the survival of the Pungelscheid branch. In the space of two generations, however, this seemingly bountiful lineage came dangerously close to extinction. Of Dietrich’s six sons only three succeeded in marrying and siring heirs. One of these, Theodore’s father Leopold Wilhelm, was posthumously disinherited and removed from the succession by Dietrich’s own machinations. The other two, Franz Bernhard and Werner Jobst, produced only one son apiece who managed to reach adulthood and marry: The men who would later be known as Don Federico, Principe di Capraia, and Don Giovan, Principe di Morosaglia.

Although never warm, the marriage between Don Giovan and Maria Camilla Cybo-Malaspina grew colder in their last years in Corsica owing to Maria Camilla’s deep unhappiness with Corsican life, the personal incompatibility of the prince and princess, and their failure to produce children. Following the Royal Testament of 1761 and the agreement made between the two princes, Don Giovan had traveled to Westphalia alone, intending to summon his wife to join him once he had made everything suitable for her arrival. When the princess finally received his summons, however, she delayed, made excuses, and then flatly refused to go. It was bad enough to be living at the poorest, least cultured royal court in Europe; she was not about to leave her sunny Italian homeland for a baron’s castle in cold and dismal Germany, where she would be trapped for the rest of her life in a loveless marriage in a foreign country with no friends or family. Instead, Maria Camilla moved back to her family home of Massa. She became a dependent of her older sister Maria Theresa, the sovereign princess of Massa-Carrara and duchess-consort of Modena, and returned to her old life of fêtes and concerts. Although their marriage was never actually annulled, the prince and princess of Morosaglia would never see each other again.

Don Giovan was initially furious at his wife’s betrayal, but there were certain benefits to her absence. The prince still retained his dowry, and his expenses were greatly reduced now that he was no longer responsible for Maria Camilla’s extravagant upkeep. Giovan - now styling himself Johann Friedrich von Neuhoff, Prinz von Korsika - established himself at his cousin’s estate of Rhade. The position of the “lady of the house” was taken up by Prince Johann’s sister and only surviving sibling, Klara Helena Christine Angela. Klara, now in her early 50s, was the childless widow of Christian August, Freiherr von Schütz zu Isengarden, and through a series of inheritances she had acquired the estate of Benninghofen near Dortmund.[1] Unable to maintain the estate herself, Klara transferred it to her brother in exchange for lodging and a regular stipend sufficient for her needs.

It was probably at Dortmund that Prince Johann made the acquaintance of his first cousin (once removed) Caspar Adolf, Freiherr von Romberg zu Brüninghausen. Caspar von Romberg was a literal coal baron, noted today as one of the pioneers of proto-industrial coal mining in the Ruhr region. He was also an enterprising landlord who made a tidy profit by buying up distressed noble estates and reforming their agricultural production. Using some of his estranged wife’s dowry - a considerable fortune - Prince Johann became one of his cousin’s primary investors, helping to bankroll the massive expansion of the Romberg collieries in the late 18th century which made Caspar Adolf into one of the richest men in Westphalia. At his death, Baron Romberg left an estate worth a million florins. While not as rich as Romberg, Prince Johann also profited handsomely from his investment.

As a wealthy and well-connected man with a princely title and extensive lands (being owner or administrator of all the Neuhoff estates), Johann quickly became a notable figure in the County Mark. The Elector of Brandenburg, young Friedrich Wilhelm IV, was quite interested in making the most of his Westphalian possessions after the loss of Silesia and East Prussia, and the Prinz von Korsika became a part of these plans. The elector allowed Johann to succeed as drost (bailiff) of Iserlohn, Altena, and Neuenrade, positions traditionally held by the Neuhoff-Pungelscheid barons, and granted him the position of geheimrat (privy councillor).

As neither King Theodore nor Prince Johann produced a legitimate heir, the responsibility for continuing the Neuhoff house fell entirely upon the Prince of Capraia, subsequently Federico I, King of Corsica. Fortunately for both the family name and the royal succession, Federico and his wife Elisabeth Cherrier Jeanne d'Harcourt proved equal to the challenge. Despite marrying relatively late by the standards of royalty - they were both around 27 at their wedding - the couple had five children who survived infancy: Maria Anna Caterina Lucia (1752), Teodoro Francesco Giuseppe (1755), Federico Giuseppe Lorenzo (1759), Elisabetta Theodora Amalia (1761), and Carlo Teodoro Maurizio (1764).

