Invasion of Corsica (1553) 1 February 1553, a new Franco-Ottoman treaty of alliance, involving naval collaboration against the Habsburgs, had been signed between France and the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman admirals Turgut and Koja Sinan, together with a French squadron under Baron Paulin de la Garde, raided the coasts of Naples, Sicily, Elba and then Corsica. The island of Corsica was occupied by the Genoese at the time. The Ottoman fleet supported the French by ferrying the French troops of Parma under Marshal Paul de Thermes from Siennese Maremma to Corsica. The French were also supported by Corsican exiles under Sampiero Corso and Giordano
Theodore of Corsica past, and he left Corsica in November 1736, ostensibly to seek foreign assistance. After sounding out the possibility of protection from Spain and Naples, he set off to Holland where he was arrested for debt in Amsterdam. On regaining his freedom, Theodore sent his nephew to Corsica with a supply of arms; he himself returned to Corsica in 1738, 1739, and 1743, but the combined Genoese and French forces continued to occupy the island. In 1749 he arrived in England to seek support, but eventually fell into debt and was confined in a debtors' prison in London until 1755. He