ABSTRACT
From the late eighteenth century onwards, educated Sicilian opinion had increasingly objected to Neapolitan rule on the grounds that Sicily was being both neglected and exploited, the events of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars greatly strengthening this feeling. In Spain, Sweden and Sicily alike, then, war led to revolution. The first state to be affected by a crisis that acted as a catalyst for fundamental reorganisation was Spain. The insurrection of May 1808 was of its very nature an act of revolution, amounting, as it did, to a denial of the rights of the Bourbons to dispose of the throne without reference to the Spanish people. Spain was the seat of the famous guerrilla and Sweden witnessed a considerable amount of irregular resistance in Finland, while Sicily witnessed real fears that the people would sooner fight for the French than for the Bourbons.
