This chapter details British engagement with the Mediterranean from 1800 to 1830. As Napoleon's grip extended across Continental Europe, the restrictions on Continental travel for British citizens led to an enhanced bias towards the Mediterranean, circuitously approached through northern routes such as the German states or even Russia, or by sea via Gibraltar. Once Napoleon took control of Corfu from a Russo-Turkish occupation of that island as a springboard for further French expansion, the British tentatively began to experiment with a counter-stake of their own in western Greece. This meant establishing a relationship with Ali Pasha, the warlord with a local empire based in Yannina in northwestern Greece. From this flowed the sinuous part played by the British government in the fate of the Orthodox Christian community of the Souliotes in Epirus.
Mud Volcanism on the Mediterranean Ridge