The center of family and court life was Bastia, as Queen Eleanora had deemed the old Palace of the Governors to be the most appropriate royal residence on the island. While the prince and princess of Capraia were very involved with the upbringing of their own children - more so, it seems, than most royal families of the period - the rearing of young princes and princesses was a communal affair. Governesses were chosen from the ladies of the Corsican nobility (usually widows) to supervise the children, and various noble children spent time at the palace as playmates. The palace was a bewilderingly multilingual environment: French was the language of court and the native tongue of Princess Elisabetta, while Theodore, Federico, and Eleanora were native German speakers, and the various governesses and playmates spoke Italian. The children were also instructed in Spanish, English, Greek, and Latin, with varying degrees of success.

At around the age of six, the children started formal tutoring under the direction of Leonardo Grimaldi, the royal preceptor.[2] Grimaldi, a Franciscan friar who taught mathematics and philosophy at the University of Corti, was assisted by a variety of tutors. Initially these were other Corsican ecclesiastics, almost all of them Franciscans, as very few Corsican laymen held academic degrees. A few foreign tutors were also on the payroll - we know, for instance, of a Florentine fencing master and a French dancing instructor. In 1767 Theodore obtained the services of the Cremonese nobleman, writer, and Freemason Giambattista Biffi, one of the lesser-known figures of the Italian Enlightenment. Biffi resided in Bastia until 1772, teaching history and philosophy while he worked on translating the works of the French philosophes into Italian.

From 1766 the Corsican tutors were supplemented by several Jesuit exiles who received the king’s patronage. The Spanish Jesuit Lorenzo Hervás, a prolific author who is considered to be one of the founders of comparative linguistics, served the court as a tutor of mathematics, astronomy, language, and metaphysics, and was given the position of Royal Librarian. Less famous than Hervás but perhaps more influential was Gaspar Xuárez, a Jesuit botanist born in the Governorate of the Rio de la Plata. Xuárez became royal gardener to the crown, assisted the agricultural ministry, and established several gardens and herbariums on the island, most famously the exotic Giardino Indiano Reale (“Royal Indian Garden”) near Ajaccio which still exists today.[3]

Il Giardino Indiano Reale, Ajaccio​

The oldest of the royal children was Maria Anna Caterina Lucia, more usually known as Karine (by her family) or Donna Caterina (by the Corsicans). She was a striking figure: quite tall, with reddish hair, described by one diplomat as “very fair” but with a "too prominent" nose. A boisterous and difficult child, she was bored by sewing and music lessons and was always evading her tutors to go run and play. Her father grew increasingly concerned about her behavior and what he perceived as Theodore’s encouragement of it, as the king doted on his eldest grand-niece and rarely refused her anything. In one incident, Caterina asked her great uncle if she could wear a uniform like his, and the king had a riding habit made for her in the colors of the Noble Guard which became her favorite outfit. She was so fond of wearing it that the guards nicknamed her “La Colonella.” Donna Caterina was particularly fond of horsemanship, and in later years would clash with her parents over her alarming proclivity for wearing breeches and riding astride rather than sidesaddle in the manner of a proper lady.

Caterina’s eldest brother and Federico’s heir apparent, Teodoro Francesco Guiseppe - known throughout his early life as Don Teo - challenged his father in other ways. Even among the Neuhoff clan, which gained something of a reputation for producing good-looking princes and princesses, Theo stood out. He was of average height, but broad-shouldered and well built like his great uncle. He had a somewhat rounded face with a strong jaw, chestnut hair, and dark eyes. As a young man he was considered very handsome, which was enhanced by his pleasant, easy going demeanor. He was fond of riding, fencing, and dancing, but his academic record was less impressive. To his father’s great consternation he was a rather indifferent student, and his tutors complained that he was lazy, easily distracted, and given to daydreaming. He struggled with mathematics and geometry, was bored by philosophy, and was once punished by his father for falling asleep during theology class.

