Assess the impact of the Continental System on Europe after 1806

“England is a nation of Shopkeepers”- Napoleon Bonaparte It was on the 21st of November 1806 that Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French, issued the Berlin Decrees; beginning a self-blockade of Europe that would last to some extent or another, for the next 8 years until his abdication on April 11th 1814. Bonaparte is purported to have believed that his policy of Blocus Continental would lead to inflation and large-scale debt within Britain, and while his desired impact of the Continental System unto the UK was not quite so dramatic, the affects that Napoleon intended as a result of the Berlin Decrees were extremely significant in terms of their impact upon Europe. However, there were also numerous consequential impacts of the Continental System which need to be examined if an objective assessment of its impacts upon Europe is to be made; aided by the classification of impacts into short and long term and positive or negative.

The Continental System was intended as a way in which Bonaparte could force Britain into a peace, but its primary effect was that of alienation. After the Milan Decrees (17th December, 1807) endorsed and actively legislated for the capture of neutral ships sailing in international waters if they had traded at a British Port, carried British goods; or merely had allowed the Royal Navy to search their ship. This effectively changed the way in which trade worked across the Globe, in turn inflicting very significant impacts upon Europe. Before the Continental System became enforced, colonial trade had been highly centralised around the European Powers; especially Britain, France, Spain and the United Provinces before its creation as the Batavian Republic in 1795 by invading French revolutionaries. So, to examine the intentional impact of the Continental System is to