The Kingdom of Naples (Italian: Regno di Napoli; Neapolitan: Regno 'e Napule) was a French client state in southern Italy that existed from 1806 to 1815. It was founded after the Bourbon Ferdinand IV and III of Naples and Sicily sided with the Third Coalition against Napoleon, and was in return ousted from his kingdom by a French invasion. Joseph Bonaparte, elder brother of Napoleon, was installed in his stead: Joseph conferred the title "Prince of Naples" to be hereditary on his children and grandchildren. When Joseph became king of Spain in 1808, Napoleon appointed his brother-in-law Marshal Joachim Murat to take his place. Murat was later deposed by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 after striking at Austria in the Neapolitan War, in which he was decisively defeated at the Battle of Tolentino.
Background
King Ferdinand IV of Naples and his wife, Queen Maria Carolina of Austria, were fervent opponents of Revolutionary France and Napoleon Bonaparte, whom the queen called a "Corsican bastard, full of wickedness" in her correspondence with Marzio Mastrilli, the Neapolitan ambassador to France. In the lead up to the War of the Third Coalition in 1805, Maria Carolina assured the French ambassador to Naples, Charles-Jean-Marie Alquier, that her country would remain neutral during the conflict. In Paris, a treaty providing for Neapolitan neutrality in exchange for the evacuation of ports occupied by the French Army was even signed on 21 September by Mastrilli and French Foreign Minister Talleyrand. However, the Neapolitan sovereigns were playing a double game: a secret treaty had been signed on 10 September in Naples with Russian emissary Aleksandr Tatischev. Under this treaty, King Ferdinand allowed Coalition troops to be stationed in his kingdom and placed his army under Russian command.
On 14 October, in accordance with the Franco-Neapolitan treaty, French troops commanded by General Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr began their withdrawal, but in the weeks that followed a Russian and British expeditionary force landed in Naples. By late November, the Russo-Neapolitan army marched on the Kingdom of Italy. While Napoleon initially had not considered invading southern Italy, Naples' betrayal changed his mind. The creation of a Kingdom of Naples under French domination was therefore a result of the circumstances of the conflict, as the French emperor at first envisaged a simple alliance.
French conquest of Naples
On 27 December, the day after the signing of the Treaty of Pressburg between France and Austria, Napoleon declared at the Schönbrunn Palace: "The dynasty of Naples has ceased to reign. Its existence is incompatible with the peace of Europe and the honour of my crown." At the same time, General Gouvion Saint-Cyr marched on Naples at the head of an army of 40,000 men, formed on 9 December. He was first replaced by General André Masséna and then, by an imperial decree of 6 January 1806, by Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's older brother, who was promoted to general of division with the title of Lieutenant of the Emperor on this occasion. Napoleon intended to prolong the effect of the Battle of Austerlitz to drive the Austrian and Russian troops out of Italy while seizing the Kingdom of Naples, the last possession of the House of Bourbon in the peninsula. The campaign was all the more favourable to the French as the Anglo-Russian expeditionary force retreated towards Calabria, leaving the Neapolitans to their own devices.
Capua was taken by the French on 6 February. The next day, Queen Maria Carolina implored Napoleon's pardon, but to no avail. On 15 February, Joseph Bonaparte solemnly entered the city of Naples. Ferdinand IV and Maria Carolina fled to Sicily and made Palermo the new capital of their domain, now reduced to the Kingdom of Sicily. The invasion of Naples continued for several months. British troops defended Calabria and even scored a victory at Maida on 4 July against the troops of General Jean Reynier. The region was not pacified until the end of the summer, after the intervention of Masséna's troops, while Gaeta, defended by Prince Louis of Hesse-Philippsthal, who refused to obey orders to surrender, fell after a siege of almost five months.
Joseph Bonaparte's reign
Once he had taken control of the country, Joseph Bonaparte began organizing its institutions. On 30 March 1806, Napoleon signed an act at the Tuileries in which he named his brother Joseph "King of Naples and Sicily". Joseph thus became the first of Napoleon's siblings to be made ruler of a European state. He took the regnal name Joseph Napoleon (Giuseppe Napoleone). Control of Naples was of key importance for the French Empire because it allowed it to complete its conquest of the Italian Peninsula, except for the Papal States and the Republic of San Marino, while ensuring control of the maritime routes of the Mediterranean and the Adriatic seas. Having barely been named king, Joseph Bonaparte was thus charged with taking his place in the war against the United Kingdom. This was announced to him by a delegation from the Sénat conservateur, sent to Naples by Napoleon and composed of Pierre-Louis Roederer, Catherine-Dominique de Pérignon and Pierre Marie Barthélemy Ferino, who were received by Joseph on 11 May. In his correspondence with his brother, Napoleon indicated to him that his sovereignty would only assured after the arrival of the senators, a way of showing that his kingdom was directly integrated into the French system.
From his accession to the throne, Joseph sought to cultivate the image of a "reforming king concerned with the well-being of his subjects", compared to a "Ferdinand IV, hardly concerned with the fate of his people." He became personally involved, not only to please his brother, but because he thought it necessary. He therefore presided over the councils, summoned or wrote to his generals and administrators in a manner similar to that of the emperor, and annotated dossiers and reports. But he had to maintain a repressive apparatus in the face of plots and revolts, and act in a context constrained by the international situation.