When Theo was twelve, Gaspar Xuárez introduced him to the natural sciences. Rather than merely studying texts, Xuárez had the prince gather plant specimens from nature and in the Jesuit’s herbarium, and instructed him on their parts and properties. The prince was immediately absorbed by this new subject, which seemed to hold his interest even in the classroom; his sister Karine would later joke that Theo “only learned Latin to read [Carl] Linnaeus.” In fact he did more than read the works of the Swedish botanist - Prince Theo sent him letters and seeds of Corsican plants for his collection, and the prince and the botanist struck up an occasional correspondence which lasted until Linnaeus’s death in 1778. While Don Federico tolerated this hobby, he was not wholly convinced of the value of botany to a prince and spoke disapprovingly of “mon fils, le jardinier.”

Federico’s favorite son - or at least the one who gave him the least trouble - was Federico Giuseppe Lorenzo, four years younger than Don Teo. Tall and slender with a darker complexion than his elder brother, Federico did not quite match Theo's looks or charisma; he was always rather reserved, although hardly a shrinking violet. He was also an attentive pupil who took his responsibilities more seriously than his elder brother, and could generally be relied on to perform for his tutors to his father’s satisfaction. This was the source of some resentment from Theo at his father’s rather obvious favoritism, but the brothers themselves seem to have remained on good terms with one another throughout their childhood.[4]

Although Federico’s marriage to his cousin Elisabetta was both happy and fruitful, it had not done much for the status of the Neuhoff clan. Emperor Franz’s act of legitimation allowing Elisabetta to bear the surname of d’Harcourt mitigated the stigma of the queen’s birth, but even a legitimate daughter of a count and a baroness was still far beneath the select circle of princely and royal families from which European sovereigns usually chose their partners. If the ruling family of Corsica was to be truly accepted as one of Europe’s royal houses, they would need an infusion of far richer blood.

“Marrying upwards” was easier said than done. Whatever their opinions about Corsican independence as a political matter, the monarchs of Europe had no interest in offering their daughters to the grubby relations of the “crowned baron” of Corsica. The notionally sovereign princely houses of the Empire might have seemed more promising, but there was not much in it for them - sending a daughter (and a dowry) off to Corsica offered neither much prestige nor a political alliance which would be useful to a German prince. Corsica also suffered from a very limited diplomatic presence in Germany, which made negotiations challenging. King Carlos III of Spain showed some interest in the matter when it was brought to his attention by the Corsican ambassador Cosimo da Gentile, but no viable candidate seems to have come of it.

In the late 1760s Federico pursued the idea of a match with the House of Savoy-Carignano, a cadet branch of the royal family of Savoy. The Princes of Carignano were not sovereign, but they had royal blood, and commonly intermarried with German and Italian princely families. The current Prince of Carignano, Luigi Vittorio, had an unwed daughter named Gabriella Maria Luisa who was just a year older than Theo. Federico was somewhat concerned with the destitution of the prince - Luigi had been forced to sell many family assets to cover his late father’s obscene gambling debts - but still considered the match worth pursuing on the basis that some royal blood was potentially worth a poor dowry. King Louis XV, however, had other ideas. The King of France had scant regard for the Neuhoffs and was at that very moment working to link the House of Savoy more closely to his own. Catching wind of the proposed match, the French convinced Luigi Vittorio to wed her to a Bourbon cadet instead.

Federico was considerably less interested in the marriage of his female relations. The same problem of finding a partner of sufficient status was compounded by the fact that Federico would be obligated to give, rather than receive, a royal dowry for the marriage of one of his daughters. It has been often said that Federico came to regret not marrying off his troublesome eldest daughter, but whatever embarrassment the headstrong Donna Caterina caused him had to be weighed against the financial blow which he would have presumably suffered by marrying her off. In fact Caterina would never marry - some contemporaries nicknamed her the "Corsican Diana" - and she rejected every attempt by her father to convince her to take religious vows.

The prince's disinterest applied equally to his three sisters. The eldest, Sofia Theodora (b. 1727) was already an Ursuline nun by the time of Corsica’s independence, but the younger two - Margreta Christina Josina (1729) and Maria Katharina Wilhelmina Elisabeth (1736) lived in the town of Herdecke in a damenstift, a kind of secular convent for noblewomen which was a common destination for the daughters of the German lesser aristocracy. Young women could be safely stowed away at the damenstift for as long as necessary, and because they did not take permanent religious vows they could always be removed from their cloister if a favorable match was found (provided they were still of marriageable age).

