Napoleon Imposes the Continental System
The Berlin Decree bans all trade with Britain across the territories Napoleon controls
Quick facts
- Location
- Berlin (decree issued from the occupied Prussian capital)
- Date
- 21 November 1806 - 11 April 1814
- Instrument
- The Berlin Decree
- Result
- Blockade weakens but fails to force Britain out of the war
What happened
Napoleon issued the Berlin Decree from the captured Prussian capital on 21 November 1806, responding to a British Order-in-Council of 16 May that had declared a blockade of the European coast from Brest to the Elbe. The decree declared the British Isles in a state of blockade, forbade all trade and correspondence with Britain across French-controlled and allied Europe, and ordered any British subject found within reach taken prisoner. Napoleon extended the policy with further decrees over the following years, pressuring allied and neutral states, including Russia, to close their ports to British goods, a policy historians call the Continental System.
Why it matters
The blockade hurt the British economy in its early years but proved impossible to enforce across thousands of miles of European coastline, and smuggling undercut it constantly. It did lasting damage to the economies of the states forced to comply, including Russia, whose eventual break from the system in 1810 became one of the triggers for Napoleon's invasion two years later.
How we know
World History Encyclopedia's article on the Continental System documents the Berlin Decree's date and text and its origin as a response to the British blockade order of May 1806, citing Andrew Roberts' biography of Napoleon.
Sources
- World History Encyclopedia. Continental System · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- Brown University Library, Center for Digital Scholarship (Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection). Timeline: The Third Coalition and the Continental System (1804-1807) · Reputable sourcelibrary.brown.edu · The domain "library.brown.edu" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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