Sulphur Crisis of 1840 | |||||||
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The Sulphur Crisis of 1840 (also known as the Sulphur War of 1840 or Anglo-Neapolitan Sulphur Crisis) was a conflict between the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the United Kingdom. In the 19th century, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies maintained a large sulphur mining industry and was responsible for most of the world's production. In industrialising, British demand for sulphur increased considerably. [lower-alpha 1] The nation had a very favourable treaty with the Two Sicilies, negotiated in 1816. The Sulphur Crisis of 1840 occurred when King Ferdinand II gave a monopoly of the sulphur industry to a French firm. The British argued it violated the 1816 trade agreement. A peaceful solution was eventually negotiated by France. [2]
Sulphuric acid is one of the most important chemicals in the world. It is used to manufacture fertiliser, and is also important in mineral processing and oil refining. It has a wide range of end applications including as an electrolyte in lead-acid batteries and in dehydrating compounds. [3] [4] [5] [6] Demand surged during the Industrial Revolution, as the acid is used in finishing textiles. [7] Between 1832 and 1836, sulphur production doubled. [8] Until the invention of the Frasch process in 1891, sulphur extracted from volcanic rock in Sicily by the Sicilian method made up the vast majority of the world's production. [9] [10] In 1816, a treaty between the Two Sicilies and Great Britain was signed that gave British merchants large concessions, such as a 10% reduction in the customs duty due on imports from and exports to Britain, and gave British merchants a large advantage trading in Southern Italy. [11] It also gave Britain most favoured nation status. [12] The British defended their rights zealously and attempted to negotiate a new treaty that was even more favourable to them. [11]
In 1836, then King of the Two Sicilies, Ferdinand II, began negotiating with French merchants an agreement granting French merchants control over the sulphur trade. [1] An initial plan was submitted by French merchants Amato Taix and Arsene Aycard on 1 May 1836. [13] Though many Sicilians supported the plan, it was abandoned after British resistance. In September 1837, Ferdinand II revived such talks with Taix and Aycard, regarding the production and export of sulphur. Ferdinand II was trying to encourage the price of sulphur to rise. [1] [14]
An agreement was approved by the Consulta—the kingdom's general council —on 15 December 1837, [13] [15] announced on 4 July 1838, [1] and signed on 9 July. [13] It gave the Frenchmen control over sulphur exports from Sicily. It was essentially a monopoly, making it unprofitable for any other merchants to trade sulphur. This angered the British, who had previously controlled the trade. [12] The agreement immediately crippled sulphur imports to the United Kingdom which fell from 44,653 tons in 1838 to 22,160 tons in 1839. The price of the sulphur also increased by 100%. [1]
British merchants argued that the new agreement violated the 1816 treaty, and claimed that their commercial interests were damaged. [16] In response, Lord Palmerston, the British Foreign Secretary began attempting to convince the Sicilian government to reverse the agreement. [14] Ferdinand II resisted Palmerston's efforts, arguing that both agreements were comparable, and recognising that the new agreement could be highly profitable for his kingdom. The former opinion was supported by contemporary jurists Frederick Pollock and Joseph Phillimore. [17] It was further impractical for Ferdinand II to cancel the contract, because if he did Taix and Aycard intended to claim £666,000 in compensation, a price that the kingdom would be hard pressed to pay. [14]
"The outcome of this affair is not difficult to foresee: It will end as every quarrel between the powerful and the weak, by the submission of the latter, and Europe will assist in it without being troubled by it.