Johann Aloys, Count of Oettingen​

Unlike his daughter, however, Federico’s younger sisters could not simply be left in place. It was unseemly for members of an aspiring royal house to reside in a damenstift along with the rest of the surplus daughters of the Westphalian baronial class. Federico did not want to bring them to Corsica, however, and his sisters don't appear to have been fond of the idea either. Instead Federico arranged for them to go to Vienna. This could not have been accomplished without the aid of Queen Eleanora, who still had important friends and family at the imperial capital. Federico’s sisters were placed under the supervision of Eleanora’s brother-in-law Johann Aloys, Graf von Oettingen-Spielberg, who was very well connected in Viennese society: a few years later, he would celebrate the marriage of his daughters to the Prince of Liechtenstein and the son of the empress’s chief minister Wenzel Anton Kaunitz.

Margreta would eventually follow her elder sister into the religious life, but the prince’s youngest sister would take a different path. During the Four Years’ War she was introduced to Prince Ludwig Eugen, the younger brother of the Duke of Württemberg. Born in 1731, Ludwig had grown up at the court of King Friedrich of Prussia and had led a German cavalry regiment in French service during the War of the Austrian Succession. He eventually reached the rank of Lieutenant-General in the French army, but in 1757 he transferred to Austrian service and fought with bravery and distinction against the Prussians until he was wounded in action in 1759.[5] Shortly after the war’s end, Prince Ludwig rather unexpectedly sent word to Corsica asking for the hand of Maria Katharina. The prince was 29, and Maria was 24.[A]

Their relationship has been described as a love match, but it has also been suggested that it was encouraged by the Austrians - though their motives for doing so are less than clear. Austro-Corsican relations were good and the emperor was indeed godfather to Prince Federico’s son, although Corsica was hardly a vital ally. It may be that Vienna was more concerned about the loyalty of Württemberg. The reigning duke Karl Eugen, Ludwig’s older brother, had become estranged from his wife and did not seem likely to leave a legitimate heir, while Ludwig’s younger brother Friedrich Eugen was seen as Vienna’s enemy. Friedrich had married a niece of the late King Friedrich of Prussia, had agreed that his children would be brought up in the Lutheran faith, and had fought against Austria (and his own brothers) during the recent war.

Ludwig Eugen, Prince of Württemberg​

King Theodore welcomed the proposal, and Federico concurred once he realized that nobody was actually asking him for a royal dowry - whatever his reasons, Ludwig was clearly not interested in Maria Katharina for her money. Although it may have modestly raised the profile of the Neuhoffs, the marriage did not have much immediate consequence for Corsica. The prince retired from military service and moved to an estate near Lausanne with his wife, reinventing himself as a “gentleman of letters” who patronized Enlightenment journals and exchanged correspondence with Voltaire and Rousseau. The marriage was evidently a happy one. It would be nearly 30 years before Ludwig returned to prominence, upon the death of his elder brother without a legitimate heir and Ludwig's succession as Duke of Württemberg.[6] At the time of the wedding of Ludwig and Maria Katherina there had been some question as to whether the marriage was technically morganatic, given that the bride - whatever the accomplishments of her relatives - was a mere baroness by birth. Initially the rest of his family rejected the idea of the marriage being a suitably equal match, but Duke Karl Eugen was eventually convinced to change his mind. Not all of his relatives agreed, however, and the issue would raise its head again in the 1790s when it became clear that the status of Ludwig's children would determine whether the duchy would be ruled by a Catholic or a Protestant.


