The Napoleon road

The Napoleon Road to Ston and the wine trail

After the Illyrian provinces were ceded to France by Austria in 1805, following the Battle of Wagram, the Russians occupied Kotor Bay. They were defeated, and Napoleon Bonaparte placed this large region under the command of his young general, Auguste Marmont. This province of Illyria — the old Roman name for the region — stretched from Venice and Trieste as far as Dubrovnik and Kotor, with Ljubljana as its capital, and remained French until 1814. Napoleonic France controlled the whole of the Adriatic coast opposite Italy, with whom they were at peace.

France’s priority was the construction of roads, since they no longer enjoyed naval supremacy after the Battle of Trafalgar. Marmont ordered the building of roads — by the brand new “Corps of Bridges and Roads” — which would be beyond the range of enemy cannon.

The British and Russians harassed the French forces, and encouraged rebellions, making it a priority to build a road through the interior — as opposed to along the coast — of the Pelješac peninsula, which, owing to its position on the Adriatic, was so important strategically to France’s control of the coastline.

The road was completed by the Austrians after the Treaty of Vienna of 1815, with the local population drafted in to undertake the hard work of construction.

This is why the road is named after Napoleon and why it runs through the heart of the peninsula, and not along the coast. But it links all of the old villages and serves as an artery for the many tourists who visit!