Albert Wilhelm Laurens Heldwier, Dutch envoy in Turin. [18]
On 23 February Ferdinand gave his minister, Prince de Cassaro, permission announce the cancellation of the contract. However, it never happened. [19] In mid-March, the British warned that if their wishes were not met, they would establish a blockade and begin seizing merchant ships of the Sicilies. Reasoning that the kingdom's coastline was too large to effectively blockade, Ferdinand II refused to give in. Cassaro resigned from his post in frustration. Ferdinand II then began preparing for war. Palmerston ordered the Mediterranean Fleet to leave Malta and travel to the kingdom. In April, British Admiral Robert Stopford began seizing ships. [19] [20] [21] Though there was no formal declaration of war, the 'Sulphur War' is generally accepted to have begun in April. Several Neapolitan merchants were searched and detained, but there were no direct naval confrontations between the two nations. [22]
Klemens von Metternich, an Austrian diplomat, urged the two parties to avoid all-out war, writing to Sicilian diplomat Marquis de Gagliati: "Marquis, you must agree that it is hardly worth having a European war over a question of sulphur!" He criticised Ferdinand for being unwilling to negotiate. He then tried to convince Ferdinand to cancel the contract. [23] In contrast to Metternich's efforts to negotiate, which were rejected, a similar offer by the French prime minister Adolphe Thiers was accepted by the British on 10 April and the Sicilians on 26 April. Also in late April, Stopford released the ships he had been holding and halted further seizures. As negotiations dragged on, Palmerston warned that seizures would resume if the contract was not cancelled by 20 July 1840. Ferdinand cancelled the contract on 21 July. On 29 July Stopford's fleet returned to Malta. [24]
In December, British merchants were awarded 121,454 ducats out of the requested 373,978. The French were awarded 44,000 out of the requested 233,433 in 1844. [22]
Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar, Prince of Metternich-Winneburg zu Beilstein, known as Klemens von Metternich or Prince Metternich, was a conservative Austrian statesman and diplomat who was at the center of the European balance of power known as the Concert of Europe for three decades as the Austrian Empire's foreign minister from 1809 and Chancellor from 1821 until the liberal Revolutions of 1848 forced his resignation.
Ferdinand II was King of the Two Sicilies from 1830 until his death in 1859.
Ferdinand I was King of the Two Sicilies from 1816 until his death. Before that he had been, since 1759, King of Naples as Ferdinand IV and King of Sicily as Ferdinand III. He was deposed twice from the throne of Naples: once by the revolutionary Parthenopean Republic for six months in 1799, and again by a French invasion in 1806, before being restored in 1815 at the end of the Napoleonic Wars.
The Kingdom of Naples, was a state that ruled the part of the Italian Peninsula south of the Papal States between 1282 and 1816. It was established by the War of the Sicilian Vespers (1282–1302), when the island of Sicily revolted and was conquered by the Crown of Aragon, becoming a separate kingdom also called the Kingdom of Sicily. This left the Neapolitan mainland under the possession of Charles of Anjou. Later, two competing lines of the Angevin family competed for the Kingdom of Naples in the late 14th century, which resulted in the death of Joanna I by Charles III of Naples. Charles' daughter Joanna II adopted King Alfonso V of Aragon as heir, who would then unite Naples into his Aragonese dominions in 1442.
Francis I of the Two Sicilies was King of the Two Sicilies from 1825 to 1830 and regent of the Kingdom of Sicily from 1806 to 1814.
The Kingdom of Sicily was a state that existed in Sicily and the south of the Italian Peninsula plus, for a time, in Northern Africa from its founding by Roger II of Sicily in 1130 until 1816. It was a successor state of the County of Sicily, which had been founded in 1071 during the Norman conquest of the southern peninsula. The island was divided into three regions: Val di Mazara, Val Demone and Val di Noto.
Southern Italy, also known as Meridione or Mezzogiorno, is a macroregion of Italy consisting of its southern regions.
Maria Carolina of Austria was Queen of Naples and Sicily as the wife of King Ferdinand IV and III, who later became King of the Two Sicilies. As de facto ruler of her husband's kingdoms, Maria Carolina oversaw the promulgation of many reforms, including the revocation of the ban on Freemasonry, the enlargement of the navy under her favorite, Sir John Acton, and the expulsion of Spanish influence. She was a proponent of enlightened absolutism until the advent of the French Revolution, when, in order to prevent its ideas gaining currency, she made Naples a police state.
