After the siege, the allies created a joint protectorate called the Septinsular Republic, or Seven Islands Republic. The arrangement rested on a fragile partnership and did not resolve competing imperial claims. Russian and Ottoman rivalry soon returned across southeastern Europe, the Caucasus, and the approaches to Constantinople. Russian interest in Constantinople drew on claims of Orthodox inheritance and periodic ambitions to make Hagia Sophia an Orthodox cathedral again. British fears that France might exploit the instability led to the islands becoming a British protectorate under the Peace of Paris in 1815. Corfu's strategic value kept attracting intervention by powers whose cooperation was temporary.
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The Septinsular Republic and contested control
Victory did not settle the Ionian question: the new joint protectorate sat between Russian, Ottoman, French, and British ambitions.