Mediterranean Expansion Campaign

Campanya d'Expansió Mediterrània

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The Mediterranean Expansion Campaign was campaign of conquest carried out by the Mediterranean Crown between 1775 until 1793, when James III "the Thoughtless"Jaume III "l'Inconscient" fell in battle. The campaign threw the Crown in one of its most tumultuous periods of its history, with rebellions within its different countries and rising diplomatic tensions with the Crown's allies. It took the entire reign of Peter V "the Serene"Pere V "el Serè", the new king, to re-stabilize the Crown, quell the general discontent, and put international relations back on track. At the same time, it's partially thanks to this campaign that the Crown is as powerful and influential as it is now.

Development

Context

After the Treaty of Aran in 1714, France kept the Western half of the Iberian peninsula, while the Crown kept the Eastern half. Additionally, the Crown lost all of the territories in northern Europe, as well as Sicily. The Treaty marked a new beginning for the Mediterranean Crown, which up until that point it had been known as the Crown of Castile and Aragon. For the next few years, it focused on recovering from the losses of the war.
By the end of the century, the Crown was a relatively powerful monarchy, although the first symptoms of decadence were starting to show. The individual constituents of the Crown were mostly doing fine, and especially during the Seven Years' War, the Crown was a haven of commercial safety and political stability.
However, the Crown constituents were slowly growing apart and started to ignore the authority of the monarch whenever they could get away with it. In 1775, the Kingdom of France decided to take back some of the territories the Crown had taken from them during the War of Succession, which prompted King James III to declare a state of emergency. This gave him direct control over a huge portion of the Crown's army and managed to drive France away.

Expansion

The first argument King James III used to start the conquest campaign was that the territories of the Crown needed to be connected by land. Of course, this made little sense, as they were already connected by sea, a much faster means of transport. But this let him connect Provence with Naples, conquering most of the Italic peninsula (and then some more) with the only exception of the Papal States. In the process, France lost Auvergne and the Roman Empire lost Venice.
Boosted by the success of the campaign so far and its military superiority in the Mediterranean, the King decided to expand his scope and conquer the remainder of the northern Mediterranean, until almost Constantinople. This time, the justification was historical: the Crown of Aragon had controlled Athens and Neopatras in the end of the 14th century. This was a much weaker reason, but most of the local governments consented to that.

Complications

However, this is where things started to get complicated. The Ottoman Sultanate had been at peace for the past decades and his military was unpracticed and technologically inferior. However, the European powers began seeing the expansion of the Crown as truly dangerous, so the Roman Empire, and the Russian Tsardom allied with the Ottomans to stop the Crown. Great Britain didn't join the war, which, given their alliance with the Crown, was also pretty significant.
Regardless, the Crown was victorious and got relatively close to Constantinople, at which point the King turned his eyes southward. By that point, there were no arguments left and the Crown constituents had already realized the war was reckless. They had been suffering internal uprisings and rebellions due to the increased poverty and shortages caused by the war. But the King wasn't phased—the army was already under his command, so he pressed on towards North Africa.
When the King died in battle, the Crown was controlling almost the entire Mediterranean, with the exception of the Papal States and the South-eartern Mediterranean Ottoman shores.

Recession

King James' son, Peter V "the Serene", was crowned in 1793 amidst a very complicated moment for the Crown. The war hadn't ended with the death of his father, so he now had the difficult task to stabilize it, both internally and externally. His first action was to publicly announce a change in policy and he ordered a retreat of his troops from the most unstable locations.
There's evidence to suggest that the new King wanted to give up most of what his father had conquered in order to salvage the international reputation of the Crown. However, he was advised that doing so would turn the campaign into a completely pointless war, which would anger the local governments and population. Seizing the opportunity, the Holy Roman Emperor intervened and summoned the monarchs that had participated in the war. The result of this intervention was the Treaty of Constantinople.

Treaty of Constantinople

In short, the treaty defined the borders of the Mediterranean Crown as they are today. It also granted other countries a larger control over the Mediterranean (through the Pact of Palermo). This is a run-down of the most important terms of the Treaty:

• The Monarch of the Mediterranean Crown would keep the title of Lord of the Sea, but would give up part of its authority to the Pact of Palermo.
• The Roman Empire would recover its access to the Mediterranean through Venice.
• Morocco would recover all of its territory except for the city of Ceuta, which would become a city-state under the Crown.
• The Ottoman Sultanate would recover a big part of its territory, except for the newly-created kingdoms of the Mediterranean Balkans and Carthage.
• San Marino and Sicily would become independent again.
• Malta would become fully independent under the Sovereign Order of Malta, rather than having shared control between the Crown and the Order.
• The Consulate of the Sea and, therefore, international maritime law, would no longer be under the absolute control of the Crown.

Consequences

According to James III, this campaign would unite the Crown under a single flag once again and bring the Crown to the forefront of international politics again. And the irony is that, for all the damage he caused and the recklessness of his methods—he was right on all accounts. After the Treaty of Constantinople, Peter V focused on calming down the internal uprising and a couple of years before his passing, the Crown was once again one of the dominant powers in Europe and the world.

contents

Conflict Type

Military Campaign

Start Date

1782

Ending Date

1793