Qualla: Kingdom of Corsica (1736)

Kingdom of Corsica (1736): Introduction

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit I. Vogt, Public domain. The story of Theodore von Neuhoff reads like a picaresque novel that no editor would accept as plausible. A German baron of modest means and grand ambitions, he met Corsican exiles in Genoa and convinced them he could liberate their island from Genoese rule -- if they made him king. They agreed. He arrived in Corsica on March 12, 1736, armed with weapons supplied by the Bey of Tunis, and the islanders crowned him Theodore I. Eight months later, he fled the island with a bounty on his head. He would spend the next two decades chasing his lost kingdom across Europe, dying in a London debtor's prison, having legally signed over Corsica to his creditors.

Image: I. Vogt | Public domain

Kingdom of Corsica (1736): A Crown Won by Charm

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit I. Vogt, Public domain. Neuhoff was no ordinary con man. He was educated, multilingual, and possessed a talent for telling powerful people exactly what they wanted to hear. At Genoa, he encountered Corsican rebels whose guerrilla war against Genoese colonial rule had stalled. The islanders were desperat...

Image: I. Vogt | Public domain

Kingdom of Corsica (1736): Eight Months of Majesty

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit I. Vogt, Public domain. Theodore waged war against the Genoese with the consent of a 24-member Diet, and at first he achieved some success. But the rebel coalition that had crowned him was fragile, held together more by opposition to Genoa than by loyalty to a foreign king. Infighting among the factions...

Image: I. Vogt | Public domain

Kingdom of Corsica (1736): The Long Decline

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit I. Vogt, Public domain. What followed was two decades of increasingly desperate attempts to reclaim his throne. Theodore sent his nephew to Corsica with arms. He returned to the island himself in 1738, 1739, and 1743, but combined Genoese and French forces had tightened their grip. He sought support fro...

Image: I. Vogt | Public domain

Kingdom of Corsica (1736): A King Without a Country

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit I. Vogt, Public domain. Theodore spent his final year surviving on the charity of Horace Walpole and a few sympathetic friends. He died in London in 1756, having outlived his reign by twenty years but never his royal pretensions. Walpole arranged for an epitaph that captured the absurdity and pathos of ...

Image: I. Vogt | Public domain