Corfu vineyard

The Treaty of  Campo Formio, following Napoleon’s Italian campaigns, gave ownership of Corfu to the French briefly before the Russians laid siege to the island and gained it in 1799.  The Treaty of Tilsit returned it to the French in 1807 but by this time the British had taken an interest.  By 1809 they controlled all the other Ionian islands but could not capture Corfu until 1815 when it was passed to them by the Treaty of Paris.

As the United States of the Ionian Islands, the British ruled the group until 1864, unpopular with the locals but presiding over an improvement in the standard of living.  The Treaty of London in 1864 returned all the Ionians to Greece.

Monument to Corfu Jews

Corfu was not invaded again until 1923 when, during a diplomatic spat with Greece, Italy bombed and then invaded and occupied the island.  The recently set-up League of Nations arbitrated and Greece regained its property.  Italy invaded again in 1941 during the Second World War and this time kept hold of them until 1943 when the Italian fascists fell.  They were replaced by the Germans who destroyed a significant portion of the infrastructure by bombing runs before occupying the island.  It was at this point that a significant resistance movement developed on the island (and the Greek mainland) which attempted to protect and shelter some of the Jews which had escaped the Nazi’s attention.

Towards the end of the war, in October 1944, the British liberated Corfu from the Germans and spent almost two years sweeping the Corfu channel for mines before declaring it safe.  Post-war, Corfu’s economy has grown in tune with the rest of Europe; much of its income now derives from tourism, viniculture and olive farming.

Corfu Map

Some scholars have argued that Corfu is the island of Scheria which Homer mentioned in his Odyssey.  If you’d like to follow that train of though, this means the first mention of the island occurs in about 1200BC.  More concrete evidence suggests that Corinthian settlers were here from about 730BC.  The Corinthians who settled here were independent and this resulted in the occasional squabble with the home city of Corinth.

Alliances with mainland cities such as Athens came and went, as did quarrels with Spartans, Periander of Corinth and the Illyrians and by 229BC it was under Roman control and by 148BC it was part of Macedonia under Roman control.  When the Roman Empire began to break up in the third century AD, Corfu was aligned with the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire).

The attraction of Corfu as a possession is obvious; aside from it’s fertile land and pleasant climate, it’s was strategically important as an early naval base and an ocean-going trading route.  Despite this, it existed unmolested for most of the rest of the first millenium, not coming under attack again until early in the second millenium when the Normans (1081 – 1085) and Sicilians (1147 – 1154) began to take an interest.  Genoese privateers (1197 – 1207) were then followed by Venetians (1207 – 1214) and Greeks (1214 – 1267) before it passed into the hands of the French House of Anjou.  In 1386 it offered itself to the powerful Venetians in the hope they would offer a measure of protection and stability.  From 1401 until 1797, this remained the status quo.

Part Two follows…..