Koca Mustafa Reşid Paşa was an Ottoman statesman and diplomat, known best as the chief architect behind the Imperial Ottoman government reforms known as Tanzimat.
The Sicilian revolution of independence of 1848 which commenced on 12 January 1848 was the first of the numerous Revolutions of 1848 which swept across Europe. It was a popular rebellion against the rule of Ferdinand II of the House of Bourbon, King of the Two Sicilies. Three revolutions against the Bourbon ruled Kingdom of the Two Sicilies had previously occurred on the island of Sicily starting from 1800: this final one resulted in an independent state which survived for 16 months. The Sicilian Constitution of 1848 which survived the 16 months was advanced for its time in liberal democratic terms, as was the proposal of a unified Italian confederation of states. It was in effect a curtain-raiser to the end of the Bourbon kingdom of the Two Sicilies, finally completed by Giuseppe Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand in 1860, the Siege of Gaeta of 1860–1861 and the proclamation of the unified Kingdom of Italy.
Prince Charles of the Two Sicilies, Prince of Capua was the second son of Francis I of the Two Sicilies and his second wife, Maria Isabella of Spain. He contracted a morganatic marriage in 1836 and had to live for the rest of his life in exile.
The Second Egyptian–Ottoman War lasted from 1839 until 1841 and was fought mainly in Syria. It has sometimes been referred to as the Syrian War or Second Syrian War.
The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was a kingdom in Southern Italy from 1816 to 1861 under the control of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, a cadet branch of the Bourbons. The kingdom was the largest sovereign state by population and land area in Italy before the Italian unification, comprising Sicily and most of the area of today's Mezzogiorno and covering all of the Italian Peninsula south of the Papal States.
The Affair of the Spanish Marriages was a series of intrigues between France, Spain, and Great Britain relating to the marriages of Queen Isabella II of Spain and her sister the infanta Luisa Fernanda in 1846. Britain and France took opposing roles with British foreign minister Lord Palmerston as hostile to France. However, France was successful in promoting a French husband for the queen of Spain. The affair led to a deterioration of relations between France and Britain in the final years of the July Monarchy.
The Army of the Two Sicilies, also known as the Royal Army of His Majesty the King of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the Bourbon Army or the Neapolitan Army, was the land forces of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, whose armed forces also included a navy. It was in existence from 1734 to 1861. It was the land armed force of the new independent state created by the settlement of the Bourbon dynasty in southern Italy following the events of the War of the Polish Succession.
Relations between the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the United States date back to 1796 when the U.S. was recognized by the Kingdom of Naples. Relations with the Kingdom continued when Naples reunified with the Kingdom of Sicily which founded the Kingdom of Two Sicilies in 1816. Formal relations were not established until 1832. Diplomatic relations ceased in 1861 when Two Sicilies was incorporated into the Kingdom of Italy.
Sulfur was one of Sicily's most important mineral resources, which is no longer exploited. The area covered by the large deposits is the central area of the island and lies between the provinces of Caltanissetta, Enna and Agrigento: The area is also known to geologists as the chalky-sulfur plateau. But the area of mining exploitation also extended as far as the Province of Palermo with the Lercara Friddi basin and the Province of Catania, of which a part of the Province of Enna was part until 1928; it is the one in which sulfur mining, processing and transport took place in the last quarter of the millennium. For a time it also represented the maximum production area worldwide.
The history of Bourbon Sicily began in 1734, when Charles of Bourbon moved to conquer the Two Sicilies, removing them from Austrian rule. This historical period ended in July 1860, when, following the Expedition of the Thousand, the Bourbon troops were defeated and withdrawn, partly due to the support of the Sicilian population. Subsequently, Sicily was annexed to the constituent Kingdom of Italy.