The first period of French rule in the Ionian Islands () lasted from June 1797 to March 1799. Following the fall of the Republic of Venice in May 1797, the Ionian Islands, a Venetian possession, were occupied by Revolutionary France. The French instituted a new, democratic regime and, following the Treaty of Campo Formio, annexed the islands to France, forming the three departments of (Corfu), (Ithaca) and (Aegean Sea).
Originally widely welcomed, French rule began to grow oppressive to the islanders, and aroused the enmity of the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire. In 1798, a joint Russo-Ottoman campaign was launched against the islands, culminating in the four-month siege of Corfu. Its fall in March 1799 signalled the end of French rule, and the islands were reorganized as the Russo-Ottoman protectorate of the Septinsular Republic. The islands were again annexed to France in 1807 after the Treaty of Tilsit, but retained many of the institutions of the Septinsular Republic. The French were evicted from most of the islands by the British in 1809–10; only Corfu resisted until 1814. In 1815, the British established the United States of the Ionian Islands.
Background
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. In 1795, the Islands' population was counted as 152,722.
Under Venetian rule, the society of the Ionian Islands was divided into three classes, analogous to those of Venice itself: the privileged nobility, the urban middle class () and the commoners (). The noble families, who enjoyed full Venetian citizenship, were on top of the pyramid, and provided the members of the ruling council of each island. Originally restricted to Italian settler families, from the 16th century on this group also included Greek families. As in Venice, Corfu, Cephalonia, and Zakynthos each had a , where the aristocratic families were inscribed. Their nature differed from island to island: in Corfu, they were obliged to reside in Corfu city; likewise in Kythira and Zakynthos they mostly dwelled in the capital, whereas in Cephalonia a rural nobility persisted, and no clear distinction was evident in Lefkada. Nevertheless, the power of the nobility rested on the ownership of land, and as a class they derided mercantile activity, which was left to the urban burghers; as a result, the latter also came to amass wealth and land. The burghers in turn challenged the nobility's claim to monopolize local authority and aspired to join the ruling class, while the peasantry was largely politically marginalized.
The Venetian authorities were left in a position of mediator, but still had to acknowledge the power of the noble families, who often were a law on themselves and could even raise military corps of their own; while the nobles were content to pursue their private feuds and plot and conspire against each other for local office, they were also able of concerted action against the Venetian authorities, when they felt their interests threatened. Venetian writ ran lightly in the cities, and was almost non-existent in the countryside; not infrequently, Venetian official who ventured to the country to arrest some outlaw, were forced back in humiliation. The Venetian regime was more concerned with maintaining its rule than providing efficient administration. Thus ten murders were punished with ten years in prison, while speaking ill of the Venetian governor—the —was punished with twenty. Out of a mix of governmental ineffectiveness and deliberate policy, the bulk of the local populace was kept in a state of ignorance: there were no printing presses or schools, and the majority of the population was illiterate. Only the privileged classes, who could send their sons to study abroad, had access to higher education. As the medievalist William Miller remarked, "If the Corfiotes of that day seemed [...] to be ignorant and superstitious, poor and indolent, they were what Venice had made them".