MUTINY AT PALERMO, DIPLOMACY IN ISTANBUL This presentation is a reconsideration of the different accounts of violent conflicts between the Ottoman marines and the inhabitants of Palermo in the autumn of 1799. Three allied navies of the British, Russian, and Ottoman empires undertook a series of operations against France in the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian sea in 1799. When the Russo-Ottoman joint fleet was on anchor at Palermo, the Ottoman marines were involved in a series of fights with the Palermitans on different parts of the town on a religious festival day (8 September 1799). The affray was only partly quelled before it flared up again on 12 September, culminating in open mutiny in the Ottoman fleet. All accounts (British, Russian, Ottoman, Sicilian) are deeply imbued with the political interests of their respective authors. Tensions between the Russian and Ottoman marines overlapped with those between the British and the Russians whereas mutual hostility between the Sicilians and the Ottomans is manifest in the correspondence between the Sublime Porte and the Two Sicilies. Clearly the illustrate the competition between the members of the second coalition. It should not surprise us that the coalition was short-lived under these circumstances. I will try to show how an ordinary mutiny of the mercenaries could turn into a diplomatic problem between the allies in the days of intense imperial rivalry in the Mediterranean.