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Breaking of the continental blockade year 1808-1812 in Northern Europe (Baltic)
France imposes blockade of all trade outside continental Europe.

Hanoe island
Protected by the Royal navy Many jewish traders

Britain
The embargo encouraged British merchants to seek out new markets aggressively and to engage in smuggling with continental Europe. Napoleon's exclusively land-based customs enforcers could not stop British smugglers, especially as these operated with the connivance of Napoleon's chosen rulers of Spain, Westphalia and other German states. The System had mixed effects on British trade, with British exports to the Continent falling between 25% to 55% compared to pre-1806 levels. However, trade sharply increased with the rest of the world, covering much of the decline. Britain, by Orders in Council (1807), prohibited its trade partners from trading with France. The British countered the Continental system by threatening to sink any ship that did not come to a British port or chose to comply with France. This double threat created a difficult time for neutral nations like the United States. In response to this prohibition, compounded by the Chesapeake Incident, the U.S. government adopted the Embargo Act of 1807 and eventually Macon's Bill No. 2. This embargo was designed as an economic counterattack to hurt Britain, but it proved even more damaging to American merchants. Together with the issues of the impressment of foreign seamen, and British support for Indian raids in the American west, tensions led to a declaration of war by the U.S. in the War of 1812. This war, not Napoleon's blockade, sharply reduced British trade with the United States.

France and Continental Europe
The embargo also had an effect on France itself. Ship building, and its trades such as rope-making declined, as did many other industries that relied on overseas markets, such as the linen industries. With few exports and a loss of profits, many industries were closed down. Southern France, especially the port cities of Marseille and Bordeaux as well as the city of La Rochelle, suffered from the reduction in trade. Moreover, the prices of staple foods rose for most of continental Europe. Napoleon's St. Cloud Decree in July 1810 opened the southwest of France and the Spanish frontier to limited British trade, and reopened French trade to the United States. It was an admission that his blockade had hurt his own economy more than the British. It also failed to reduce British financial support to its allies. The industrialized north and east of France, and south of today Belgium saw significantly increased profits due to the lack of competition from British goods (particularly textiles, which were produced at a much cheaper cost in Britain). In Italy, the agricultural sector flourished. The Dutch economy, predicated on trade, suffered greatly as a result of the embargo. Napoleon's economic warfare was much to the chagrin of his own brother, King Louis I of Holland.

Scandinavia and the Baltic region
Britain's first response to the Continental system was to launch a major naval attack on the weakest link in Napoleon's coalition, Denmark. Although ostensibly neutral, Denmark was under heavy French and Russian pressure to pledge its fleet to Napoleon. London could not take the chance of ignoring the Danish threat. In the Second battle of Copenhagen in August-September 1807, the Royal Navy bombarded Copenhagen, seized the Danish fleet, and assured control of the sea lanes in the North Sea and Baltic Sea for the British merchant fleet. The attack against Copenhagen started the Gunboat War against Denmark which lasted until 1814. Sweden, Britain's ally in the Third Coalition, first refused to comply with French demands and was invaded by Russia in February 1808. In November 1810 France demanded that Sweden should declare war to Great Britain and stop all trade. The result was a phoney war between Sweden and Britain. The Royal navy set up a base outside the port of Gothenburg and a base on the island of Hanö in the south of Sweden. These bases were used to support convoys from Britain to Gothenburg, then trough the Danish straits to Hanö island. From Hanö the goods were smuggled to the many ports around the Baltic sea. To further support the convoys, the small danish island of Anholt was occupied in May 1809. A light house on the island simplified the navigation trough the Danish straits. The island Heligoland outside the west coast of Denmark was occupied in September 1807. This base made it easier for Britain to control the trade to the ports of the North sea coast and to facilitate smuggling.

Russia also chafed under the embargo, and in 1810 reopened trade with Britain. Russia's withdrawal from the system was a motivating factor behind Napoleon's decision to invade Russia in 1812, which proved the turning point of the war.

Portugal and Spain
Portugal openly refused to join the Continental System. In 1793, Portugal signed a treaty of mutual assistance with Britain. After the Treaty of Tilsit of July 1807, Napoleon attempted to capture the Portuguese Fleet and the House of Braganza, and to occupy the Portuguese ports. He failed. King John VI of Portugal took his fleet and transferred the Portuguese Court to Brazil with a Royal Navy escort. The Portuguese population rose in revolt against the French invaders, with the help of the British Army under Arthur Wellesley, later 1st Duke of Wellington. Napoleon intervened, and the Peninsular War began in 1808. Napoleon also forced the Spanish royal family to resign their throne in favor of Napoleon's brother, Joseph.