In the modernising spirit of the French Revolution, King Joseph Napoleon implemented a programme of sweeping reforms to the organisation and structure of the ancient feudal kingdom. The Neapolitan nobility in its majority welcomed the change of regime with benevolence, while expecting guarantees and the consolidation of the new authority, as the local elites were tired of the authoritarianism of former queen Marie Caroline of Austria. Under Joseph, the monarchical and authoritarian framework was preserved, but in the context of an active policy of administrative, judicial, military, financial, social, educational and cultural reforms. The new sovereign appointed Pierre-Louis Roederer as Minister of Finance, Antoine Christophe Saliceti as Minister of Police and General Mathieu Dumas as Minister of War.
Administration
Upon becoming King of Naples, Joseph Bonaparte launched a series of reforms designed to ensure the shift of state structures towards rationality, order and efficiency, notably with the creation of:
- a Ministry of Police and a Prefecture of Police for the city of Naples (28 February 1806);
- a Ministry of the Interior responsible for a large part of the civil activity of the state (31 March 1806);
- a Council of State to advise the sovereign and participate in the legal implementation of reforms (16 May 1806);
- a Secretariat of State for the organization and monitoring of government policy (8 September 1806);
- the offices of auditors of the Council of State to train a young class of administrators (10 August 1807);
- a Court of Audit (19 December 1807);
- a new organization of the territory (Law of 8 August 1806).
The territorial organization was similar to that of France: it saw the creation of thirteen provinces, headed by an intendant, and forty-two districts, headed by a sub-intendant. King Joseph, however, went further by promulgating the Law of 8 December 1806, determining that the 2,520 communes of the kingdom would be grouped into 495 "governments", even more structuring than the French cantons.
Finances
In 1806, the financial situation of Naples was catastrophic. The coffers were empty, the royal palaces emptied of their furniture, and the banks' cash reserves had been taken to Sicily by the fleeing Bourbons. Minister of Finance Roederer was responsible for the debt and tax collection projects and focused his efforts on reforming property taxes. The King of Naples and his officials sought to implement austerity where clientelism had previously prevailed. He turned to Roman bankers, but despite all efforts the income was insufficient and the financial situation remained precarious. To carry out his policy, part of the royal domain of the properties belonging to the State, émigrés and the Catholic Church was sold. Joseph finally decreed an exceptional tax of 22 million francs, and negotiated a loan of around 5 million francs, with an annual interest rate of six percent.
For daily transactions and investments, in addition to structural savings and a reduction in the number of agents, the modernization of taxation and administration was undertaken from 1806, with the establishment of new contributions, the grouping of taxes, an increase in customs tariffs, the operation of the lottery and stamp duty, the improvement of the land registry, the abolition of leases granted to barons, and the creation of the Public Debt Ledger. The collection of all taxes was slowly brought under a central revenue service as the government brought out the contractors and compensated those who had lost their feudal tax-collecting privileges with bonds. Joseph, who personally chaired the Council of Finances, encouraged the merger of the establishments, leaving it to Joachim Murat to create in 1809 the Bank of the Two Sicilies, designed according to the model of the Bank of France.
Military
From July 1806, the French model was adopted for the profound reorganization of the Neapolitan Army, whose "dissolution was complete" according to Minister of War Dumas: military schools, barracks, and military hospitals were established. Based on the French National Guard, a Provincial Guard was created for the maintenance of order and the surveillance of public buildings, while Naples received a Civic Guard. Legions of gendarmerie and police commissioners were instituted. Although an opponent of the repressive policies often employed by Napoleon, Joseph nevertheless implemented them in Naples against his opponents, and the execution of Marquess Giambattista Rodio, who was arrested and shot without solid evidence, was reminiscent of the Duke of Enghien affair of 1804.
On 26 August 1806, Joseph created a Royal Guard composed of two infantry regiments, one cavalry regiment, two artillery companies and a company of elite gendarmes. The regular army was supplied by conscription, which provided under Joseph's reign a little over 60,000 men. Joseph effectively commanded the Neapolitan Army as well as the French, Italian, and Polish contingents stationed in his kingdom.
One of Joseph's first objectives as king was the abolition of feudalism. Although the political dominance of lords and the clergy had disappeared decades earlier, their economic power and influence over people's minds remained strong. In most communes, peasants continued to pay fees in kind or in cash for various aspects of rural life: land sales, seeds, water, manure, amounting to nearly 180 different levies. They were also subject to the decisions of landowners regarding farming techniques and the organization of trade and markets. The system was described as a "monstrous assembly of privileges, monopolies, abuses, and usurpation."
By a decree of 2 August 1806, feudalism was abolished, and all the rights and privileges of the nobility suppressed. The practice of tax farming was also ended. Additional legislation gradually completed the decree with the liberation of the use of waterways, the abolition of several taxes, the possibility of buying back lands and the rights to exploit them, the division of collective domains, the abolition of fideicommissa which had kept certain properties and rights out of commerce and inheritance. Resistance to these measures was strong, but Joseph's initiatives were continued under the reign of Joachim Murat and upheld by the restored Bourbons, who made few changes to the decisions taken during the Napoleonic decade. Joseph also founded charitable organizations and hospitals to further support his reforms.