Footnotes
[1] Benninghofen had initially been the possession of Johann Christian von Neuhoff-Ley, of another cadet branch of the senior von und zu Neuhoff line. Johann Christian married one of Theodore’s aunts, Anna Henrina Catarina von Neuhoff zu Pungelscheid, but the marriage was childless. Prior to his death, rather than allowing Benninghofen to revert to his own relatives, Johann Christian willed the estate to his wife. His wife, in turn, willed the estate to her niece Klara Helena, who transferred it to her brother Prince Johann.
[2] A Franciscan friar from Campoloro, Grimaldi taught mathematics and philosophy at the University of Corti and had been an eloquent propagandist of the naziunali during the Revolution. When he was not writing revolutionary apologetics, Grimaldi was giving sermons in Corsican villages claiming that those who “died for king and fatherland” would be assured of salvation. He had also been among those theologians who, in 1736, had given his endorsement to Theodore’s policy of religious tolerance.
[3] “Indian” in this case is a reference to the West Indies. Although the Indian Garden was certainly designed with aesthetics in mind, its initial primary purpose was to evaluate the suitability of foreign crops - particularly American crops - for Corsican agriculture. Xuárez and his garden played an important role in the introduction of Nicotina tabacum to Corsica.
[4] Federico’s youngest two children will be discussed in more detail later. At the time of their father’s coronation they were but nine and six years old respectively.
[5] Prince Ludwig's transfer to the Austrian army was not entirely by choice. Württemberg's soldiers, who were mostly Protestants, hated the French and were appalled at the idea of fighting alongside them. In their view, France was the eternal enemy of the Germans, while the heroic King of Prussia was the best defender of Protestant liberty within the empire. When they were mustered and placed under French command, the duke's army revolted and entire regiments disbanded on the spot. Karl Eugen had to promise his men that they would only fight alongside the Austrians, not the French, to prevent his army from completely falling apart. This succeeded in reconciling most of the deserters, although the Württembergers remained rather grudging participants in the war and the ducal army was continually plagued by mutiny and desertion.
[6] Although he failed to sire a legitimate heir, Karl Eugen was an accomplished philanderer who produced numerous bastards from at least eight different mistresses.

Timeline Notes
[A] IOTL, Ludwig Eugen eventually married a minor Saxon countess three years his senior. This was a morganatic marriage, rejected by his family, which made his children ineligible for the succession. The reasons for his choice are unclear, although Austro-Saxon politics may have played a part. As a consequence, the duchy thus passed to his younger brother Friedrich upon Ludwig's death, and eventually to Friedrich’s children, returning the duchy to Protestant rule.

 

[Carp]

The Soldier-King

A depiction of King Federico I in the 1770s, wearing a Prussian-inspired military coat in the black and red colors of the Corsican Noble Guard.​

It is almost impossible to find an analysis of King Federico I of Corsica which does not place the king’s Prussian upbringing at the very foundation of his personality and approach to governance. The Neuhoffs had been subjects of the Electors of Brandenburg since the annexation of the County Mark in 1666, but Federico had more exposure to the administrative and military apparatus of the Prussian state as a young man than most Neuhoff barons. His father had been a Prussian government councillor with considerable public authority in the County Mark, and Federico himself - before going off to foreign lands to become a prince - had been a junior officer in the army of Friedrich the Bold.

Notwithstanding the electorate’s defeat in 1760, King Federico saw Brandenburg-Prussia as a model to be emulated. Certainly the Prussian army had achieved remarkable feats, but Berlin’s power had not arisen from martial prowess alone. The efficiency of the Hohenzollern administration was equally remarkable: The Austrians had been so impressed by the revenue which Friedrich extracted from conquered Silesia that, upon retaking the province, they tried to keep the Prussian system intact rather than restoring their old system of administration. Recognizing Prussia’s accomplishments, however, was much easier than emulating them. Prussian kameralismus relied upon an educated and disciplined civil service, as well as the resources to directly expand the economy through infrastructure, invest in new industries, and promote internal colonization.

Federico’s grand ambitions immediately stumbled upon financial reality, as Theodore had not kept his fiscal house in order. The royal lands had been mismanaged, particularly in the last half of the 1760s after Queen Eleanora’s death, and the king refused to raise taxes so as not to endanger his popularity. As a consequence, the state’s expenses ballooned far beyond its revenue. Federico estimated that the government’s revenue in 1769 was less than two million lire, or just over 400 thousand livres. Maintaining the kingdom’s little army and navy alone cost nearly that much. Theodore had “balanced the books” by taking out loans and had concealed the extent of the debt from his own government.

