A joint desire on the part of Great Britain and Russia to defeat Napoleon had served as a temporary fixative to an alliance that had long been under strain, the final vanquishing of the ‘Corsican Ogre’ raising the contentious question as to how each had made use of the war to gain advantage over the other. In Russia it was believed that Britain had only financed the war for the purpose of gaining long-term commercial advantage, an accusation evidenced by Britain having attained a swathe of new colonies, the securing of her position in India and a stranglehold on trade in the Levant and Black Sea littorals. This last was of particular significance for Russia; the wartime period, which had seen Britain replace France as the Ottoman Empire’s primary trading partner, had consequently deprived her merchants of trading opportunities that, in these two regions, were believed to be Russia’s by right. Apart from placing Great Britain and Russia in direct commercial competition, this situation had create an added fear, that of Britain, in the event of the Ottoman Empire imploding, being well placed to step into the resulting void to gain both further territory and increased commercial opportunity. No less an irritant, and doubtless emphasised by Napoleon at his meeting with Alexander at Tilsit in 1807, was Britain taking from Russia vast amounts of raw materials, these invariably transported on British ships, which, upon arrival in Britain, were profitably used to advance Britain’s steadily growing industrial economy. Likewise, in Britain, concerns, once the war had drawn to a conclusion, were more readily being expressed as to a number of perceived military and commercial ambitions supposedly harboured by Russia. Muted during the war against Napoleon, it was feared by many that Russia was intent upon a policy of perpetual territorial expansion, with acquisition of the Ottoman Empire her primary objective. If this was achieved, it would place Russia in full control of the Dardanelle Straits and the Sea of Marmara, allowing her to turn the Black Sea into a Russian lake, with a possible blocking of this area to future British trade.