The French instituted a new, democratic regime and, following the Treaty of Campo Formio, annexed the islands to France, forming the three departments of Corcyre (Corfu), Ithaque (Ithaca) and Mer-Égée (Aegean Sea).

At the end of the 18th century, the Ionian Islands (Corfu, Zakynthos, Cephalonia, Lefkada, Ithaca, and Kythira) along with a handful of exclaves on the Epirote mainland, namely the coastal towns of Parga, Preveza, Vonitsa, and Butrint, were the sole remaining overseas possessions of the once mighty Republic of Venice in the East.

[9] Disregarding Venetian neutrality, many Isladers, including nobles, participated in attempts to provoke a Greek uprising against Ottoman rule, such as the Orlov Revolt or the raids of Lambros Katsonis and Andreas Verousis [el].

[11] Nevertheless, support for the Venetian regime was still widespread enough that when the new provveditore generale, Carlo Aurelio Widmann, arrived in 1795, he could rely on the assistance of the local communes, leading nobles, the Jewish community of Corfu, and both Orthodox and Catholic clergy, to raise the necessary funds to pay for the garrisons and administrative personnel.

[13] As the French Revolutionary Wars erupted into northern Italy, Venice was shaken to its core: the spread of radical Jacobin ideals among her subjects, the undisguised hostility of the victorious French armies to the ancient aristocratic republic, and the dismal state of Venetian finances and military preparedness led to the gradual erosion of Venetian rule in its mainland possessions (Terraferma), and the eventual Fall of the Republic of Venice to Napoleon Bonaparte in May 1797.

While pro-French elements (the karmanioloi) were instructed by Guys on the meaning of concepts like "liberty" and "equality", many nobles mobilized against them, with proposals were made to kill all French sympathizers.

Despite such agitation, order was kept, and the definite news of the political change in the metropolis, with the establishment of a new, republican Provisional Municipality of Venice, in early June, was met with calm and restraint.

The ships flew the Venetian flag of St. Mark, since Gentili was ostensibly merely the representative of the new, pro-French Provisional Municipality of Venice, and the expedition intended to avoid possible secession of the colony from the metropolis.

In the ongoing negotiations, Napoleon for a while pretended that the islands were to be incorporated into the Cisalpine Republic, but in the end, Austria was forced to accept the fait accompli to secure her own control over Dalmatia from the spoils of the Venetian state.

[19] On 5 July, in an official ceremony, a tree of liberty was planted in the main square of Corfu city, while the flag of St. Mark was thrown into a pyre, to be replaced by the French tricolour.

On the next day, the Provisional Municipality of Corfu ordered the Libro d'Oro, the emblems of the Venetian Republic, the patents of nobility and coats of arms of the noble families to be likewise destroyed.

[19] Similar events spread across the islands: at Zakynthos, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Cephalonia and Zakynthos, Francesco Antonio Mercati and the Greek Orthodox protopapas, Gerasimos Soumakis, led the ceremony of planting the tree of liberty on 23 July; at Cephalonia, Jacobin clubs were established, and proposed the abolition of Christianity and the restoration of Ancient Greek religion and of the Olympic Games; everywhere the burning of the Libro d'Oro and the symbols of nobility was accompanied by festivities by the populace.

He did not immediately come to the Islands, however; informed of the bad state of public finances, he toured Italy for several months trying to secure funds, mostly in vain, until he succeeded in concluding a 500,000-franc loan with the Republic of Ragusa.

Eventually, however, the pro-French faction won out, particularly after attempts to get Austria to intervene in Corfu failed to elicit any response; on 5 October Napoleon declared himself ready to cede Venice itself to the Austrians, but was determined to keep the Ionian Islands.

On 1 November Napoleon's stepson Eugène de Beauharnais arrived at Corfu, and on the same day announced to the Provisional Municipality the terms of the Treaty of Campo Formio, and the annexation of the islands to France.

[27] The defence of the new French possession was assumed by the Division du Levant, whose commanding general was also the supreme police authority, and a naval squadron of ten ships.

He even sent the Corsican Greek military officer Demetrio Stefanopoli as his envoy to the Ionian Islands and Mani, who on his return in 1798 openly spoke of a restored Byzantine Empire and "Franco-Greek liberty" up to the Bosporus.

[27] French diplomatic manoeuvring, notably the cession of Venice to Austria, also estranged parts of the populace: in December 1797, rumours began circulating that the same fate awaited the Ionian Islands, with the mainland exclaves to be sold to the Ottomans.

[39][40] The main external concern of the French administration was its relationship to its most important neighbour, the powerful and ambitious Ali Pasha of Yanina, semi-autonomous Ottoman ruler of much of Albania and mainland Greece.

[34] Gentili met in person with Ali at Butrint during his tour of the islands, and French envoys, notably adjudant-général Roze, were frequent visitors at his court in Yanina.

Ali managed to convince the French of his good intentions, showering them with honours and providing food—and even feigning interest in Jacobin ideals—but his main objective, the cession of the mainland exclaves of the Ionian Islands, was rebuffed.

[34] Relations became strained in 1798, after Ali received orders from the Sultan to provide troops for a campaign against another powerful regional ruler, the pasha of Vidin, Osman Pazvantoğlu.

[34] The French invasion of Egypt had upset the balance of power in the East, and caused a rapprochement between the Ottomans and the Russian Empire, who concluded an alliance in July 1798 (although the official treaty was delayed until January 1799).

Biding his time, Ali invited adjudant-général Roze for negotiations to Filiates, but once he had learned as much as he could about French strength and dispositions at Corfu and elsewhere, he ordered him taken prisoner to Yanina.

Unable to withstand the vastly larger numbers of Ali's troops, on 25 October the French blew up the fortifications and evacuated to Corfu, along with the Greek inhabitants of the town and its environs.

The latter were forced to retreat behind the walls of the citadel, while the peasants opened the jails, looted the administrative buildings, and burned the tree of liberty along with all official documents at the Square of St. Mark's.

The French garrison of Lixouri successfully evaded to Lefkada, but was taken captive by armed peasants, while those of Argostoli managed to reach Assos only to surrender to the Russians, and be in turn transported to Constantinople.

A heated and protracted struggle between the priest Petros Voulgaris and the scholar and former archbishop of Kherson and Astrakhan, Nikiforos Theotokis, followed, but with Ushakov's intervention the new see was finally filled with the election of the Ierotheos Kigalas on 19 February 1800.

[48] On 21 June 1799, the Senate decided to send a twelve-member delegation to Constantinople and Saint Petersburg to express its gratitude to the Sultan and Tsar, but also press for the restoration of the Islands' maritime and land frontier with the withdrawal of Ali Pasha from Butrint, Preveza, and Vonitsa, and their recognition as an independent state.

[49] The negotiations between Russia, the Porte, and the Islands, led to the signing of the Treaty of Constantinople on 2 April 1800, which created the Septinsular Republic, under joint Russian and Ottoman protection.