The new king attempted to close the budgetary gap with new taxes and reforms to existing taxes. A new customs office, the scrittoio delle dogane, was set up to collect import tariffs on “luxuries” like sugar and coffee as well as goods which competed with domestic imports like wine, furniture, and woolens. A Genoese-era gabelle on salt fish was put back into effect. Anchorage fees were raised and more vigorously enforced. The taglia - the hearth tax - was modified such that instead of a flat one-lira tax on all households, the amount varied from one to three lire (the constitutional maximum) depending on the head-of-household’s profession.

One of the king’s key reform measures involved the sovvenzione, the controversial agricultural tax originally introduced by the French. Widely disliked and often evaded, the sovvenzione was a 5% tax on the gross product of land. In keeping with fashionable physiocratic ideas, the king proposed making it from a tax on net rather than gross production. By taxing only a farmer’s surplus, he reasoned, nobody would ever be taxed into going hungry, and a “fairer” tax might also help curb rampant evasion. Because a net tax would produce much less than a gross tax, however, Federico also proposed to raise the rate from 5% to 10%. This caused considerable controversy, partially because of common farmers who misunderstood the reform and thought the king was merely doubling the land tax.

The king’s ideas had some merit, but their implementation displayed his lack of political skill. Virtually no effort was made to drum up support from the notabili or any other constituency, nor does Federico appear to have solicited much advice from local leaders, the dieta, or even his own cabinet. As the state’s financial troubles under Theodore were not well known, many assumed that the new taxes and more stringent enforcement of domain rights were simply a sign that the new king was greedier than “u bonu Tiadoru.” The fast pace of reforms and new taxes introduced within just a few years of his coronation ensured that almost everyone had something to be upset about, even if they benefited from a change to the tax laws in some other way.

Not surprisingly, it did not take long for the king to start running into serious resistance from Corsica’s democratic institutions. The dieta accepted his initial proposals without much comment, and even swallowed the modified sovvenzione despite news of sporadic unrest in the pievi (mostly by farmers who did not understand it). In 1773, however, the king introduced the “contract gabelle” (gabella dei contratti), a tax on the sale or lease of real property. This was not Federico's invention - other states, including Tuscany, had a very similar tax - but the king favored it as a means to raise revenue from the towns, which hardly contributed to land taxes but had plenty of taxable rents. It also applied to the sale of agricultural land, however, which upset just the sort of landowning notabili who were over-represented on the dieta.

When the dieta rejected the new tax, Federico took a drastic step and threatened to defund the consulta generale. Traditionally the procuratori were fed, housed, and given a small stipend at the government’s expense for the duration of the three-day assembly. By withholding this money the king seems to have imagined that the people, seeing the practical effects of the state’s grave financial situation, would elect a new and more compliant dieta. Instead it made the king look even more grasping and miserly. Although many procuratori were nobles and other notabili who did not need the money, there were also many farmers for whom serving as procuratori was a hardship that the subsidy helped to mitigate. They were incensed that the king would raise their taxes and then take away their means to come to Corti and complain about those same taxes. When word reached the king that many of the pieve elections had turned into impromptu rallies against the revocation of the subsidies, he quickly backtracked.

There was to be no grand showdown. Certainly it was a rebuke to the king; the newly elected dieta was largely the same as before, and the king’s ministers had to endure some heckling at the consulta. His defeat, however, has been greatly exaggerated. The actual legislation at issue, the gabella dei contratti, was nevertheless approved later in 1773 (albeit at a reduced rate). Rather than picking any more fights with the dieta, Federico turned his energies thereafter towards enforcing existing taxes and enhancing the profitability of the crown lands. These approaches, however, proved just as fraught with difficulty.

Federico had long been critical of Theodore’s system of luogotenenti, the powerful appointed governors who administered the provinces. As a rule, Theodore had given these positions to the most powerful clan leaders among the naziunali to both reward them and tie them to his rule. This made political sense at the time, but many of them used their office to enrich themselves and expand their networks of patronage in the provinces. They were also largely unaccountable, as their status meant that firing them was politically dangerous; in theory they served at the king’s pleasure, but under Theodore the office of luogotenente was effectively a life appointment.

