Illyrian Provinces
In 1797 the Republic of Venice was abolished after the French conquest. The Venetian territory was then handed over to the Archduchy of Austria. The territory was returned to France after the Peace of Pressburg in 1805. However, the former Venetian possessions on the eastern Adriatic shore, including the present-day Croatian Littoral, were joined into a set of separate provinces of the French Empire: the Illyrian Provinces, created in 1809 through the Treaty of Schönbrunn. Days before the Battle of Waterloo, the Congress of Vienna awarded the Illyrian Provinces (spanning from the Gulf of Trieste to the Bay of Kotor) to the Austrian Empire.