Realizing that it was not tenable to simply abolish positions held by some of the grandest nobles in the realm, Federico sought instead to undermine them with newly formed camere provinciali (“provincial chambers”). These were administrative committees staffed by commissari appointed from among the local notables. Initially these were only proposed as “advisory” bodies to the luogotenenti, but the royal lieutenants weren’t fooled; they correctly saw the camere as threats to their independence and did everything they could to impede their operation. In some cases the king simply had to wait for luogotenenti to exit the scene on their own, as was the case in Ajaccio province where the camera did not assume any real power until the death of Marquis Luca d’Ornano in 1776 at the age of 72.

Although often obscured by the other controversies that clouded Federico’s reign, the provincial chambers were a genuine improvement. They were more efficient and had less opportunity for corruption than the luogotenenti, and the committee system prevented any single person or clan from monopolizing state power within the provinces. Perhaps even more importantly, the chamber system opened the business of administration to a wider group of notabili - lesser nobles, proprietari, and lawyers who sought a role in local government - rather than leaving it to a handful of marquesses and their clients.

The king’s handling of administration at the national level was less inspired. Federico came to power convinced that, unlike Theodore in his later years, he would be an active and engaged monarch who devoted himself to the business of state. His idea of activity, however, was to monopolize practically all decision-making in his own person. This too was reminiscent of Prussia, as Friedrich the Bold had been notorious for making his own desk the nerve center of the Prussian administration. Corsica, however, was not Prussia. The king was not dealing with humble and disciplined civil servants, but proud Corsican noblemen. They joined the government expecting to wield real influence and have their voices heard on matters of state, not to be the king’s glorified secretaries whose only purpose was to pass information up and hand the king’s orders down. The king was not impervious to good counsel, but he did not often solicit the advice of his ministers or defer to their consensus, and actual meetings of the cabinet were rare occurrences that served mainly for the king to explain decisions he had already made.

Nobody felt this disillusionment more keenly than the king’s notional first minister, Marquis Alerio Francesco Matra. Don Alerio was the chief of the powerful Matra clan of Serra and had an admirable revolutionary record. Although too young to have participated in the early years of the revolt, the marquis had commanded a militia battalion at the Second Siege of Bastia, led the campaign that crushed the filogenovesi in Fiumorbo, held the rank of lieutenant-general, and was one of the two primary negotiators of the Treaty of Monaco in 1749 - all before the age of thirty. Politically, he was a rather astute pick. Although he was a northerner, the southern sgio could hardly grumble; Don Alerio was as grand a noble as they, and shared many views with the gigliati (although not their Francophilia - a few months in the Chateau d’If during the Revolution had apparently cured him of that). He could also count on a strong base of support in the north, not only from his own clients and allies in Serra and the other eastern pievi but from those of the great Marquis Gianpietro Gaffori of Corti, Don Alerio’s brother-in-law and longtime political ally.

Coat of arms of the Matra family​

The marquis was initially grateful for the appointment, but he was also a proud and ambitious man who had expected that being in Gaffori’s role meant he would possess Gaffori’s power. It soon became clear that Federico’s idea of a “prime minister” was really more Giafferi than Gaffori - a figurehead who existed primarily to lend the government his prestige. It had been enough for the venerable Luigi Giafferi, but it did not suffice for Alerio Matra. For the moment he simply grumbled, but this disaffection and embarrassment over the irrelevance of his title would eventually lead Don Alerio down an unlikely path from a conservative figurehead to a willing (if temperamental) ally of "liberal" and parliamentary reformers.

Federico’s autocratic disposition and his deficits as a politician soon dissolved the great hopes which had accompanied his ascent to the throne. The gigliati who had been among his strongest supporters as prince were frustrated by his monopolization of power and his fight with the luogotenenti, while the asfodelati objected to his aristocratic and conservative cabinet, his disinterest in Theodore's free-trade economics, and his contempt for what they considered "constitutional governance." Disillusionment was not restricted to the politically active notabili, either: Once a popular hero for his "resistance" to the French during the Barefoot Revolt, Federico would end up sparking an actual armed uprising in the highlands over his attempts to wring more revenue out of the domains, a course he deemed necessary after running into resistance to his tax policy in the dieta. His talent for alienating his subjects was best expressed by a 19th century Corsican historian, who observed that “the king [Federico] was first a soldier, and so he fought - with the farmers, with the shepherds, with the nobles, with the consulta, with the dieta, with the luogotenenti, with his ministers - and finally, with his own son.”